 | | Footage posted on YouTube appears to show Syrian troops in Deraa but Al Jazeera cannot verify its veracity |
At least five people were killed when thousands of troops backed by heavy armour swept into the volatile town of Deraa in southern Syria, witnesses said.
"We saw with our own eyes, they were in a car that was riddled with bullets," a witness told the AFP news agency on Monday, adding that he was on a roof and could hear intense gunfire reverberating across the town.
"The minarets of the mosques are appealing for help. The security forces are entering houses. There is a curfew and they fire on those who leave their homes. They even shot at water tanks on roofs to deprive people of water."
Thousands of soldiers swept into the town in the early hours of Monday, with tanks taking up positions in the town centre and snipers deploying on rooftops, witnesses said.
"Bodies are lying in the streets and we can't recover them," one activist said, explaining that they have little idea of the total number of casualties.  | | |
Footage aired by an opposition news organisation on Monday, transmitted via satellite, appeared to show Syrian military firing at unseen targets with sniper rifles. Al Jazeera is unable to verify the veracity of the footage. Security forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, the country's president, also stormed the large Damascus suburb of Douma early on Monday, shooting at unarmed civilians and arresting residents, rights campaigners said.
"There are injured people. Scores have been arrested. The security are repeating the same pattern in all the centres of the democratic uprising. They want to put down the revolution using the utmost brutality," the unidentified rights campaigner told the Reuters news agency, from Damascus. Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, said that the events on Monday marked a change in methods by security forces.
Up until now, she said, security forces have cracked down in reaction to protests. But the flood of troops into Douma and Deraa came in the absence of any demonstrations.
"Today, we're seeing a different tactic with security forces sweeping the towns," she said, noting reports of house-to-house searches, arrests and random shooting coming from both towns.
Communications were cut off and, for the first time, the military has become directly involved in quelling the uprising, much to the disappointment of opposition activists.
"They were hoping the army would not get involved," Amin reported. "They feel this is only the beginning of a very serious crackdown." Yet one activist told Al Jazeera the some army officers have defected to fight with the people of Deraa against the regime. Douma has been the site of many large protests since the uprising against Assad began in Syria earlier in the year.
The current protests against the regime started in Deraa where dozens of Syrians have been killed in the violent repression of demonstrations by the security forces. Thousands of residents of Deraa province buried several victims of the repression after prayers on Sunday. A demonstration followed, but the security forces did not intervene, an activist said. Asking to remain anonymous, he said the protesters brandished Syrian flags and placards calling for "suppression of Article 8 of the constitution" on the supremacy of the Baath Party.
Most shops stayed closed in a sign of mourning.
The fighting on Monday came after the killing of civilians by security forces in the coastal town of Jableh the previous day.
At least 13 people had been killed in Jableh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.
At least 352 people have been killed in Syria since protests began on March 15, according to figures compiled by AFP.
And Wissam Tarif, executive director of INSAN, a Syrian human rights group, said that according to the organisation's most recent count on Friday there were 221 "forcefully disappeared people" in Syria.
'Barrier of fear' Meanwhile, Syrian intellectuals expressed their outrage over the violence, with a declaration on Monday signed by 102 writers and exiles from all the country's main sects. Monday's declaration called on Syrian intellectuals "who have not broken the barrier of fear to make a clear stand. "We condemn the violent, oppressive practices of the Syrian regime against the protesters and mourn the martyrs of the uprising."
Signatories included Alawite figures such as former political prisoner Loay Hussein; female writers Samar Yazbek and Hala Mohammad; Souad Jarrous, correspondent for the pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat; writer and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh and filmmaker Mohammad Ali al-Attassi.
Mansour al-Ali, a prominent Alawite figure from the city of Homs, was arrested in his home city after he spoke out against the shooting of protesters, an activist in Homs said. | 
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