.Wednesday - October 24th, 2012

Day no. 590 of the uprising

Total number of lives lost today in Syria: 153 (Documented)

...The Assad regime's attack of areas across Syria today concentrated most on Idlib and the Damascus suburbs. The southern region of the Damascus suburbs witnessed the heaviest bombardment with artillery shells. In the suburb of Douma, regime forces committed a massacre in which they summarily executed 37 people, many of them women and children. Many parts of the Idlib province were shelled as well, but the city of Ma'arat al-Nou'man was most intensely shelled.

Deir Ezzor, Damascus and Aleppo also witnessed heavy shelling as clashes took place between the Free Syrian Army and regime forces. Regime forces used a variety of weapons to attack the provinces of Homs, Hama, Lattakia and Daraa, resulting in the death and injury of several people, among them children.

As the regime's targeting of civilians continues, a car bomb went off next to a bakery in Damascus, resulting in many injuries. A bakery in the suburbs of Aleppo was also attacked, leaving a number of people wounded and dead in the aftermath of aerial bombardment.

In several parts of Damascus and Hama, regime forces went on a campaign of raids and arrests as they searched the houses of residents. One neighborhood of the capital was raided after residents held an anti-regime demonstration. Elsewhere in Raqqa, a large explosion shook the city.

Yesterday, the Assad regime announced a general pardon that includes criminals and drug dealers. Today, 170 prisoners were released from the Police Headquarters in Damascus, as Russian TV cameras filmed the event. While some of those released were activists, many of them were criminals as well. The release of fewer than 200 detainees is insignificant relative to the tens of thousands of people who have been detained by the regime since the start of the revolution. Many detainees are being held without charge, and their fate in the Assad regime dungeons is unknown.