BEIRUT – Loyalist troops are storming a Damascus suburb from which they pulled out earlier this week.
Activist and resident Mohammed al-Saeed says thousands of troops, mostly in plainclothes, fanned out across his neighborhood of Douma on Thursday morning, facing no resistance.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says “a large force” entered Douma. Regime troops left Douma on Sunday, following clashes with army defectors.
Douma has witnessed intense protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime shortly after the country’s uprising erupted in March. A government crackdown has killed more than 5,400 people, according to the U.N..