Police and militia patrols fanned out in the Syrian capital's Mezze district Sunday to prevent a repeat of protests against President Bashar Al-Assad that have threatened his grip on Damascus, opposition activists said. On Sunday, the body of Samer Al-Khatib, a young protester who was killed when security forces opened fire on the protest, was buried in Mezze early in the morning. Security forces maintained a heavy presence to prevent the funeral from turning into an anti-Assad demonstration, opposition activists contacted by Reuters from Amman said. Fifteen pick-up trucks carrying security police and armed pro-Assad militiamen, known as ‘shabbiha', surrounded the funeral as Khatib was buried quietly, they said. Police cars and militia jeeps patrolled Mezze while secret police agents spread out on foot, stopping men at random and checking their identification cards, they said. “Walking in Mezze now carries the risk of arrest. The area is quiet and even the popular food shops in Sheikh Saad are empty,” activist Moaz Al-Shami said, referring to a main street. Meanwhile, and a gunman shot dead prosecutor Nidal Ghazal and judge Mohammed Ziyadeh and their driver in the northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday, media reported. The media said that another gunman killed Saturday Jamal Bish, a member of the city council of Aleppo. Saturday's shooting by security forces took place as a Chinese envoy, Foreign Minister Zhai Jun met Assad and appealed to all sides to end the violence. Leading Syrian businessman, Faisal Al-Qudsi, said the government was slowly disintegrating and sanctions were ruining the economy. He told the BBC in London military action could only last six months but Assad's government would fight to the end. “The army is getting tired and will go nowhere,” he said. “They will have to sit and talk or at least they have to stop killing. And the minute they stop killing, more millions of people will be on the streets. So they are in a Catch-22.” Qudsi, who was involved in Syria's economic liberalisation, told the BBC the apparatus of government was almost non-existent in trouble spots like Homs, Idlib and Deraa. The opposition Local Coordination Committees said security forces killed 14 people in Damascus and other parts of the country on Saturday, including five in the opposition stronghold of Homs. None of the figures could be verified independently.
