Syria faces growing world pressure to halt bloodshed (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Jordan's King Abdullah told Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Monday he should step down and the European Union added pressure with more sanctions after the Arab League's surprise decision to suspend Damascus for its violent crackdown on protests.

Syria looks ever more isolated, but still has the support of Russia, which said the Arab League had made the wrong move and accused the West of inciting Assad's opponents.

Despite the diplomatic pressure, there was no let-up in violence and at least two people were killed, activists said.

The anti-Assad unrest, inspired by Arab revolts elsewhere, has devastated Syria's economy, scaring off tourists and investors, while Western sanctions have crippled oil exports.

Jordan's King Abdullah said Assad should quit. "I believe, if I were in his shoes, I would step down," he told the BBC.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said the League's decision, due to take effect on Wednesday, was "an extremely dangerous step" at a time when Damascus was implementing an Arab deal to end violence and start talks with the opposition.

Syria has called for an emergency Arab League summit in an apparent effort to forestall its suspension.

Nabil Elaraby, the organization's secretary general, said he had delivered the request to rulers of Arab League states and 15 members would have to approve in order to hold a summit, according to Egypt's state news agency MENA.

The League's suspension is a particularly bitter blow for Assad who has always seen himself as a champion of Arab unity. But adding to the injury, the Cairo-based League plans to meet Syrian dissident groups on Tuesday.

Even so, Elaraby said on Sunday it was too soon to consider recognizing the Syrian opposition as the country's legitimate authority.

Elaraby met representatives of Arab civil society groups on Monday and agreed to send a 500-strong fact-finding committee, including military personnel, to Syria as part of efforts to end the crackdown on demonstrators and dissenters.

"Syria agreed to receive the committee," said Ibrahim al-Zafarani, of the Arab Medical Union.

Moualem said Syria had withdrawn troops from urban areas, released prisoners and offered an amnesty to armed insurgents under an initiative agreed with the Arab League two weeks ago.

Yet violence has intensified since then, especially in the central city of Homs, pushing the death toll in eight months of protests to more than 3,500 by a U.N. count. Damascus says armed "terrorist" gangs have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.

Syria's ban on most foreign media makes it hard to verify events on the ground.

SHOOTING, TANK FIRE

In the latest violence, security police shot dead activist Amin Abdo al-Ghothani in front of his nine-year-old son at a roadblock outside the town of Inkhil, a grassroots organization known as the Local Coordination Committees said.

In Homs, residents said renewed tank shelling killed a teenager and wounded eight people in the restive Bab Amro district. Students in the Damascus suburb of Erbin chanted "God is greater than the oppressor," according to a YouTube video.

Moualem described Washington's support for the Arab League action as "incitement," but voiced confidence that Russia and China would continue to block Western efforts to secure U.N. Security Council action, let alone any foreign intervention.

"The Libya scenario will not be repeated," he said.

It was the Arab League's decision to suspend Libya and call for a no-fly zone that helped persuade the U.N. Security Council to authorize a NATO air campaign to protect civilians, which also aided rebels who ousted and killed Muammar Gaddafi.

The Arab League made no call for military action, but its disciplining of Syria is deeply embarrassing to a nation touted by its Baathist leaders as the Arab world's "beating heart."

Syrian state television said millions of Syrians protested at the League decision in Damascus and other cities on Sunday.

Crowds also attacked Saudi, Turkish and French diplomatic missions in Syria after the Arab League announcement.

Moualem apologized for the assaults, which have worsened already tense ties between Syria and its former friend Turkey.

"We will take the most resolute stance against these attacks and we will stand by the Syrian people's rightful struggle," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Turkish parliament, saying Damascus could no longer be trusted.

Non-Arab Turkey, after long courting Assad, has lost patience with its neighbor. It now hosts the main Syrian opposition and has given refuge to defecting Syrian soldiers.

Turkey's stance has stung its former friends in Damascus.

"The implementation of the Arab plan must be accompanied by the securing of borders by neighboring countries," Moualem Said. "I mean here specifically the flow of weapons from Turkey and the transfer of money to the leaders of armed groups."

EU SANCTIONS

The European Union extended penalties to 18 more Syrians linked with the crackdown on dissent and approved plans to stop Syria accessing funds from the European Investment Bank.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was in touch with the Arab League to work on an approach to Syria, but the 27-nation body appears set against military intervention.

"This is a different situation from Libya," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Brussels, where EU foreign ministers were meeting. "There is no United Nations Security Council resolution and Syria is a much more complex situation."

Syria, which borders Israel, is Iran's main Arab ally and has strong ties with Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and the Islamist Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country joined China to block a U.N. resolution critical of Syria in October, criticized the Arab League's decision.

Russia, an arms supplier to the Syrians, has urged Assad to implement reforms but opposes sanctions and has accused the United States and France of discouraging dialogue in Syria.

"There has been and continues to be incitement of radical opponents (of Assad) to take a firm course for regime change and reject any invitations to dialogue," Lavrov said.

The Arab League also plans to impose unspecified economic and political sanctions on Syria and has urged its members to recall their ambassadors from Damascus.

Assad still has some support at home, especially from his own minority Alawite sect and Christians, wary of sectarian conflict or Sunni Muslim domination if he were to be toppled.

Despite some defections, the Syrian military has not emulated its counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia in abandoning long-serving presidents faced with popular discontent.

The government has acknowledged that sanctions are hurting, but it is not clear whether this will force any policy change.

Chris Phillips of the Economist Intelligence Unit in London said Syria's economy was "slowly bleeding to death."

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Dominic Evans in Beirut, Ayman Samir in Cairo and Justyna Pawlak in Brussels; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Russia resists Syria sanctions, U.N. says 2,600 dead (Reuters)

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia rejected on Monday Western calls for wider sanctions on Syria over its violent crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad, in which the United Nations said 2,600 people have been killed.

A day after France described the lack of a firm U.N. stance against Damascus as a scandal, President Dmitry Medvedev said recent U.S. and European sanctions on Syria meant "additional pressure now is absolutely not needed in this direction."

Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, have resisted efforts by Washington and its European allies to step up the international response to Syria's repression of nearly six months of protests.

Assad has reacted to the uprising, inspired by revolts which have toppled three North African leaders this year, with military assaults on protest centers and mass arrests.

Syrian opposition group Sawasiah said on Sunday 113 civilians had been killed in the last week, during which activists and diplomats say Syrian forces stepped up raids to detain protest coordinators.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three people were killed on Monday. It said a father and son died during an operation by security forces in the town of Rastan, north of Hama, and a 12-year-old boy died when forces fired at a funeral in the Damascus suburb of Duma.

Residents and activists reported that several thousand soldiers and hundreds of armored vehicles had massed in the last 24 hours in areas north of the city of Hama which had seen large protests calling for Assad's removal.

Damascus blames armed groups for the violence. Assad's media adviser Bouthaina Shaaban, speaking on a trip to Moscow on Monday, gave a lower death toll than the United Nations and said half of the fatalities were among security forces.

"According to our information, 700 people were killed on the side of the army and police and 700 on the side of the insurgents," Shaaban told reporters through a translator.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the United Nations figure was based on "reliable sources on the ground."

"The number of those killed since the onset of the unrest in mid-March ... has now reached at least 2,600," Pillay told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

She did not identify the sources. Syria has barred Pillay's investigation team and most foreign journalists from entering the country. Syria had also repeatedly blocked U.N. efforts to get human rights monitors into the country, U.N. humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos said.

FRANCE WANTS "CLEAR UN RESOLUTION"

France, Britain, the United States, Germany and Portugal have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that called for sanctions against Assad, influential relatives and close associates, but it met resistance from Russia and China.

"I think it's a scandal not to have a clear position of the U.N. in such a terrible crisis," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Sunday.

"We think that the regime has lost its legitimacy. We think that it's too late to implement a level of reform. We should adopt in New York a very clear resolution condemning the violence."

Medvedev said Russia believed any resolution must be "tough but balanced, and addressed to both sides in Syria," and that it must not automatically lead to further sanctions because "there is already a large number of sanctions against Syria."

Syrian demonstrators have demanded international protection to stop civilian killings, but there has been no hint in the West of any appetite for military action along the lines of the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Intervention would be a daunting prospect in a country in the heart of the volatile Middle East. Syria has three times Libya's population, supports Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups and has a strong alliance with Iran. It remains formally at war with Israel, retains influence in Lebanon and has a sizeable Kurdish minority in its east.

After talks in Damascus with Assad, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said they had agreed on a series of measures that he would present to league member states to help end the violence.

Assad has announced some reforms such as ending emergency law and launching a "national dialogue." Opponents say these have made little difference.

Residents and local activists said thousands of troops and hundreds of armored vehicles were gathered on Monday near the main highway leading to Turkey and in the al-Ghab Plain to the northwest of the city of Hama, as well as other areas.

An armored force drove into al-Ghab Plain in the morning and fired heavy machineguns at Sunni Muslim villages around the ancient Roman ruins of Aphamea and nearby villages, they said.

"This is the second incursion into the area around Aphamea in less than a month because protests resumed since their last attack," a local activist said.

Among hundreds of Syrians arrested in recent days was leading psychoanalyst Rafah Nashed, 66, who has been treating people traumatised by the mounting repression, her friends said.

Syrian authorities do not comment on arrests but have said in the past that any arrests are made in accordance with the constitution.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Robert Evans in Geneva and Gleb Bryanski in Moscow; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Graff)

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UN: Death toll in Syria unrest at least 2,600 (AP)

GENEVA – At least 2,600 people have died in the six months of unrest that has swept Syria, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Monday, as a panel was named to investigate abuses in the Arab country.

The figure released by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay adds to evidence that Syrian leader Bashar Assad is continuing his crackdown on anti-government dissidents despite international pressure.

"According to reliable sources on the ground, the number of those killed since the onset of the unrest in mid-March 2011 in that country has now reached at least 2,600," Pillay said. She added that her office continues to be denied access to Syria.

"The situation in Syria is still dire," Pillay told reporters after a speech at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Last month, the Geneva-based body held an emergency meeting at which it voted overwhelmingly to demand Assad's government end its bloody crackdown.

"From the time that the Human Rights Council passed its resolution and the Security Council has addressed the matter, the situation in Syria has worsened and peaceful protesters have been killed," Pillay said, adding that she was "shocked" by the rising death toll.

The council on Monday named three independent experts to lead an international investigation of allegations of human rights abuses in Syria.

They are Turkish women's rights expert Yakin Erturk; former U.N. investigator for Myanmar Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil; and Karen Abu Zayd, a U.S. citizen and former head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees.

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Assad says Syria won't stop fight against "terrorists" (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday his forces would continue to pursue "terrorist groups," after Turkey pressed him to end a military assault aimed at crushing protests against his rule.

Syria "will not relent in pursuing the terrorist groups in order to protect the stability of the country and the security of the citizens," state news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

"But (Syria) is also determined to continue reforms ... and is open to any help offered by friendly and brotherly states."

While the two men held talks in Damascus, Syrian forces killed at least 30 people and moved into a town near the Turkish border, an activist group said.

The National Organization for Human Rights said most of the fatalities occurred when troops backed by tanks and armored vehicles overran villages north of Hama, while four were killed in Binnish, 30 km (20 miles) from the border with Turkey.

Despite growing international condemnation, including a sudden wave of Arab criticism, Assad's forces also pursued an offensive in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, residents said.

Activists say at least 1,600 civilians have died since the uprising against Assad erupted in March, making it one of the bloodiest of the upheavals sweeping the Arab world.

Davutoglu held six hours of meetings with Syrian officials, including a two-hour session alone with Assad.

Neighbouring Turkey has grown increasingly critical of the violence but earned a sharp rebuke on Sunday when an Assad adviser said Syria would not accept interference in its affairs.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had asked Davutoglu to reinforce a demand from Washington that Syria return the army to barracks immediately and release prisoners.

Syria has faced nearly five months of protests against Assad's 11-year rule, inspired by Arab revolts which overthrew leaders in Egypt and Tunisia earlier this year.

Last week Assad sent troops and tanks to quell the mostly Sunni Muslim city of Hama in central Syria and the army launched a similar assault on Sunday against Deir al-Zor.

An armored column also pushed toward the center of the city on Tuesday, with troops storming houses and making arrests in the provincial capital of an oil region bordering Iraq's Sunni heartland, a resident said.

"They are now about one kilometer from downtown. When they finish with one district, they move to another," said the resident, who gave his name as Iyad.

GROWING ISOLATION

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has described Syria's uprising as a domestic issue for Turkey, because of their 850 km (530 mile) shared border.

Increasing the pressure on Assad, Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia issued a blunt warning that he risked turmoil unless he stopped the bloodshed and adopted reforms. Kuwait and Bahrain followed the kingdom in recalling their ambassadors.

The withdrawal of envoys left Assad with few diplomatic friends bar Iran. Western states have imposed sanctions on his top officials, while states with close ties to Damascus such as Russia and Turkey have warned Assad he is running out of time.

Nevertheless, no country has proposed military action such as that launched against Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In Deir al-Zor, a resident said on Monday 65 people had been killed since tanks and armored vehicles barreled into the city, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Damascus on Sunday.

The British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said among the dead were a mother and her two children, an elderly woman and a girl. Syria has expelled most independent media since the revolt began, making it hard to confirm accounts.

Syrian authorities have denied that any Deir al-Zor assault took place. The official state news agency said "not a single tank has entered Deir al-Zor" and reports of tanks in the city were "the work of provocateur satellite channels."

The authorities say they have faced attacks since the protests erupted in March, blaming armed saboteurs for civilian deaths and accusing them of killing 500 security personnel.

State television broadcast footage on Sunday of mutilated bodies floating in the Orontes river in Hama, saying 17 police had been ambushed and killed in the central Syrian city.

The official SANA news agency said on Monday the military was starting to pull out of Hama after it said they had helped restore order. Residents said there were still tanks in parts of the city and security forces were making arrests.

About 1,500 people were detained in Hama's Jarajima district and troops killed three civilians, the Observatory said.

Activists say at least 130 people were killed in Hama, where Assad's father crushed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982, and one group has put the death toll at over 300.

Like most of Syria, ruled by Assad's minority Alawite family, Hama and Deir al-Zor are mainly Sunni cities, and the crackdowns there resonate with Sunnis, who form the majority in the region and govern most Arab countries.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Ankara bureau; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Syria defies world reproach with new army raids (AP)

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY and SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Elizabeth A. Kennedy And Suzan Fraser, Associated Press – 2?mins?ago

BEIRUT – Turkey's foreign minister said he met President Bashar Assad for more than six hours on Tuesday to discuss "concrete steps" Syria should take to stop its violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army launched a series of new raids around the country, which activists said killed 22 people.

Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking to reporters on his return to Turkey from Damascus, said the talks were cordial but did not say what steps they had discussed or whether Assad had agreed to consider them.

"We discussed ways to prevent confrontation between the army and the people in the most open and clear way," the Turkish foreign minister said.

Assad is facing growing international condemnation over the regime's deadly crackdown on a 5-month-old uprising. Envoys from India, Brazil and South Africa are also headed to Damascus to press for an end to the violence.

The visit by Davutoglu is significant because Ankara until recently had close ties to Damascus. But Turkey has become increasingly critical of its neighbor over the bloodshed.

Syria's state-run SANA news agency said Assad told Davutoglu the Syrian government will be relentless in its pursuit of "terrorist groups" to safeguard stability and security in the country. Syrian authorities blame the unrest on extremist and terrorist groups seeking to destabilize the country, as opposed to true-reform seekers. But the protesters being killed are mostly unarmed and peaceful.

SANA said Assad also pledged to press ahead with reforms. But promises reform have rung hollow, especially since they have been coupled with a bloody campaign against civilians.

Human rights groups said Tuesday that at least 22 people, including several children, were killed across Syria Tuesday.

Tanks stormed villages outside the besieged city of Hama and two towns in Idlib province, which borders Turkey, activists said.

A rights activist near Hama said military operations in the town of Tibet el-Imam just north of the city killed at least five children, four of them from the same family.

"They were playing in the fields when they were struck by gunfire," the activist said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

There was heavy machine-gun fire and reports of at least three deaths in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, which also has been a flashpoint in recent days. Four people were also killed in the town of Binnish in the north, and several others in the central city of Homs.

The reports were confirmed by the activist network the Local Coordination Committees and the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The LCC said a total of eight children were killed across the country Tuesday.

Syria has blocked nearly all outside witnesses to the violence by banning foreign media and restricting local coverage that strays from the party line that the regime is fighting thugs and religious extremists who are acting out a foreign conspiracy.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner lauded Davutoglu's visit and said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had spoken with the Turkish foreign minister.

"They did talk about the situation in Syria, you know, and we believe it's another opportunity to send yet another strong message to Assad that this crackdown on peaceful protesters cannot stand," Toner said Monday.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr joined Arab countries in warning Damascus, saying: "The situation in Syria is heading to the point of no return." In a news conference in Cairo Tuesday, Amr urged Syrian government to carry out nationwide reforms and ending the crackdown.

India's U.N. Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri said his country's representative is scheduled to arrive in Damascus on Tuesday and will join representatives from Brazil and South Africa for a meeting with Syria's foreign minister to appeal for an end to the crackdown and to promote democratic reforms.

The Syrian regime has shown no signs of scaling back its crackdown despite Damascus' increasing diplomatic isolation. Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain and Kuwait in the Gulf, recalled their ambassadors this week.

In an editorial published Tuesday, the Al Baath newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath party said the regime was hopeful that Turkey and the Gulf Arab nations will "quickly correct their stands."

The latest wave of bloodshed started a week ago, on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when tanks and snipers laid siege to Hama, which had largely freed itself from government control earlier this year.

Residents were left cowering in their homes, too terrified to peek through the windows. The city is haunted by memories of the regime's tactics: In 1982, Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement there, sealing off the city in an assault that killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people.

Since the start of Ramadan, more than 300 people have been killed in cities including Hama and Deir el-Zour, an oil-rich but largely impoverished region known for its well-armed clans and tribes whose ties extend across eastern Syria and into Iraq.

On Monday, Assad replaced his defense minister with the army chief of staff, saying Gen. Ali Habib was being removed from his post because of health problems.

But some analysts said the general was unhappy with the crackdown.

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More than 50 killed as Assad defends Syria crackdown (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian security forces killed more than 50 people on Sunday, activists said, as the president defended the crackdown on "outlaws" and the pope and Arab League added their voices to condemnation of the violence.

The US envoy to Damascus, Robert Ford, who returned to Syria on Thursday, also said in a US television interview broadcast on Sunday that Washington will "try to ratchet up the pressure" on President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The latest bloodshed came as Pope Benedict XVI said he was "following with deep concern the dramatic and increasing episodes of violence in Syria that have led to numerous victims and grave suffering."

Ford, who infuriated the Syrian authorities with a visit to the flashpoint protest city of Hama last month, also told ABC news that the violence against protesters was "grotesque" and "abhorrent."

Activists said security forces backed by tanks killed 42 civilians in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and at least 10 more in the central town of Hula on Sunday.

"Forty-two civilians have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Deir Ezzor by gunfire from the armed forces and security agents," Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights head Abdel Karim Rihawi told AFP.

Rihawi said that 28 people were killed in Deir Ezzor's Al-Jura neighbourhood and 14 died in Huweika district, adding that "thousands of people have fled the city heading further north."

In Hula in Homs district, at least 10 people were killed in a military assault, Rihawi said.

"About 25 tanks and troop carriers entered Hula and carried out military operations," another activist, Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said earlier.

The Local Coordination Committees which organised the protests said on Facebook that snipers were on rooftops in Deir Ezzor "are firing on anything that moves," and also gave a toll of 42 dead.

But Assad roundly defended his security forces.

"To deal with outlaws who cut off roads, seal towns and terrorise residents is a duty of the state which must defend security and protect the lives of civilians," state news agency SANA quoted him as saying.

In contrast to Assad's reference to "outlaws," the pope called on Sunday for an adequate response to the "legitimate aspirations" of the Syrian people.

Ford told ABC he would continue travelling across Syria to observe the crackdown first-hand.

"I don't particularly care (about angering Damascus), because we have to show our solidarity with peaceful protesters," said Ford.

"I'd do it again tomorrow if I have to. I'm going to keep moving around the country. I can't stop."

"We are going to try to ratchet up the pressure," Ford said.

The Arab League also made its first official statement on the unrest, calling on Damascus to "immediately" stop the violence that has rocked the country since mid-March.

Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi also urged an "impartial probe" into the bloodshed, warning against "chaos" and "religious strife" in Syria, it said.

Arabi expressed his "increasing concern" because of "the deterioration of the security situation in Syria following the rise in violence and military operations in Hama, Deir Ezzor and several regions."

On Saturday UN chief Ban Ki-moon phoned Assad to express similar concerns, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Ban "reflected to the Syrian president the clear message sent by the (UN) Security Council and urged the president to stop the use of military force against civilians immediately."

US and European leaders have pledged to consider new steps to punish Syria after security forces killed more than 30 people on the first Friday of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month of fasting.

Syria's government has sought to crush the democracy movement with force, leaving at least 2,059 people dead, including 391 members of the security forces, according to the Syrian Observatory.

The Assad regime has pledged reform and accused "armed terrorist gangs" of fomenting the unrest.

On Saturday Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said "free and transparent" elections to a new parliament would be held by the end of 2011 and that the regime was committed to reform announced by Assad.

Two days earlier Assad issued a decree allowing opposition political parties, and in April ordered an end to five decades of draconian emergency rule and abolished the feared state security courts.

In June he said talks could lead to a new constitution and end his Baath party's monopoly on power, concessions largely dismissed by the opposition as a ploy to deflect world condemnation.

When the protest movement began nearly five months ago, demonstrators rallied for greater freedoms.

But they later demanded the fall of the regime, inspired by Arab uprisings that ousted the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

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Sectarian killing spree kills 30 in Syria (AP)

BEIRUT – The discovery of three corpses with their eyes gouged out set off a sectarian killing spree that left 30 people dead in a chilling sign that the Syrian revolt against President Bashar Assad is enflaming long-simmering religious tensions.

The opposition accused the president's minority Alawite regime of trying to stir up trouble among the Sunni majority to blunt the growing enthusiasm for the four-month-old uprising. The protesters have been careful to portray their movement as free of any sectarian overtones.

The killings over the weekend in the central city of Homs "undermine the peaceful nature of the revolution and serve its enemies who want to turn it into a civil war," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Homs-based activist Mohammad Saleh said the violence began Saturday after the corpses of three Alawite government supporters were dumped in Homs with their eyes gouged.

The men had gone missing two days earlier.

On Sunday, six bodies from various sects were found in the city, apparently in revenge attacks, Saleh said. Pro-government Alawite thugs called shabiha then went on a rampage, another activist said, opening fire in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods of Homs.

The dead included a 27-year-old mother of three, who was shot as she left her home, and a man in his 50s who was struck by a bullet on his balcony, a resident said.

"I was at the man's funeral yesterday, all he did was go out on his balcony," he said, adding that civilians have started setting up roadblocks to protect their neighborhoods. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Up to 40 shops were vandalized or burned, he said.

"It was a catastrophe, the situation could easily have slipped out of control," the resident said, adding the situation calmed down Monday but tensions were high.

Sectarian warfare is among the most dire scenarios facing Syria.

The country is home to more than 1 million refugees from neighboring Iraq, who serve as a clear testament to the dangers of regime collapse and fracture in a religiously divided society. They also see the seemingly intractable sectarian tensions in Lebanon as a cautionary tale.

"The Assad regime itself has a vested interest to portray the protest movement as one which is violent led by criminals, terrorists and by external actors," said Anthony Skinner, associate director at Maplecroft, a British-based risk analysis company.

"This is potentially an issue that Assad can manipulate to try and divide the momentum that we have seen building up," he said.

The Assad regime has long held together a fragile jigsaw puzzle of Middle Eastern backgrounds — Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druse, Circassians, Armenians and more.

An offshoot of Shiite Islam, the Alawite sect represents about 11 percent of the population in Syria. The sect's longtime dominance has bred seething resentments, which Assad has worked to tamp down by enforcing a strictly secular identity in Syria.

But now, Assad is relying heavily on his Alawite power base to crush the uprising, particularly amid rumors that Sunni army conscripts have been refusing to fire on civilians.

He has tried to dampen enthusiasm for the revolt by blaming the unrest on "armed gangs" and a foreign plot to sow sectarian strife.

Minority groups have been receptive to Assad's argument that only his regime can guarantee law and order, in part because they fear being marginalized if the Sunni majority takes over.

In part due to the shabiha's role in the crackdown, Syria's sectarian tensions have been laid bare for the first time in decades — a taboo subject because of the Assad family's 40-year dynasty of minority rule. Assad's father and predecessor crushed a Sunni uprising in 1982, shelling the town of Hama and killing tens of thousands in a massacre that is seared into the minds of Syrians.

On Monday, the Interior Ministry said it will deal firmly with "terrorist groups" and armed gunmen who are carrying out terrorist acts and torching private and public property.

Human rights group say more than 1,600 people, most of them unarmed civilians, have been killed in Assad's crackdown on a largely peaceful protest movement. The government disputes that toll and blames the unrest on gunmen and religious extremists looking to stir up sectarian strife.

Some 350 soldiers and policemen also are believed to have died in the unrest.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Saleh, the Homs activist, put the death toll in Homs at 30 and said they have the names of the victims.

But another activist in Homs said he's not certain if the death toll was as high as 30 and said the number could be lower.

Also Monday, Syria's pro-government Al-Watan newspaper said that the Qatari embassy in Damascus has suspended operations because of recent protests outside the embassy against Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Syrian uprising. Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar.

Syria accuses Al-Jazeera and other media of incitement and fabricating events in their coverage of the protests.

___

Zeina Karam can be reached on http://twitter.com/zkaram

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U.N. Council condemns embassy attacks in Syria (Reuters)

BEIRUT/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned "in the strongest terms" attacks by demonstrators on the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus.

Both Washington and Paris sharply denounced Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been trying for four months to stamp out a broad popular revolt with troops and tanks.

"He has lost legitimacy by refusing to lead the transition" to democracy, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, further sharpening U.S. rhetoric against the Syrian leader over a harsh crackdown on protesters.

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had told reporters: "We have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power,"

A Security Council statement read to media by Germany's U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig, this month's president, called on Syrian authorities to protect diplomatic property and personnel.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon had earlier accused Russia and China of trying to block a U.N. resolution on Syria, saying it was "intolerable that the Security Council should stay silent on such a tragedy."

Syria's U.N. ambassador accused the United States and France on Tuesday of distorting and exaggerating facts about attacks by demonstrators this week on their embassies in Damascus.

The envoy, Bashar Ja'afari, told reporters that Syria had had sought to protect the embassies and that some demonstrators involved in Monday's events had been arrested and would be brought to justice.

FLAGRANT INTERVENTION

The Syrian state news agency SANA said Clinton's remarks were "another proof of the U.S.'s flagrant intervention in Syria's internal affairs."

"The legitimacy of Syria's leadership is not based on the United States or others, it stems from the will of the Syrian people," it said.

Crowds broke into the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Monday and tore down plaques, while security guards using live ammunition drove crowds away from the French embassy.

The attacks followed protests against a visit by U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford and French envoy Eric Chevallier to the city of Hama, now the focus of the uprising against Assad.

Inspired by the protests that unseated the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia, Syrians have been taking to the streets in their thousands since March, calling for more political freedom and an end to corruption and poverty.

Assad has responded with a mixture of force and promises of reforms. He sent his troops and tanks to numerous cities and towns to crush protests, and thousands have been arrested.

But Assad has also granted citizenship to tens of thousands of Kurds, lifted the draconian state of emergency, freed hundreds of prisoners and called for a national dialogue.

A two-day meeting aimed at setting the framework for national dialogue and discussing legislation that would allow a multi-party system and constitutional amendments issued its final statement on Tuesday, endorsing the formation of a committee to rewrite the constitution.

Western governments have condemned Assad's violence against protesters, but their practical response has so far been limited to sanctions against top officials, a far cry from the military intervention against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has steadily toughened its rhetoric on Assad as Syrian security forces crack down on protests. Until Monday, it had refrained from saying Assad had lost legitimacy.

Washington has imposed targeted sanctions on Assad and members of his inner circle, and has said it is working with its allies to build international consensus for further pressure on his government.

SUPPORT FOR ASSAD

Assad retains the support of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah, as well as substantial portions of the minority Alawite community from which his family springs.

"If the Americans think he has lost legitimacy, this doesn't mean he has lost legitimacy, it means the Americans think he has lost legitimacy," Rami Khouri, a political analyst based in neighboring Lebanon, told Reuters.

"When Ford visited Hama, the dynamic changed. Clinton's remarks have simply raised the temperature."

Syria said Ford had sought to incite protests. The State Department denied this and said Ford had toured Hama to show solidarity with residents facing a security crackdown.

Hama, a city of 700,000 people, was the scene of a 1982 massacre that came to symbolize the ruthless rule of the late president Hafez al-Assad, and has staged some of the biggest protests in 14 weeks of demonstrations against his son Bashar.

Human rights groups say at least 1,400 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in March.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, John Irish, Brian Love, Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Tim Castle in London; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Mob storms US embassy in Syria (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – An angry mob stormed the US embassy in the Syrian capital on Monday, after Washington's ambassador visited the flashpoint city of Hama, a hub for protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"Today there was an attack by a mob on the US embassy," a US embassy official told AFP, adding that no embassy personnel were injured although the Syrian authorities were slow in providing additional security measures.

The official said the embassy sustained some physical damage and that the crowd then moved on to the ambassador's residence.

Opposition protests were also staged overnight in several towns against Sunday's opening of a "national dialogue" hailed by the regime but boycotted by the opposition, rights activists said.

Monday's embassy attack comes four days after US Ambassador Robert Ford visited the central city of Hama, 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of Damascus, sparking outrage in the capital.

The embassy official said "no staff were injured" on Monday and were never in "imminent danger," although the "Syrian government was slow to respond with extra security measures that were needed."

"The Syrian government has assured us that it will provide the protection required under the Vienna Convention and we expect it to do so."

He added that a Syrian television channel had "encouraged this violent demonstration," which followed protests at the embassy on Friday and Saturday calling for the ambassador's resignation.

A senior US official on Sunday accused Damascus of orchestrating the protests over Ford's trip to Hama, which the authorities slammed as a "flagrant interference" in Syria's "domestic affairs."

Ford and his French counterpart Eric Chevallier both visited Hama on Thursday amid fears of a bloody crackdown after Friday prayers the next day by Assad's forces, with tanks encircling the city.

France on Sunday summoned Syria's envoy to Paris Lamia Shakkour over damage done to the French embassy in Damascus and a consulate in Aleppo on Saturday after Chevallier's trip to Hama.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe's cabinet chief called her to the foreign ministry to receive a "vigorous protest", ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.

Tensions have been escalating for months between Damascus and Washington over the Syrian government's fierce response to opposition protests that erupted in mid-March, seeking to oust Assad.

Human rights groups say that since the protests broke out, the security forces have killed more than 1,300 civilians and made at least 12,000 arrests.

In overnight protests, some 5,000 people demonstrated in Deir Ezzor in the east, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Monday, adding there were also protests in three districts of Damascus.

The army was also reported to be continuing a search and sweep operation in the Jebel al-Zawiya area of Idlib province in the northwest.

"Soldiers supported by tanks carried out searches in the villages of Kafarhaya, Sarjan and Al-Rami, and arrests were made in Kfar Nubol," the Observatory said.

People were also detained in Hama and in the coastal city of Banias, where the rights group reported five arrests of people "for filming demonstrations."

Shooting was also heard at around dawn in the central city of Homs.

A meeting of the "national dialogue" in the capital was due to take place later on Monday.

Sunday's inaugural session saw some 200 delegates take part, including independent MPs and members of the Baath party, in power since 1963.

Opposition figures boycotted the gathering in protest at the government's continued deadly crackdown on the anti-regime protests.

Meanwhile, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey fell to around 8,500 as hundreds decided to return home over the weekend, Turkish officials in Ankara said on Monday.

The number of refugees fleeing the government crackdown and entering Turkey peaked at 11,739 at the end of June, when Syrian troops stormed border villages where many displaced people had massed.

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Assad loyalists storm U.S. and French embassies in Syria (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Protesters loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad briefly broke into the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Monday and security guards used live ammunition to prevent them storming the French embassy, diplomats said.

No casualties were reported in the attacks but a U.S. official said Washington condemned Syria's slow response and its failure to the prevent the assault on its embassy.

The attacks followed a visit by the U.S. and French ambassadors to the city of Hama last week in support of the hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators who have been gathering there despite attacks by Syrian forces.

"We are calling in the Syrian charge (d'affaires) to complain," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We feel they failed (in their responsibility to protect U.S. diplomats). We are going to condemn their slow response."

Human rights groups say at least 1,400 civilians have been killed since an uprising began in March against Assad's autocratic rule, posing the biggest threat to his leadership since he succeeded his father 11 years ago.

In other violence on Monday, Syrian forces killed one civilian and wounded 20 in heavy-machinegun fire on Homs, Syria's third city, and went house-to-house arresting suspected opponents in Hama, human rights activists said.

Despite using force to crush the protests, Assad has also called for talks on reforms. But many opposition figures have refused to attend a two-day conference in the capital, saying it was futile as long as violence continued.

"Dialogue can only work when both parties respect each other and look at each other as equals," said Ayman Abdel-nour, the Gulf-based editor of all4syria.com website. "At the moment, there is no dialogue."

Vice President Farouq al-Shara told the opening ceremony of the Damascus conference on Sunday that the authorities would open a new page, hinting at allowing political parties, other than the ruling Baath Party, to operate.

The meeting was expected to discuss legislation which would allow a multi-party system and constitutional amendments.

But independent analysts said reform would remain on paper as long as the security apparatus and Assad loyalists continue to operate with impunity against demonstrators.

Hilal Khashan, a Lebanon-based political commentator, said Assad's call for dialogue was not serious and aimed at buying time.

"If the regime was serious about reforms, they would change their security measures. Nobody in their sound mind would expect anything from Damascus as genuine political reform. The regime is buying time," he added.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and by Paris and Washington bureau; editing by Timothy Heritage and Jon Boyle)

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More Syria deaths as half a million flood Hama (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian security forces opened fire on anti-regime protests on Friday, killing at least 13 people, two of them in the capital Damascus, activists said.

The continuing crackdown on opponents of Bashar al-Assad came as the president's regime accused US Ambassador Robert Ford, who had visited the city, of inciting violence.

Opposition activists speaking to AFP separately by telephone reported five deaths in the central city of Homs, two in the capital's commercial neighbourhood Medan and six in the area of Dmeir, east of Damascus.

In Homs, "at least five people were killed in the Al-Khalidya neighbourhood by security forces who opened fire against demonstrators," said Abdel Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for Human Rights.

"Security forces shot dead two demonstrators in the neighbourhood of Medan in Damascus," east of the capital," he added.

London-based Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said six people were killed in the area of Dmeir and that at least 24 people had been injured in Homs, some of them gravely.

Rahman said at least 450,000 Syrians rallied after Friday prayers in Hama under the banner "No to dialogue" with Assad's regime.

The Hama demonstrators reiterated their "refusal to dialogue with the regime and called for its fall," he said.

Both US envoy Ford and French Ambassador Eric Chevallier visited Hama on Thursday.

On Friday, the regime accused Ford of meeting "saboteurs" there and inciting anti-Assad protests.

"The US ambassador met with saboteurs in Hama ... who erected checkpoints, cut traffic and prevented citizens from going to work," an interior ministry statement said.

"The ambassador incited these saboteurs to violence, to demonstrate and to refuse dialogue" with the government, it added.

The foreign ministry called Ford's presence in Hama "obvious proof of the implication of the United States in the ongoing events, and of their attempts to increase (tensions), which damage Syria's security and stability."

In Paris, foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Chevallier went to Hama "to show France's engagement with the victims, the civilian population."

"In particular, he went to one of the main hospitals in the city where he met medical teams, the wounded and their families.

"France repeats its concern over the fate of the inhabitants of the city of Hama, and its condemnation of the violence being carried out by Syrian authorities against the protesters and the civilian population."

Elsewhere, security forces used live rounds against protesters in the coastal city of Banias.

"Protesters left the mosques in the southern districts of the city and dozens were arrested," Abdel Rahman said.

Further north on the coast, in Latakia, more than 1,000 protesters were dispersed as they left Al-Rahman mosque, an activist there told AFP.

"Armed security services came in more than 20 cars, dispersed the protesters and arrested some of them," the activist said.

In Aleppo, a regime stronghold, "thousands of people rallied at Seif al-Dawla and Salheddine. They were attacked by security forces and a pro-regime militia," a witness told AFP.

Protests also took place in Saqba and Jdeidet Artuz, while 7,000 protesters filed through Qatana north of Damascus, activists said.

In the northern town of Raqqa, "security forces fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse protesters, at least one of whom was hurt," said an activist who requested anonymity.

Thousands also marched in Syria's Kurdish regions.

Between 4,000-5,000 took to the streets of Qamlishi, as did thousands more in Amuda, expressing solidarity with Hama and calling for the fall of the regime, rights activist Radif Mustapha said.

Before Friday's protests, the Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 had urged "No to dialogue: What dialogue (is possible) when blood has been spilled, while the towns are besieged? The people want the fall of the regime."

It added: "No to dialogue with the assassins, the still-warm blood of the martyrs is calling us. We are legitimacy... dialogue with the regime is useless."

Residents of Hama and Homs staged a general strike ahead of Friday's protests, according to Abdel Rahman, while Syrian Revolution 2011 called for the boycotting of businesses that trade with Assad's regime.

"Don't pay for the bullets that are being used to kill us", the group urged its online followers, also calling on activists to march on the Turkish border on July 16 in support of "the refugees, exiles and victims" of the unrest.

Rights groups say that more than 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people arrested by security forces since mid-March when the anti-government protests erupted.

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Death toll up, Hama defies Syria army: activists (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Security forces killed at least 11 people in Hama Tuesday while residents mobilised to keep Syria's army out, activists said as the United States urged the regime to withdraw from the flashpoint city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting medical sources, said the casualty toll had risen to 11 dead and more than 35 wounded in Hama, the hub of an anti-regime revolt which has been surrounded by the military.

"Heavy gunfire has been heard in several districts" of the city, it said.

The group said the body of one of those killed was dumped in the Orontes river of Hama, which is famous for its ancient watermills.

The activists, contacted by telephone from Nicosia, said a child was among three people shot dead by security forces on Monday on the outskirts of the city, north of Damascus, that is home to 800,000 people.

"Tanks are now posted at access routes to the city except for the northern entrance," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory.

"Residents have mobilised. They're prepared to die to defend the city if need be rather than allow the army to enter," he told AFP.

"Residents have been sleeping on the streets and put up sand barriers and tyres to block any assault."

Another activist insisted that Hama, where as many as 500,000 people took to the streets for a demonstration on Friday against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, was putting up a "100 percent peaceful" resistance.

The US State Department urged the Syrian regime to withdraw its forces from Hama and other cities.

"We urge the government of Syria to immediately halt its intimidation and arrest campaign, to pull its security forces back from Hama and other cities, and to allow Syrians to express their opinions freely so that a genuine transition to democracy can take place," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

She added Washington was "very concerned about the ongoing attacks against peaceful demonstrators in Syria."

"The government of Syria claims that it's interested in dialogue at the same time that it is attacking and massing forces in Hama, where demonstrations have been nothing but peaceful."

In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, British Foreign Secretary William Hague emphasised "the importance of the Syrian government taking rapid and concrete action to stop the violence and change the situation."

Hague, who held talks with his Saudi counterpart Prince Saud al-Faisal on hotspots in the Arab world, said "I made clear my view that President Assad's proposals for reform need to be implemented quickly and fully if they are to be of any significance."

In the capital, about 70 serving and former MPs held a meeting Tuesday to discuss the crisis, in the third such gathering in a week.

Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists on their Facebook site, Syrian Revolution 2011, called for a nationwide general strikes on Thursday.

Assad, faced with a revolt since mid-March, sacked the governor of Hama province on Saturday, a day after the massive rally during which security forces kept out of sight.

Since security forces gunned down 48 protesters in the city on June 3, Hama has escaped the clutches of the regime, activists say. The next day, more than 100,000 mourners were reported to have taken part in their funerals.

Hama was the scene of a 1982 blood bath in which an estimated 20,000 people were killed when the army crushed an Islamist revolt against the rule of the president's predecessor and late father, Hafez al-Assad.

In Idlib province, northwest Syria, activists said security forces on Tuesday mounted an assault on the town of Kfar Nubol, the scene of several demonstrations against Assad.

"Tanks have been deployed at crossroads and snipers posted on rooftops of house and government buildings" in the town, said the Syrian Observatory.

It added more than 500 activists and "peaceful demonstrators" had been arrested since last Friday, including lawyer Mussab Barish who was detained in Idlib on Tuesday.

Security forces also arrested Bissan Hamed and three other activists Friday on their way to Lebanon, it said, adding dozens had been rounded up in the Damascus region, including young blogger Omar Asaad and activist Adham al-Qaq.

Assad has decreed two "general" amnesties since the start of the unrest almost four months ago and also lifted a state of emergency that had been in force for five decades.

Rights groups say that more than 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people arrested by security forces since mid-March.

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Assad sacks Hama governor, Syria death toll mounts (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sacked the governor of Hama on Saturday, a day after hundreds of thousands rallied against the regime in the hotbed city, as activists said the latest crackdown cost 28 lives.

Anti-regime dissent billowed on Friday in response to a call by a Facebook group for massive protests to demand the ouster of Assad and his autocratic regime.

In Hama alone, 500,000 people took to the streets, without security forces intervening, activists said, calling it the single largest demonstration of its kind since the pro-democracy movement erupted on March 15.

Assad reacted to the affront by sacking the governor of Hama, a city with a bloody past where an estimated 20,000 people were killed in 1982 when the army put down an Islamist revolt against the rule of his late father, Hafez al-Assad.

"The Syrian president signed a decree today relieving Doctor Ahmad Khaled Abdel Aziz of his post as governor of Hama," said a news flash on state television.

Most of Friday's victims were killed in northwest Syria's Idlib province, where troops backed by tanks have swept through villages all week to crush dissent.

"Sixteen people were killed" in Idlib on Friday, Ammar Qorabi, the head of the National Organisation for Human Rights, said on Saturday.

Three of them were women who died when the army shelled a chicken hatchery in the village of Al-Bara, Qorabi said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of arrests were made in villages of the Idlib region, including of the top Muslim cleric of Al-Bara.

And at least 20 people were arrested in the Daraya area near Damascus for having taken part in anti-regime protests.

Another 10 people were killed on Friday when security forces opened fire to disperse protests in several cities, including eight in the central protest hub of Homs and two in the Damascus neighbourhood of Qadam.

And one person was reported killed in Syria's second-largest city Aleppo and another in the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia.

Friday's protests followed a call from the Facebook group The Syrian Revolution 2011, which urged people to rally, branding July 1 "the Friday of departure."

"We don't love you... Go away, you and your party," it said in a message addressed to Assad.

Qorabi, in a statement, said Friday's protests were the largest since mid-March and had spread to more Syrian regions.

"The number of protesters who took to the streets on Friday was one of the largest. Demonstrators marched in at least 268 Syrian regions compared to 202 regions last week," he said.

The head of the Syrian Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, spoke of 500,000 protesters in Hama.

Another activist said that "more than 400,000 marched" while a third said more than 200,000 people gathered in the city's Assi Square, stretching for more than a kilometre (nearly a mile), with security forces keeping out of sight.

There were similar scenes elsewhere across the country, including in Homs, another hotbed of protest and Syria's third-largest city, where one activist said "more than 100,000 people" rallied as tanks were deployed.

Homs was the focus of a report released on Saturday by the New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch, which denounced a rising death toll there and security forces for "terrorising people."

Citing Syrian rights groups and witnesses, HRW said 21 people had been killed in a government crackdown in Homs since June 17.

"During the city?s ongoing protests, security forces have beaten protesters with clubs, vandalised private property and broken into homes where they suspected protesters had sought refuge," HRW said.

"Security forces dressed in civilian clothes have detained protesters repeatedly, often travelling in taxis to approach and detain people," it added.

"Syria?s authorities accuse protesters of being ?armed gangs,? but it is their security forces who terrorise people," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.

More than 1,360 civilians have been killed in the crackdown against pro-democracy protests since mid-March, according to human rights groups, while thousands have been arrested.

The Syrian Observatory says 343 security force personnel have also died.

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Opposition to meet in Syria after bloody weekend (AP)

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press – 1?hr?16?mins?ago

BEIRUT – Three months into Syria's bloody political showdown, some 200 critics of President Bashar Assad's regime prepared to convene in an unprecedented opposition gathering Monday in Damascus, after another deadly weekend for anti-government protesters.

Activists reported Sunday that Syrian forces opened fire when funerals for slain demonstrators in a Damascus suburb turned into protests on Saturday. Two people were killed, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said one person was also killed in Damascus' Barzeh neighborhood during protests, and two were killed in the village of al-Quseir, near the Lebanese border. This followed what activists said were the killings of 20 people during demonstrations Friday across Syria, including two children aged 12 and 13.

Monday's planned meeting among scores of Syria-based opposition figures and intellectuals, the first such inside Syria during the current upheaval, is meant to discuss strategies for a peaceful transition to democracy, said Louay Hussein, a prominent Syrian writer and dissident. They'll meet under the slogan, "All for Syria within a civil and democratic state."

He said Syrian authorities were informed of the meeting and had not blocked it. There would be no government representation, he said.

Another participant, well-known Syrian writer Michel Kilo, who spent years in Syrian prisons for his criticism of the regime, said those meeting Monday have "their own choices and positions" for ways of moving Syria to democracy. He said no one from outside the country had been invited, and participants belong to no political faction.

Whether such a group might produce partners for President Assad's proposed "national dialogue" remains to be seen.

In a nationally televised speech June 20, Assad said he was forming a committee to study constitutional amendments, including one that would open the way to political parties other than the ruling Baath Party. He said a package of reforms was expected by September or no later than the end of the year.

Two days later, his foreign minister, Walid Moallem, called for regime opponents to enter into political talks. "Whoever wants to test our seriousness should come to the national dialogue to be a partner in shaping the future," he said.

Some prominent dissidents rejected such overtures, however, citing what they said was previous Assad talk of reform that produced no political change.

The opposition says some 1,400 people have been killed — most of them unarmed protesters — during the government crackdown on months of street protests.

The regime disputes that figure, however, and says security forces have been the victims of "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators it says are behind the unrest. Syria's military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Riad Haddad, told The Associated Press on Sunday that 300 soldiers and 47 police officers have been killed.

His statement, like the reports by anti-regime activists, could not be independently verified, since Damascus has banned most foreign reporters from Syria and put restrictions on local journalists' reporting.

The unrest has sent thousands of Syrians fleeing into neighboring Turkey and Lebanon. As of Sunday morning, more than 11,450 Syrian refugees were sheltered in Turkey, officials there said. Hundreds, some with gunshot wounds, crossed into Lebanon late last week.

Assad has come under growing international condemnation and sanctions, including from U.S. Sen. John McCain in Cairo on Sunday.

Calling Assad a "butcher," the Arizona Republican said, "It's time to call out Bashar Assad for what he is, and call for him to step down from power, or be removed from power by the people." But McCain emphasized that he was not advocating U.S. military intervention.

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Syria presses on with crackdown as toll mounts (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian tanks on Saturday rolled into a village on the border with Turkey, where workers are scrambling to erect a huge tent city anticipating a new exodus of refugees from the crackdown.

"The army backed by tanks and troop carriers entered Al-Najia as part of its deployment in the province of Idlib," the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP in Nicosia.

Al-Najia is on the road linking the northwestern city of Latakia to Jisr al-Shughhur -- home to 50,000 people, most of whom fled after the army seized the town on June 12, with many crossing into Turkey.

The latest operation came just days after the army moved into Khirbet al-Joz, another village near the border, and amid EU condemnation of Syria's resort to "shocking violence" against peaceful dissent.

On Friday, the state-run SANA news agency reported that the army had "completed" its deployment in and around Jisr al-Shughur and quoted a military official as urging villagers who had fled their homes to return.

The authorities blame "terrorist armed groups" for the unrest that has gripped Syria since pro-democracy protests broke out in mid-March, and say the military deployments are aimed at rooting them out.

The army's sweep through protest centres in the northwest has sent nearly 12,000 Syrians fleeing to safety in neighbouring Turkey, which is scrambling to accommodate the refugees on its Hatay border province with Syria.

More than 200 tents have already been erected in the camp while another 1,000 are due to be ready in a week in the village of Apaydin with a capacity for up to 15,000 people, village headman Omer Cagatay said.

Syria's Red Crescent chief, Abdurrahman Attar, said on Saturday that the refugees would not face retribution or interrogation if they returned home, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.

"We, as the Red Crescent, guarantee that the Syrian government will not call (the refugees) to account and under no circumstances will security forces take decisions about them," Attar was quoted as saying.

President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday ordered a general amnesty in a bid to quell rising unrest, a day after offering a "national dialogue."

But tens of thousands of people calling for the regime's ouster protested on Friday in response to a call by the Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011 -- the driving force behind three months of anti-regime demonstrations.

Security forces opened fire and rained tear gas on the protesters, killing 18 people and wounding scores more, activists told AFP.

Five people died in the Damascus neighbourhood of Barzeh, six in the town of Kiswah south of the capital, and seven in and around the central city of Homs, they said.

Abdul Karim Rihawi of the Syrian League for Human Rights said funerals were held on Saturday in all three protest centres for the victims of Friday's violence.

More than 150 people were rounded up between Friday and Saturday in house-to-house searches in the neighbourhood of Barzeh and some 70 arrests were made in Mareh near Aleppo, the London-based Observatory said.

Protests in Aleppo, Syria's second city, have been muted since the pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in mid-March.

But the Syrian Revolution 2011 called on demonstrators to "get ready for a volcano" in Aleppo next Thursday, in a message posted on its main Facebook page.

The Observatory says 1,332 civilians have been killed in the government's crackdown and that 341 security force personnel had also lost their lives.

EU leaders adopted a declaration in Brussels on Friday denouncing "in the strongest possible terms the ongoing repression and unacceptable and shocking violence the Syrian regime continues to apply against its own people."

Opposition figures announced they will hold a meeting in Damascus on Monday to discuss "how to solve the crisis."

"We will talk so that we can formulate a national strategy on how to end Syria's current crisis," Abdel Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for Human Rights, told AFP.

But the grouping of more than 100 independents with no ties to political parties is not the "spokesperson of protesters in the street," the rights activist added.

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EU piles pressure on Syria as nine die in anti-regime demos (AFP)

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Security forces fired on demonstrations killing 11 people as tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters surged onto Syrian streets after Friday prayers, and the EU turned up the heat on Damascus.

The demonstrations were in response to a call by the Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the motors of protests against the autocratic rule of President Bashar al-Assad that have rocked Syria since mid-March.

"Security forces tried to break up a rally calling for the fall of the regime with tear gas before opening fire" killing three people and injuring 25 others, an activist in the Damascus neighbourhood of Barzeh said, reached by telephone.

They also opened fire on demonstrators in the town of Kiswah south of Damascus, killing at least five people, another activist told AFP.

"Demonstrators left the mosque after Friday prayers and marched for a few minutes until security forces opened fire to disperse them, killing five people and wounding six others," rights activist Mohammad Enad Suleiman said.

Three people were killed in the central city of Homs and 20 others wounded when security forces opened fire on the crowd of protesters, an activist at the scene told AFP.

Demonstrations also rocked many other cities, including the eastern oil hub of Deir Ezzor where 30,000 protesters filled the streets, and neighbouring Median, said Rami Abdel Rahman who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syria's state television blamed the civilians deaths in Barzeh on "armed men" whom it said also opened fire on security forces, wounding several of them including an officer.

The state broadcaster added that a police officer was also killed by gunfire in the Damascus suburb of Kadam while the official SANA news agency reported that "several members of the security forces were hit by gunfire in Kiswah."

Syria blames the violence on "armed terrorist gangs" and says the protests are being orchestrated from abroad.

Syrian rights groups say that more than 1,300 people have been killed and while 10,000 have been arrested in the regime's brutal crackdown against dissent since the protests first erupted on March 15.

Friday's protests were held under the banner, "Fall of legitimacy" and a message on the Facebook page read, "Bashar is no longer my president and his government no longer represents me."

The crackdown on dissent has sent nearly 12,000 Syrians fleeing to safety in neighbouring Turkey, prompting concerns from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who warned of the risk of a regional escalation.

The European Union warned Assad's regime that its legitimacy was undermined by the brutal crackdown.

EU leaders holding a summit in Brussels were expected on Friday to adopt a declaration condemning the "unacceptable and shocking violence the Syrian regime continues to apply on its own citizen," said a draft obtained by AFP.

"By choosing a path of repression instead of fulfilling its own promises on broad reforms, the regime is calling its legitimacy into question," it said. "Those responsible for crimes and violence against civilians shall be held accountable."

The EU declaration also calls for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution slamming the crackdown -- a move opposed by veto-wielding member Russia.

The EU this week issued fresh sanctions against Syria, which expanded a blacklist targeting 23 top leaders including the embattled president Assad.

Syria has reacted angrily to the EU sanctions, with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem saying this week they were "equivalent to war" and denying receiving assistance from Iran.

Meanwhile the number of Syrians sheltering in Turkey has approached 12,000 after some 1,500 refugees poured across the border on Thursday and Friday, officials said in Ankara.

The influx has triggered concern in Washington, particularly as the flow came after Syrian troops stormed border villages including Khirbet al-Joz, where many of the displaced had massed, according to activists.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Syrian troop build-up was "worrisome" and could increase the changes of a border clash and "only exacerbate the already unstable refugee situation in Syria."

The exodus has prompted Turkey to build a giant tent city along the border with Syria to expand a Red Crescent camp where more than 200 tents have already been erected.

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