The Guardian‘s Mona Mahmood has been talking on the phone to a resident of Mouadamiyeh, 7km west of Damascus. The man, who gave his name as Ahmed Mua’dami, described the events there over the last few days:

A large number of Syrian army and security entered Mouadamiyeh the day before yesterday, raiding houses and arresting people. Soon after that, warplanes, tanks and artillery started to shell the the district from different directions. More than 18 people were killed.

The Syrian army left the district at about 12 midnight the day before yesterday but came back yesterday at 7am.

The first thing they did, they arrested three people. Later on, their bodies were found in one of the alleys. They were all executed by gunshot, their names are Imad Fadhl Allah, Zuhair Ma’touq and Muhammed Ali al-Hamshari who was about 80 years old. Another body found was that of Waleed Tawfiq abd al-Ghani who was executed too but in a different place.

After that, a large number of the Syrian army raided the district accompanied by the so-called People’s Committees – which means committees made up of the retired officers or sons of officers in the Syrian army. Most of them are Alawite, and they wear civilian clothes. They were formed soon after the outbreak of the revolution.

The Syrian army came with a large number of vehicles, some of them were even civilian [vehicles] but with guns on their tops.

When they first came, they broke inside the stores and emptied everything that was inside them – almost 50 shops. After that all these shops were burned.

Soon after, the Syrian army started to raid houses and just at the end of their campaign they burned 30 houses. [Many of] these houses were deserted already as their owners had left to escape the shooting. They were arresting any man they found in the houses where people were still living. Some of the men were executed inside these houses. More than 10 bodies were found inside the houses.