30,000 men from units considered both elite and loyal, surrounded and sealed off Aleppo. The Special Forces units entered the city first, on 1 April 1980. The 3rd Division in turn deployed in force on 6 April. The Division deployed their soldiers alongside hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles, which engaged in a brutal crackdown, often firing indiscriminately at residential properties. Government force would seal off neighborhoods, and then search house to house for suspects and weapons. Gen. Shafiq Fayadh was reported to have stood on a tank on 5 April, and announced his willingness to "kill a thousand people a day to rid the city of the Muslim Brother vermins." The government offensive had resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths by mid April, whilst many more were detained at detention sites spread throughout the city. Special Forces units set up a prison camp in the Citadel. Insurgency and massacres Government forces had largely regained control of the city by May, although the situation remained tense. However new violence flared in the summer of 1980. In retaliation for an attack on a government patrol, Special Forces units rounded up males at random in the Suq al-Ahad quarter on 1 July. The units rounded up a random group of 200 males aged fifteen and over, and then proceeded to open fire on them killing 42 and wounding over a hundred and fifty. Al-Masharqah massacre On the morning of Eid al-Fitr, 11 August 1980, in response to another attack on a government patrol, Special Forces commander Hashem Mualla submitted orders for his men to surround the neighborhood of al-Masharqah, and ordered discharge of random people from their homes. These people were then marched to a nearby cemetery. Near the tomb of Ibrahim Hananu the units were ordered to fire, killing between 83 and 100 citizens, mostly children. Several hundred more were injured. Later, bulldozers buried the bodies, while some of them were still alive. Reinforcing the random nature of the selection process, some of those killed included Ba'ath party members, government workers, and other government supporters. Bustan Al-Qasr massacre The day after the Eid al-Fitr and the massacre in al-Masharqah neighborhood, the Third Armored Division occupied Aleppo and 35 citizens were taken from their homes and shot dead. Result Casualties An estimated 1,000–2,000 people were killed by the security forces during the siege, either during clashes, at random, or as part of