Residents remained defiant: unable to leave their homes, they sang "God is great!" to each other of their Windows in the evenings, shocked the security forces and raise the spirits of the other.
"Our homes are near each other, even if we can't go outside, we are by Windows and the song, said a resident of Dara, speaking to the Associated Press by satellite phone." "" Our neighbours can hear us and they respond. ?
Without water, fuel or electricity, Dara is since Monday, when the regime sent troops backed by tanks and snipers from elite to crush the protests seeking to put an end to the authoritarian President Bashar Assad.
Tanks and armoured personnel vehicles cut off neighborhoods and on rooftops around the town of snipers nesting kept residents pinned in their homes. Other regions of the country also came under military control, but Dara faces more serious control.
The number of deaths has soared to 545 throughout the country by Government forces fired on demonstrators - action which has attracted international condemnation and financial penalties U.S. figures high his regime.
Tanks fired on in the heart of ancient Roman quarter of Dara Sunday, said a resident who lives on the outskirts of the city. He said that he could identify the weapons because he was a former soldier.
Men were forbidden to leave their homes but women were allowed to early in the morning for bread, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity of the Syrian forces of fear that would identify him.
The witness accounts could not be verified independently. The Syria has prohibited almost all the foreign media and limited access to the warm, making it almost impossible to confirm the dramatic events shake one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.
In addition to the military headquarters, the security forces have continued their campaign of arrests of activists and the alleged demonstrators, said activist Damascus Razan Zaitouneh, who is in hiding with her husband.
"They want to paralyze the (protest) movement," Zaitouneh said Sunday.
Zaitouneh said security forces have arrested aged brother of 20 years of her husband to put pressure on the couple to transform. She said that the arrest took place Saturday afternoon after the young man was checking on their house in Damascus.
"He called us saying that they (security forces) are heavily knocking on the door.". "It was terribly scared and he said that they would rip off the door", said Zaitouneh.
An hour later, Zaitouneh, said the young man called them once again, clearly shaken. "He said: come, I want to see you - it is clear, he was under pressure to speak with us," she said. They were not able to communicate with the young man since.
Rami Abdul Rahman, Director of the Syrian human rights observatory, also independently reported wide-scale arrests. He said that they had also revised their death toll upwards to 545 after the violent events Saturday.
On Saturday, Syrian troops killed four people by capturing a mosque which has become a focal point for demonstrators in Dara, and the security forces in Damascus kept dozens of women walking on the Parliament to urge Assad to end his crackdown on the uprising.
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