Refugees fear a massacre as Syrian tanks advance on border

Amid reports of gang rape and attacks by snipers, Assad regime insists violence has been carried out by 'terrorist gangs'

By Kim Sengupta in Guvecci, Turkey
The Independent

"Forces of the Syrian regime are reported to have attacked and occupied villages near the Turkish border, just three kilometres from encampments where 12,000 refugees have fled in a bid to escape President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown.

Troops supported by tanks and artillery moved into the area as other units closed the circle around Maarat al-Numan, an opposition town in the north. Human rights groups said that at least 300 people had been arrested in a sweep of surrounding villages.

Families fleeing to the frontier with Turkey said the villages of Cenudi, Sigir, Badama and Qalaat Al-Shighour had been damaged by shellfire at dawn, which preceded the arrival of troops, secret police and the feared Shabbia militia. Local people blame the Mukhabarat secret police and the Shabbia militia – which is drawn from the Alawaite community, to which President Assad and many of the Syrian elite belong – for carrying out the worst excesses in the ferocious punitive response to the three-month uprising...."