Syrian troops attack mourners after US envoy visit

The attack came just hours after US Ambassador Robert Ford and other Western diplomats expressed their condolences to the family of a rights advocate killed last week, activists said Wednesday.The incident could increase already high tensions between Washington and Damascus, which has accused the United States of helping incite violence in Syria. Authorities have also criticized two earlier visits by Ford to the country’s central and southern regions.The Syrian regime is trying to crush a 6-month-old uprising with deadly force that has killed some 2,600 people, according to UN estimates.Also Wednesday, Syrian troops conducted raids in the northwestern province of Idlib and the central region of Homs, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, said one person was killed in Idlib and two others in the central province of Hama in Wednesday raids.The violence came a day after more than 20 people were killed throughout Syria, according to the Observatory and Mustafa Osso, a Syria-based rights activist.Osso and the Local Coordination Committees said the attack on mourners occurred on Tuesday night, after Ford and several other ambassadors had left the gathering in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.Osso said troops fired tear gas at the tent with mourners and relatives of Ghayath Mattar but no one was hurt.Mattar was detained on Sept. 6 and his body was returned to his family over the weekend.