Turkey shoot, only not in Turkey

Sebnem Arsu (a name to conjure with) and Katerhine Zoepf have an article in The New York Times about the latest in Syria:

Since violent clashes broke out in a northern Syrian town close to the Turkish border last weekend, nearly one hundred and fifty Syrians have fled into Turkey, some bearing tales of black-clad gunmen opening fire on protesters without warning. Many other Syrians, camped out in scrubby fields within sight of the Turkish border, are ready to follow them at the first sign that security forces are pursuing them, those who have crossed say.
The influx of refugees has prompted Turkey’s leaders to toughen their criticism of the situation in Syria. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed increasing concern about the refugees and repeated his call for immediate reforms in Syria, including that authorities allow peaceful civilian protests. “We hope that Syria will immediately become more tolerant in its attitude towards civilians, and fully realize the steps it has started towards reforms in a way to persuade civilians,” the semi-official Anatolian News Agency quoted Mr. Erdogan as saying.
In all, hundreds of Syrians have crossed into Turkey since the protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad began in April. Many have taken advantage of a porous border and the relaxed border controls put in place last year. Some have gradually returned to Syria on their own; Turkish officials have also provided assistance to nearly 260 people sheltered in a tent city less than forty miles from Hatay, in Turkey’s southeast.
In Guvecci, about ten miles from the Syrian border, people overlooked a field in Syria where groups of Syrians, mostly from Jisr al-Shoughour, have camped while trying to decide whether to flee to Turkey.
An eighteen-year-old Syrian, who gave his name only as Hamid, said that he and his family of seven had fled into Turkey together, and that no one they knew remained in Jisr al-Shoughour, which was the scene of the clashes that began over the weekend. “My family and others will all enter in if the Syrian military follow us as far as the border,” he said. He said he had joined a group of about three hundred pro-democracy protesters in the village on the weekend. “All we said at this protest was to have a democracy like in Turkey, and men in black uniforms fired at us,” without warning, Hamid said. “We will go back to protest,” he added. “We want the Assad regime down.”
The circumstances surrounding the violence in Jisr al-Shoughour and some other towns remains murky. The government has claimed that armed groups it called terrorists had attacked its security forces, possibly after donning military uniforms and infiltrating military ranks. Opposition people, meanwhile, say that military forces opened fire on soldiers who refused orders to fire on civilians or who had defected.
The official Syrian government news agency, SANA, reported that members of “terrorist groups” had dressed in military uniforms and filmed themselves committing crimes in order to “manipulate the photos and videos and distort the reputation of the army.” SANA also reported that terrorists had faked a mass grave near a building used by Syria’s security services.
Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights advocate who is a visiting scholar at George Washington University in Washington, disputed the report. “Of course it is not true,” he said in a telephone interview. “These armed gangs are the Syrian army, killing its own members because they are refusing to open fire,” Mr. Ziadeh said. “But state television cannot say that there are soldiers defecting, because it needs to keep discipline in the army against the Syrian people. Always when you hear Syrian television, you have to believe the opposite.”
A Damascus-based activist named Sami said that three of his relatives from Jisr al-Shoughour had reported that troops from the Syrian army’s elite Fourth Division, which is led by Maher al-Assad, the brother of the Syrian president, were being brought into the restive region “to finish the soldiers’ uprising quickly.”
The Associated Press also reported that the Fourth Division, far better trained and better equipped than other Syrian army units, had been sent to the region. If the reports are true, they could suggest another, more forceful crackdown in the coming days.
“The regime is very angry to see soldiers and officers with civilian protesters,” Sami said. “The regime talks about ‘armed groups’ but couldn’t show any photos.”
Joshua Landis, a scholar of Syria and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, said the government’s version of events was possible. All Syrian men, he said, must perform military service, and even those who were no longer in the reserves might still have their old uniforms. The question of military defections, he said, was absolutely crucial for both sides. “Defectors are the opposition’s only hope,” Mr. Landis said. “They hoped the Syrian army would go the way of Egypt and turn on their president. But this is not happening. The regime is playing that the military is going to stay true because, if it does stay true, there’s no way the opposition can win,” Mr. Landis said. “Bashar al-Assad has modern tanks and helicopters, a well-trained army, and lots of firepower. The opposition has Facebook.”
Meanwhile, Syrian activists reported that protests continued elsewhere, including in the capital, Damascus, in the well-to-do district of Sha’alan, an area with fashionable stores and food stalls.
Human rights advocates circulated a video showing what appeared to be no more than several dozen protesters carrying signs and chanting anti-government slogans while blocking a street. But Razan Zeitouneh, a Syrian human rights lawyer, said that the protest drew “about three hundred” people in the end in what she called the largest protest to date “in the heart of Damascus, in such wealthy area in Damascus.”
Syria’s protest movement has, to date, had very little participation from the wealthy Sunni merchant classes, Syria’s traditional urban elite, so protests like the one in Sha’alan may be a sign that the mood in such areas is shifting, analysts say.
Lina Mansour, a Syrian activist who attended the Sha’alan protest, said the demonstrators chanted: 'We are supporting you, Jisr al-Shoughour.' "The moment we started gathering, dozens of security people appeared,” Ms. Mansour said. “They started bashing cars and beating protesters. They dragged women and men, and one girl was brutally beaten. It’s extremely hard protesting in Damascus.”

Rico says that it's only his perverse sense of humor that, in the midst of all this killing, Sha’alan makes him think of Shamalama Ding Dong... But "it’s extremely hard protesting in Damascus" wins for understatement of the year...