'Thousands flee' Latakia assault

Syrian troops have kept up their assault on the coastal city of Latakia, reportedly killing three people and forcing thousands of residents, including many Palestinian refugees, to flee their homes.
Residents told Al Jazeera that the army was using heavy machine guns and tanks, and had rounded up many people in a sports stadium as they attempted to escape the city.
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said 5,000 to 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee camp in the al-Ramel area of the city had been fleeing after the camp came under fire.
"As of 1pm (10:00 GMT), the army instructed all residents in southern and southeastern Latakia to evacuate", Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from the Jordanian side of the Jordan-Syria border, said.
According to activists, most people started fleeing to the heart of the city and there Syrian troops arrested many of them.

"They transported them on buses to the sports city stadium and there they're being held captured, stripped of their IDs and mobile phones," El-Shamayleh said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/08/2011815133431188.html