The Syrian regime does not only indiscriminately shell different districts and neighborhoods of Homs and its suburbs with tanks, various machinery and different kinds of weapons, but it also has shifted towards a systematic liquidation of detainees at their security branches. Dozens of detainees have been killed a few days after their detention in the various security branches since the beginning of August. There are reports of another 4 who have been tortured to death in Hawla during the past few days.
According to Omar Idlbi, Local Coordination Committee spokesman and the representative of the committee of Homs, the intelligence departments are adopting this behavior as a planned, coordinated strategy when dealing with detainees, aiming to terrorize the people of the city and show them the price of participating in the revolution against the regime. Idlbi confirmed that many of the detainees who were released have been threatened by the officers who tortured them that they will end up like those who died under torture. He adds that the most brutal intelligence departments (where people often died under torture) in Homs are the Military Intelligence and the Air force Intelligence departments, with some similar cases of death under torture arising in some other intelligence departments.