By Liz Sly, 11:24 PM.
BEIRUT — Syrian troops seized control of the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour on Sunday after almost all of the few residents who had remained behind fled north toward the Turkish border.
The Associated Press quoted its correspondent traveling with the troops as saying the Syrian military was in full control of the town. The Local Coordinating Committees, which represents activist groups around Syria, also said it appeared the town was now firmly in army hands.
A resident observing the town through binoculars from a nearby hillside said tanks had been demolishing houses earlier in the morning, that he could still hear occasional bursts of automatic fire and that black plumes of smoke were rising from the town.
But it did not appear that the few residents who had remained behind to defend the town had put up a fight, he said, speaking by telephone. He put their number at no more than a few hundred, including around 70 defected soldiers and said he did not know what had happened to them. “They’re either dead or arrested,” he said. “There is no one left in the town.”
Earlier reports had said as many as 5,000 residents had remained behind to defend the town, but as Syrian troops closed in, many appear to have fled. Some people managed to escape in the early hours of the morning through the town’s northern exit, before the troops moved in, the resident said.
But, how long Bashar Al-Assad would be able to hold supress the onrushing mass movement for Democracy, with brutal military force?
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