- Title: SYRIA: THOUSANDS OF SYRIANS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST SECTARIAN STRIFE.
- Date: 17th September 1979
- Summary: 1. SV: Demonstrators marching through streets carrying banners, pictures of President Al-Assad 0.18 2. SV: Front of demonstration with religious and political officials leading parade. 0.24 3. LV: Demonstration, camera PULLS BACK TO show density of crowd 0.35 4. SV: People watching procession from rooftops. 0.38 5. GV: Crowd square full o
- Embargoed: 2nd October 1979 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LATAKIA, SYRIA
- Country: Syria
- Reuters ID: LVAE12HP4Z4Z7F93QCYLJG17KMUX
- Story Text: In Syria, a leading member of the outlawed Moslem Brotherhood Group, Abdul-Sattar Al-Zaim, has been killed by security forces, according to an announcement by officials on Sunday (16 September). Zaim had been wanted by the police on charges of carrying out several assassinations. Syrian authorities have accused the Moslems Brotherhood of trying to set Syria's different religious communities at each other's throats and provoke the civil strife that has torn apart neighbouring Lebanon. The movement has also been blamed for attack in Aleppo last June in which at least fifty army cadets were killed. Recent clashes between members of the minority Alawite sect and Sunni Moslems have caused increasing concern in the country.
SYNOPSIS: Thousand of Syrians gathered in the Mediterranean Port of Latakia last Monday (10 September) for the mass demonstration against recent attempts to create sectarian strife. The officially approved rally in support of national unity followed ??? which broke out in the town after an Alawite religious leader Sheikh Youssef Sarim was shot dead outside a mosque on 30 August. According to diplomats in Beirut at least forty people were killed in the fighting between Sunni and Alawite Moslem communities.
The towns governor, Munir Barikhan, ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath leaders and ??? Moslems and Christian took part in the rally. Demonstrators hailed President Hafiz Al-Assad who belongs to the Alawite sect and called for National Unity.
In a speech a Moslem leader Sheikh Abdullah Al-Hadidi said Syria would remain free of sectarian fanaticism and its people would remain united, while Zakaria Shuraik, Secretary of the Ba'ath party branch in Latakia, said Syria was determined to liquidate riotous elements . Other speakers attacked the Camp David agreement, imperialism and in particular the outlawed Moslem Brotherhood which has been blamed by the authorities for the civil ???.
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