THE SYRIAN ARMY now controls the northern town of Jir al-Shughour but the measures they took to secure the border town have been uncovered in shocking detail today.
The government of president Bashar Assad was seeking revenge for what it says was the killing of 120 of its security forces by rebel militia forces last week.
Government forces reported uncovering a mass grave with the bodies of at least 10 soldiers, whom they claim were shot by “armed gangs”, near the military headquarters in the town, according to the Telegraph.
However the Syrian opposition has claimed that the 120 people who were killed were defecting soldiers, shot by loyalist troops for refusing to fire on protesters. Locals in the town also backed up this story.
Verifying any of this information is made all the more difficult by the fact that foreign media are banned from Syria.
The Times reports that government troops dragged families from their homes and shot dead anyone who tried to run away.
One eyewitness told the newspaper how he saw two young boys mown down by fire from government tanks.
When I was watching, there were two people trying to escape.They were close to me on the railway tracks. They fired at them with tanks and killed them. They were two boys.
At least 5,000 refugees have now flooded into neighbouring Turkey to escape the violence with reports yesterday that two refugee camps set up on the Turkish side of the border were already full with a third filling fast.
Medical items and other supplies are said to be in short supply.
BBC News reports that witness accounts indicate that the official figure of 5,050 refugees may be much higher with witnesses reporting as many as 10,000 in the sheltering areas.
The town of Jisr al-Shughour was recaptured without much resistance given it was largely deserted.
The Guardian adds that the bombardment left much of the town in ruins with homes and farmland bulldozed as attacks came from air and land with amateur footage of helicopter gunships circling overhead also emerging.
Human rights groups estimate that as many as 1,300 people have been killed since the upheaval began in Syria four months ago.
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