What happened in Hamra yesterday?

Yesterday, a group of leftists gathered in front of the Syrian embassy to protests the crimes of the Asad regimes.  So a mukhabarat man who works for the embassy made some calls and then a group of supporters of the regime (from the Ba`th party and SSNP) showed up.  What happened next is a matter of dispute. What is not in dispute is that the leftist protesters were severely beaten up and and a few had broken bones and broken hips.  A few required surgery.  The thugs who did the beatings were from the Ba`th Party, and others blamed SSNP members.  But an SSNP member that I respect and trust wrote on my Facebook wall that he was there and that he and his comrades tried to protest the leftists (and he knew those leftists personally).  It seems that Ba`th party thugs performed the beatings.  What are those Ba`thists and others trying to do? To shield a regime from bad press while it commits war crimes against its population?