[2] Two days later, government tanks were deployed at Hama,[7] in an operation that led to more than 16 civilian deaths at the hands of Syrian security forces.
In February 1982, a much larger scale massacre took place in Hama following an armed and organized uprising of Islamic groups occurred, centered in the city.
Syrian security forces, including military and police, shot dead up to 25 people when they dispersed a demonstration by tens of thousands of locals.
[13][14] JJ Harder, the press attaché of the US embassy in Damascus, later told Al Jazeera: "Our ambassador Robert Ford was in Hama earlier this month, and he saw with his own eyes the violence that they are talking about.
[16][17][18][19][20][13] On 8 July, more than 500,000 Syrians flooded through the city of Hama in what activists claim was the single biggest protest yet against the Assad government.
[23][24][25] President Assad reportedly sent "Terror Buses" packed with shabiha private Alawite militia and party loyalists into Hama.
[25] Syrian dissidents claimed that the tank assault on Hama on 31 July, in which 84 people had died, was an attempt to pacify and regain control of the city ahead of Ramadan and to avert protests during the holy month.
The British Daily Telegraph reported that "many of Hama's residents ... braved the obvious danger to head to mosques for dawn prayers.
A post on the "Syrian Revolution" Facebook page read "The army is now stationed in Assi Square," and "The heroic youths of Hama are confronting them and banning them from entering neighborhoods.
"[38] By this time, water, electricity and all communications in Hama and its surrounding villages and towns had been cut off, according to nearby online posts on social networking sites.
[38] Following the tank attacks, workers in Hama declared three days of general strike in memory of those killed by security forces.
[39] Hama's Local Coordination Committee had e-mailed a statement saying that shelling was especially concentrated in the Janoub al-Mala'ab and Manakh districts.
"[38] The Russian foreign ministry's Middle East and North Africa Department chief, Sergei Vershinin, reminded the UN that his country was not "categorically" against adopting a UN resolution condemning the violence in Syria, but the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad urged India to ignore Western "propaganda" if there was a vote over it in the Security Council.
[3] The Attorney General of the Hama Governorate announced his resignation on 1 September 2011 in response to the Assad government's crackdown on protests.
Activists said the 20 deaths of Sunni Muslim villagers there were among at least 100 killed in the province in the last two weeks in revenge for rebel Free Syrian Army attacks on security forces commanded by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect.