(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Ammar Qurabi, head of the Syrian Human Rights Organization, and lawyer Razan Zaitouna said that on the fifth day of siege at Rastan, security forces stormed its neighborhoods and imposed a curfew, Reuters reported on Thursday. The two human rights campaigners said 11 civilians were shot dead in Rastan, which lies to the north of the city of Homs. Since the beginning of unrest in Syria in mid-March, scores of people, including security forces, have been killed. The opposition accuses security forces of being behind the killings. But the government blames armed gangs for the deadly violence, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. Damascus says it has arrested several members of armed terrorist groups who have confessed to receiving weapons and money from foreign organizations to kill civilians and security forces in order to cause chaos in Syria. The Syrian president has vowed to bring those responsible for the killings to justice.
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