Syrian forces kill 3 as tanks enter coastal city (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian troops killed three people as tanks swept into a coastal city on Saturday, activists said, in a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad which drew criticism from an international Muslim group.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, adding its voice to growing Arab pressure on Assad, called for an immediate halt to the military campaign against protesters which activists say has killed 1,700 civilians in five months.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah repeated their calls for the crackdown to stop.

Obama also spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders called for an immediate end to attacks by Syrian government forces against protesters, the White House said. It said Obama and Cameron would "consult on further steps in the days ahead." [nN1E77C03V]

Saturday's bloodshed came a day after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches in which demonstrators called for Assad's overthrow and vowed they would "kneel only to God."

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two people were killed and 15 wounded in heavy gunfire after around 20 military vehicles entered the Ramle district of Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast.

Soldiers backed by loyalist militia known as shabbiha were also deployed in the city's Sulaiba district, the group's head Rami Abdel Rahman said. "They are arresting dozens of people," he said, adding many people were fleeing the assault.

Troops and shabbiha killed one person in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, and made arrests in nearby Jousiyah village, he said. The bodies of four people arrested during an assault last week in the Houla Plain, north of Homs city, were returned to their families, he added.

Syria has barred most independent media, making it hard to verify events on the ground in the unrest, one of a series of popular revolts against autocratic Arab leaders this year.

Authorities deny reports of deaths in detention and say 500 soldiers and police have been killed by armed groups they blame for the violence. State news agency SANA said three members of the security forces were killed in Friday's protests.

Since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in early August, Assad has stepped up the military campaign, launching army assaults on the central city of Hama and the city of Deir al-Zor in the eastern Sunni Muslim tribal heartland. Assad's family, which has ruled Syria for 41 years, is from the minority Alawite sect.

After a wave of Arab criticism of Damascus last week, the Saudi Arabia-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) accused Syria on Saturday of using "excessive armed force" and called on Damascus to stop the bloodshed.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged Assad "to exercise utmost restraint through the immediate halt to the use of force to suppress popular demonstrations."

Obama and King Abdullah spoke by telephone on Saturday and "agreed that the Syrian regime's brutal campaign of violence against the Syrian people must end immediately," the White House said, adding the two leaders agreed to consult closely.

The Saudi monarch, who has had fraught relations with Assad but had worked with him to reduce tension in Lebanon last year, recalled his ambassador from Damascus on Monday.

France's Foreign Ministry advised citizens against traveling to Syria and urged any French people still in the country to leave using available commercial transport. Its website cited the "aggravation of tensions."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.

Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad family has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.

While Syria exports crude oil, its refinery capacity is not sufficient to meet domestic demand for fuel. Trading sources said Swiss oil traders Vitol and Trafigura agreed to supply state firm Sytrol with 60,000 tonnes of gasoline this week.

The global campaign group Avaaz urged European nations on Friday to impose immediate restrictions on purchases of Syrian oil to "dry up" funding of Assad's forces. It said more than 150,000 Avaaz members had signed a petition to that effect.

On Wednesday, Washington imposed sanctions on Syria's largest bank and its biggest mobile telephone company, controlled by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf. The next day, U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford said more sanctions would follow unless the Syrian authorities halted the violence.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington and Nick Vinocur in Paris; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Syrian tanks pound city as Arab states withdraw envoys (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pressed on with a tank onslaught against a city Monday, but was plunged deeper into international isolation by Arab neighbors who denounced his violent crackdown and recalled their envoys from Damascus.

Assad's five-month campaign against street protests has emerged as one of the bloodiest episodes of the wave of democratic revolutions sweeping the Arab world this year. Killings have worsened sharply in the past week after Assad ordered tank assaults on two cities.

Other Arab leaders had been cautious about criticizing one of their peers, but Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah broke the silence with a rare intervention overnight, demanding an end to the bloodshed and recalling the Saudi ambassador from Damascus.

Hours later Kuwait and Bahrain recalled their envoys too.

Syrian tanks and troops poured into the eastern Sunni city of Deir al-Zor in the latest stage of a campaign to crush centers of protest against 41 years of Assad family rule.

"Armored vehicles are shelling the al-Hawiqa district heavily with their guns. Private hospitals are closed and people are afraid to send the wounded to state facilities because they are infested with secret police," Mohammad, a Deir al-Zor resident who did not want to give his full name.

He said at least 65 people had been killed since tanks and Armored vehicles barreled into the provincial capital, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Damascus, Sunday, crumpling makeshift barricades and opening fire.

Later Monday Assad fired defense minister Ali Habib and replaced him with chief of staff General Daoud Rajha. The state news agency said Habib was ill. Habib had been added to an EU sanctions list last week for his role in crushing protests.

Syria's military is effectively under the command of Assad's brother Maher. Many officers are from the Assad family's minority Alawite sect.

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

FEW FRIENDS LEFT

The sudden withdrawal of ambassadors of Gulf Arab states leaves Assad with few diplomatic friends. Western states have imposed sanctions on top Syrian officials and countries with close ties to Damascus such as Russia and Turkey have warned Assad he is running out of time.

Nevertheless, countries have not proposed military action like that ranged against Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Assad's forces shot dead at least three mourners Monday when they opened fire at a funeral for a pro-democracy protester in the southern border city of Deraa, cradle of the five month uprising, witnesses and activists said.

Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory said one of the dead was Maen Yousef Awadat, a leading political campaigner, who had recently been released from prison.

The funeral was for a youth arrested earlier this week when he took part street protests after nightly Ramadan prayers. His body was handed to relatives earlier Monday with signs of torture, according to relatives contacted in Deraa.

The Saudi criticism was the sharpest the oil giant has directed against any fellow Arab state since uprisings began to sweep the region, toppling autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, kindling civil war in Libya and rattling elites.

"What is happening in Syria is not acceptable for Saudi Arabia," the Saudi king said in a written statement read out on Al Arabiya satellite television. "Syria should think wisely before it's too late and issue and enact reforms that are not merely promises but actual reforms."

"Either it chooses wisdom on its own or it will be pulled down into the depths of turmoil and loss."

SHELLING AND GUNFIRE

The assault on Deir al-Zor, in an oil-producing province bordering Iraq, took place a week after tanks stormed the city of Hama, where residents say scores have been killed.

The official SANA news agency said Monday the military was winding down in Hama. Residents said there were still tanks in parts of the city and security forces were making arrests. The Observatory said 1,500 people had been arrested in Hama's Jarajima neighborhood and troops killed three civilians.

Like most of Syria, Hama and Deir al-Zor are mainly-Sunni cities, and the crackdowns there resonate with Sunnis, who form the majority in the region and rule most Arab countries.

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

The Arab League called for an end to the bloodshed. France and Germany repeated calls for Assad to scrap the military campaign which rights groups say has killed at least 1,600 civilians.

Saudi Arabia's decision to join countries putting pressure on Assad was unlikely to deter the 45-year old president, who calls the clampdown a national duty, regional experts said.

Relations between Sunni Saudi Arabia and a Syrian ruling elite from Assad's minority Alawite sect have been tense since the assassination in 2005 of Rafik al-Hariri, a Western-backed Lebanese Sunni statesman who also had Saudi nationality.

In Cairo, the head of the most influential school of Sunni Islam, al-Azhar, described the violence as a human tragedy that had to stop. "Blood only fuels the fires of revolutions," said Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb.

Hama is known throughout the region as the site of a crackdown by Assad's father nearly 30 years ago against Sunni Islamists in which many thousands died.

AUTHORITIES DENY CITY ATTACKED

Syrian authorities denied that any Deir al-Zor assault had taken 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."

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

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who cultivated close ties with Assad but has sharply criticised the crackdown, said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would visit Syria Tuesday.

"Our message will be decisively delivered," he said, drawing a rebuke from an Assad adviser, who described the Turkish statement as unbalanced.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to Davutoglu Sunday, the State Department said, asking him to "reinforce" Washington's position that Syria must immediately return its military to barracks and release prisoners.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Brian Love in Paris, Brian Rohan in Berlin, Asma al-Sharif in Jeddah, Mahmoud Harby in Kuwait and Ayman Samir in Cairo; Editing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff)

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