TRIPOLI, February 5, 2012 (AFP)
Crowds of Syrians chanting anti-Russian slogans entered Moscow’s embassy in Tripoli on Sunday and hoisted the new Syrian flag on the building, an AFP journalist and a Syrian activist said.
The journalist said about 200 Syrians entered the embassy and first removed the Russian flag.
The protest came after Moscow and Beijing for the second time vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on the President Bashar al-Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent.
Russia and China also vetoed a Syria resolution last October.
Syrian militants say that at least 6,000 people have been killed since the opposition to the regime erupted in mid-March last year.
Anas al-Khalid, member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP that Syrian demonstrators entered the Russian embassy “but there was no violence.”
“We hoisted the new Syrian flag on the Russian embassy building,” he said.
On Saturday, the SNC took physical control of the Syrian embassy in central Tripoli.
The takeover of the embassy came after Syrian activists said troops killed more than 230 people overnight Friday by shelling the city of Homs in central Syria, a charge denied by the Damascus government.
