Rob Ford Visits Besieged Syrian City

No, not the beloved mayor of Toronto – the similarly named U.S. ambassador to Syria is raising the ire of Damascus over his show of solidarity with protesters.

Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, is visiting the embattled city of Hama as more than 100,000 people took to the streets of the city after Friday prayers to call for President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Syrian authorities condemned Ford's visit to Hama, the site of a massacre in 1982 in which 30,000 civilians were killed, as U.S. provocation. The U.S. embassy said Ford's visit was intended to show solidarity with the protesters in the face of a massive military presence. Hama has been the focus of government efforts to quell the uprising in recent days, with military and state security forces sweeping through the city that's long been known as a seat of dissent against the Assad regime.