What It Looks Like When Syrian Security Forces Raid Your Home

A human rights group claims 3,000 Syrians have been arrested since March

This morning, UN Dispatch's Mark Leon Goldberg highlighted footage from Syria that he called "the most chilling video I have seen from any of the Arab protest crackdowns." The clip, which appears to have been uploaded to YouTube on Thursday by a user in Turkey, allegedly shows Syrian security forces in Daraa, where the Syrian uprising first erupted in March, driving up to a home in two unmarked vans, scaling a wall, and rushing toward the front door, as residents watching from a window upstairs shriek. The video cuts off as the security forces enter the house. The footage surfaces on the same day that the human rights group Avaaz informs us that nearly 3,000 Syrians have been arrested by the government's security forces since the start of the uprising on March 15.

Daraa, where the raid appears to take place, is once again in the spotlight today, as Syria experiences its 20th Friday of protests (this one's called "Your Silence Is Killing Us" in an attempt to rouse Syrians and Arab leaders who have stayed silent). Security forces used live bullets and tear gas to disperse anti-government demonstrators in the southern city, according to Al Jazeera, killing at least one person. Activists say another person was killed in the city of Latakia, according to the AP. Earlier in the day, a bomb blast hit a major oil pipeline in western Syria near the volatile city of Homs, sending oil spilling into a nearby lake in the second such attack on an oil pipeline in the last month. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency on "saboteurs." There are also reports of military defections during overnight clashes in the oil-rich eastern city of Deir al-Zor. This video highlighted by Al Aan TV's Jenan Moussa appears to show Syrians shouting "Allahu Akbar" at helicopters flying overhead in Deir al-Zor:

And this clip tweeted by pseudonymous Syrian activist Malath Aumran shows tens of thousands protesting in the opposition stronghold of Hama (the sound quality's not great):