Who shot the soldiers in Banyas?

SMN No. 17, April 15, 2011

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In the past few days, reports have emerged about soldiers being shot or executed by security forces after refusing to shoot on protesters. While names of some killed soldiers were confirmed, the details surrounding their deaths remain murky.

Activists maintain their claim that the soldiers were shot by their comrades because they had refused to use fire power against unarmed protesters. Some families of killed soldiers confirmed these accounts.

But contradicting reports have emerged, stating that the soldiers were ambushed by armed gangs and snipers while on their way to Banyas. Joshua Landis on his website “Syria Comment” slams reports in western media as “misled”. As evidence that the soldiers were not shot by security forces for refusing to fire on protesters but rather were killed in an ambush by unknown assailants he quotes a Colonel Uday Ahmed, according to Landis the “brother-in-law of Lt. Col. Yasir Qash`ur, who was shot and killed in Banyas with eight other Syrian soldiers on Sunday April 10, 2011”. Uday claims that Yasir was “shot dead on the highway outside Banyas” when driving towards the town.

Others claim that a secret police sniper shot a soldier “in an effort to frame demonstrators in the city”.

At this point,  developments reported by eyewitnesses and state media reports in Syria cannot be independently confirmed. The video shows an injured soldier which was shot at in Banyas being questioned about what happened.