BICOM

The European Union yesterday announced a weapons embargo against Syria, and a series of sanctions against 13 senior Syrian officials. The European Council said that the weapons embargo was intended to prevent the import of weapons that could be ‘used for internal repression.’ More than 800 people have now been killed in Syria by the authorities, in nearly two months of protests and demonstrations calling for the downfall of the regime of Bashar Assad. The freezes and travel bans against the regime are to be applied to the 13 officials, who have not yet been named, but who do not include President Assad himself, according to European diplomats quoted by Haaretz newspaper. The list of those targeted by the sanctions is set to be published next week.

Meanwhile, the internal repression in Syria is continuing apace. Syrian forces arrested dozens of protestors in the towns of Homs and Banias yesterday. Around 8,000 people are thought to have been detained. Syrian forces have entered a number of central areas of protest over the last week, in what opposition sources describe as a concerted attempt to break the rebellion against Assad’s rule once and for all, and force a decline in the number of people attending demonstrations.