(9.April) In the midafternoon, as the rebels searched cars at the city’s northeastern checkpoint and the fighting continued, they dragged a man from a vehicle, rushed him to the far shoulder of the road and shot him. The man’s capture, and his hasty burial, could be seen through binoculars from a few hundred yards away, though the execution was not visible because the crowd around the prisoner was too thick.

Journalists who tried to interview the executioners were chased away by gunfire that swept the checkpoint and the area nearby, apparently by coincidence. The bullets scattered the gathered crowd.