Syrian security forces fire on rallies, killing 30 (AP)

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press – 12?mins?ago

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces opened fire Friday on protesters and hunted them down in house-to-house raids, killing about 30 people in the deadliest day in weeks in the country's 7-month-old uprising, activists said.

The popular revolt against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has proved remarkably resilient, with protests erupting every week despite the near-certainty the government will respond with bullets and tear gas. The U.N. estimates the regime crackdown on the protests has killed 3,000 people since March.

Much of the bloodshed Friday happened after the protests had ended and security forces armed with machine guns chased protesters and activists, according to opposition groups monitoring the demonstrations. Authorities disrupted telephone and Internet service, they said.

The Syrian opposition's two main activist groups, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordinating Committees, gave figures for the protesters killed on Friday ranging from 29 to 37.

The flashpoints were Homs and Hama in central Syria, where opposition to the regime is strong. Hama is the site of a massacre nearly 30 years ago which has come to symbolize the ruthlessness of the Assad dynasty.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the observatory, said security forces in Homs were firing machine guns as they conducted raids in search of protesters and activists. In Hama, there were heavy clashes between the army and gunmen believed to be army defectors.

Syria has largely sealed off the country from foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making it difficult to confirm events on the ground. Key sources of information are amateur videos posted online, witness accounts and details gathered by activist groups.

Communications were spotty Friday in the Damascus suburb of Douma and in Homs. The move appeared to be an attempt to cut off the opposition's ability to organize and report on the protests.

"There was a very fierce reaction to the protests in Homs today," said Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso. Syrian forces opened fire as some 2,000 people gathered for protests, he said.

"There are many injured as well. Hospitals are having a hard time coping with the casualties," Osso told The Associated Press.

Majd Amer, an activist in Homs said sporadic gunfire could be heard as protesters poured out of mosques following Friday prayers.

It is difficult to gauge the strength of the revolt in Syria, a country of 22 million people. The crackdown does not appear to have significantly reduced the number of protests, but neither does the regime appear to be in any imminent danger of collapse.

The regime appears to lack sufficient numbers of loyal troops to garrison all the centers of unrest at the same time, so government forces will often sweep through an area in the wake of protests, breaking up new gatherings and hunting activists, before being deployed elsewhere.

The result has been a monthslong stalemate. Still, the capture and subsequent death of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, under still-unclear circumstances, has energized the opposition. Last week, thousands of Syrians took to the streets shouting that Assad will be next.

The protests come amid efforts by the Arab League to end the bloodshed, and debates within the opposition on how to bring international pressure to bear on the regime.

On Friday, many protesters said they wanted a no-fly zone established over Syria to protect civilians in case the Syrian regime considers attacking protesters from the sky, the activist groups said.

The protesters also called for international monitors, although most opposition groups reject the idea of foreign military intervention.

The Syrian government insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and foreign extremists looking to stir up sectarian strife.

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UN says death toll in Syrian uprising tops 3,000 (AP)

BEIRUT – Thousands of Syrian protesters called on soldiers Friday to abandon President Bashar Assad's regime and join a dissident army numbering in the small thousands, as the top U.N. human rights official warned of a "full-blown civil war" in Syria, saying the death toll in the 7-month-old crackdown has passed 3,000.

Security forces opened fire at protesters, killing at least 11, including a 14-year-old boy, in what has become a weekly ritual of protests met by gunfire, according to activists.

Friday's protests, dubbed "Free Soldiers," were in honor of army officers and soldiers who have sided with the protesters and are reportedly clashing with loyalists in northern and central Syrian cities in an increasing militarization of the uprising.

"The army and people are one!" protesters shouted in the southern village of Dael, where most of the deaths occurred Friday. In other locations, some protesters held up banners that read: "Free soldiers do not kill free people asking for freedom."

"I will not serve in an army that destroys my country and kills my people," read a posting on the Syrian revolution's main Facebook page that was meant to encourage defections.

Friday's demonstrations were the most explicit show of support so far by the country's protest movement for the defectors. Faced with gunfire, bullets, mass arrests and a lack of willingness by the international community to intervene militarily, many Syrians now feel the armed dissidents are their only hope to topple Assad's regime.

The Free Syrian Army, as the dissidents are known, are led by an air force colonel who recently fled to Turkey. The group is said to include more than 10,000 members and is gaining momentum as the first armed challenge to Assad's authoritarian regime after seven months of largely nonviolent resistance.

Clashes between troops and gunmen believed to be defectors left at least 25 people dead on Thursday, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The group said heavy clashes also took place in a Damascus suburb Friday.

Analysts say that until the rebels can secure a territorial foothold as an operational launching pad — much like the eastern city of Benghazi was for the Libyan rebels — the defections are unlikely to pose a real threat to the unity of the Syrian army.

Still, the increased military operations have raised concerns that the country may be sliding into civil war.

International intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi, is all but out of the question in Syria. Washington and its allies have shown little appetite for intervening in another Arab nation in turmoil. There also is real concern that Assad's ouster would spread chaos around the region.

Syria is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East, bordering five countries with which it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce. Its web of alliances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy. There are worries that a destabilized Syria could send unsettling ripples through the region.

Arab League officials said Arab foreign ministers will meet in Cairo Sunday to discuss the situation in Syria after a request for an emergency meeting by the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.

Several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, have pulled their ambassadors out of Syria to protest the government's brutal crackdown on the protest movement.

A top U.N. official warned that the unrelenting crackdown by the Assad government could worsen unless further action is taken.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the death toll from seven months of anti-government unrest in the country rose above 3,000.

"The onus is on all members of the international community to take protective action in a collective and decisive manner, before the continual ruthless repression and killings drive the country into a full-blown civil war," Pillay said in a statement issued in Geneva.

While most in the Syrian opposition still reject military intervention, some now say it's a necessity.

"What we have unfolding in Syria now is a two-tiered revolution: an armed insurrection and nonviolent protest movement, and the champions of both are morally justified in their position and they need our support," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based exiled Syrian dissident.

He said external military intervention, including logistical and material support to the defectors, is a must to avoid a return to the status-quo.

"Yes, we should fear civil war, we should fear the bloodshed resulting from militaristic adventurism, but we should fear a return to the status quo even more," he wrote in his blog Friday.

Hozan Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, said Friday's protesters were not meant to encourage defections per se, because this may lead ultimately to the weakening of the army.

"What we want is for officers and soldiers to refuse orders to shoot at civilian protesters, and when that is not possible, to defect," he said.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso and the LCC said the protests on Friday spread from the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, to the southern province of Daraa, the northern provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Hassakeh, and to the central regions of Homs and Hama, as well as to other areas.

The observatory and the LCC said 11 protesters died, including at least five in the southern village of Dael. Others, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in a Damascus suburb, in the southern village of Inkhil and in the Aleppo countryside.

The U.N. human rights office estimates that more than 3,000 people have now been killed since mid-March — about 10 to 15 people every day. The figure includes at least 187 children. More than 100 people had been killed in the last 10 days alone, the global body said.

Spokesman Rupert Colville said hundreds more protesters have been arrested, detained, tortured and disappeared. Families of anti-government protesters inside and outside the country have also been targeted for harassment.

He said it was up to the U.N. Security Council to decide what action was appropriate.

But he added: "What has been done so far is not producing results and people continue to be killed every single day."

"Just hoping things will get better isn't good enough, clearly," Colville said.

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AP writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

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

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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 forces kill 13 protesters after Friday prayers (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces shot dead 13 protesters Friday, activists said, as tens of thousands demanded the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, chanting "we will kneel only to God."

Defiant protest marches unfolded across the country despite a military crackdown that has triggered sanctions and condemnation abroad.

These included protests in the cities of Hama and Deir al-Zor, both of which have been stormed in tank offensives launched by Assad during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Local Coordination Committees activists said among the deaths were six in the Damascus suburbs of Saqba and Douma, two protesters killed in the commercial hub of Aleppo, and two in the northern province of Idlib on the Turkish border.

Residents said two people were also killed in Hama, just days after the army completed a week-long assault on the city which became a symbol of defiance to Assad's rule after huge crowds gathered weekly to demand his overthrow.

"Go, Bashar!" protesters chanted in rallies held in the coastal cities of Latakia and Baniyas, as well as across the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against 41 years of Assad family domination first flared nearly five months ago.

In Deir al-Zor, forces fired live ammunition at protesters coming out of a main mosque, killing one person according to the local coordination committees.

A witness said a fire broke out in the mosque after security forces shot at it. "The whole neighborhood is echoing with the sound of bullets. Worshippers are running to take cover in alleyways," he said by telephone.

Another resident said: "Assad wants to finish off the uprising before international pressure becomes too much for him. But people have gone out of almost every major mosque in Deir al-Zor, meters away from tanks that occupy every main square and roundabout."

Syrian state television said two members of the security forces were killed by gunmen in Douma, just outside Damascus.

Syrian authorities have barred most independent media, making it difficult to verify events on the ground in the unrest, among a series of popular revolts against repressive power elites across the Arab world this year.

Assad's forces have intensified assaults on towns and cities across the country since the start of Ramadan nearly two weeks ago to try to subdue mounting dissent against the ruling family, despite threats of new U.S. sanctions and calls from Turkey and fellow Arab states to end attacks on civilians.

Activists said at least 19 people were killed in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni Muslim tribal heartland Thursday. Assad's family belongs to the minority Alawite sect that runs Syria.

More than 1,700 civilians in all have been killed in the military crackdown on protests against Assad, activists say.

Syria says 500 soldiers and police have died in the upheaval, which it blames on armed gangs and terrorists.

CLINTON URGES CUT IN TRADE TIES

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said 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 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 tons 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 security services. It said over 150,000 Avaaz members had signed a petition to that effect.

But there is little prospect of Western states putting teeth into the sanctions on Assad by targeting Syria's oil because of vested commercial interests against doing so.

Asked why the United States had not called on Assad to step down, Clinton said Washington had been "very clear" in its statements about Assad's loss of legitimacy, and wanted other nations to add their voices.

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 if the Syrian authorities did not halt the violence.

In addition to the Friday protests, nightly Ramadan prayers, or "tarawih," which follow the breaking of the fast, have given more Syrians a focus for daily protest marches.

In neighboring Lebanon, hundreds of people demonstrated in the northern, mainly Sunni Muslim, district of Akkar in support of the Syrian protesters.

Regional powers Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all applied pressure on Assad to stop the violence.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned Assad not to leave reforms until it is too late in a letter delivered to the Syrian president earlier this week, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan spoke Thursday and agreed Syrians' demands for a transition to democracy must be met, the White House said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Syrian troops kill 11 in restive town near Lebanon (AP)

BEIRUT – The Syrian army shot dead 11 people in a western town near the Lebanese border Thursday and stormed a northwestern town near Turkey's border, activists said.

The shooting in the western town of Qusair also wounded many others, according to several Syrian human rights and activists groups.

Anti-government protests are common in Qusair and, combined with the early morning assault on the town of Saraqeb near the Turkish border, reflected the determination of President Bashar Assad to crush the five-month old uprising despite mounting international condemnation.

The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Wednesday, and a flurry of foreign diplomats have rolled through Damascus urging Assad to end a campaign of killing that rights groups say has left about 1,700 dead since mid-March. Turkey's foreign minister, a day after meeting with Assad, on Wednesday renewed his condemnation of the attacks.

A U.S.-based international human rights groups released a report Wednesday night accusing Syrian authorities of targeting medical facilities, health workers and their patients. It called on the government to safeguard doctors' obligations to provide neutral and ethical care for civilians.

Physicians for Human Rights said security forces control access to hospitals, and many injured civilians in need of critical care are forgoing treatment because they fear being detained and tortured if they seek care at government-controlled medical facilities.

"In addition to the widely reported atrocities committed by the government, PHR has received reports of serious violations of medical neutrality in Syria," a statement by the group said.

It also quoted a group of Syrian physicians as saying 134 doctors have either been detained by the government or have disappeared.

The attack on Saraqeb is particularly noteworthy because it sits in Idlib, a province bordering Turkey. Intense protests in the area triggered a harsh government response, forcing hundreds of Syrians to flee across the border. The military on Wednesday said it withdrew from residential districts in the area and returned to its barracks.

The military also said this week it withdrew from Hama in central Syria, following a weeklong military siege and military operations in the defiant city.

A group of Turkish journalists who toured Hama for four hours Thursday saw two APCs parked at the main square keeping watch over the city center and soldiers on some streets, but no tanks or heavy weaponry in sight.

"The soldiers and security forces destroyed everything, they didn't leave anything. We are in God's hands," one man they spoke to said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Another person said everything was calm and urged residents who escaped Hama to return.

In Saraqeb, troops detained at least 100 people, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Explosions and gunfire reverberated through the area after the army rolled in, said the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group that helps organize and document the protests.

The military action came a day after the information ministry ferried local journalists to Idlib. A senior army officer told reporters that troops were withdrawing to their barracks, leaving residential districts in the province's cities.

On the same day, Syrian security forces shot dead at least 15 people in the central flashpoint city of Homs, according to the LCC.

The government justified its attacks on various cities by saying it was dealing with terrorist gangs and criminals who were fomenting unrest.

The uprising was inspired by the revolutions and calls for reform sweeping the Arab world, and activists and rights groups say most of those killed have been unarmed civilians. An aggressive new military offensive that began with the Ramadan at the start of the month killed several hundred people in just one week.

The London-based observatory said authorities on Wednesday night detained opposition figure Hassan Zahra during a raid in a Damascus suburb. Zahra, a 67-year-old member of the Communist Action Front, was detained at least once since the uprising began, it said.

International condemnation over the crackdown has been strong, and growing more forceful.

In Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu renewed calls Thursday for an end to the bloodshed and said Turkey would be closely watching developments there.

"Of course, it is difficult to expect this when tensions are so high, but our expectation is that measures are taken to prevent the loss of lives, for civilian losses to end. We will be monitoring closely."

The Obama administration, which announced new sanctions Wednesday, is preparing for the first time to explicitly call for Assad to step down, officials have told the AP. The moves are a direct response to Assad's decision to escalate the crackdown by sending the army into opposition hotbeds.

The new sanctions affect the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and its Lebanon-based subsidiary, the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank, for what the U.S. says are their links to human rights abuses and to illegal weapons trade with North Korea.

Mobile phone company Syriatel was targeted because it is controlled by "one of the regime's most corrupt insiders," said David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

The action freezes any assets the firms have in U.S. jurisdictions and bans Americans from doing business with them. But they may not have much immediate economic impact because the U.S. already severely limits trade and economic ties with Syria.

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APTN producer Ayse Wieting and cameraman Mehmet Guzel contributed to this report from Hama, Syria.

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Bassem Mroue can be reached at http://twitter.com/bmroue

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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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Activists say Syrian troops kill at least 52 (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian forces intensified their crackdown on an eastern city Sunday as they try to keep the anti-government uprising from escalating during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The assault and similar operations in at least two other towns killed at least 52 people, according to human rights groups, and the toll looked likely to rise.

The worst violence was in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where troops stepped up a siege that had already been going on for days. At least 42 people were killed in a raid on the city that began before dawn, said Abdul-Karim Rihawi, the Damascus-based chief of the Syrian Human Rights League and Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

Amateur video posted online by activists showed what it said were parts of Deir el-Zour with the sound of heavy cracks of gunfire and prayers blaring from loudspeakers. Another video showed Syrian troops on a hill as they positioned an anti-aircraft gun. An activist in the city told The Associated Press the military attacked before dawn from four sides and took control of eight neighborhoods.

"Humanitarian conditions in the city are very bad because it has been under siege for nine days," the activist said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "There is lack of medicine, baby formula, food and gasoline. The city is totally paralyzed."

The attack on Deir el-Zour is part of the latest phase of the government crackdown that began a week ago, just before the start of Ramadan when many Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, then eat festive meals and gather in mosques for special nightly prayers. The government has been trying to prevent the large mosque gatherings from turning into a new wave of anti-government protests, like those that have been sweeping the country since mid-March.

The government's crackdown has left more than 1,700 dead, according to activists and human rights groups. President Bashar Assad's regime disputes the toll and blames a foreign conspiracy for the unrest.

Assad has defied the growing chorus of international condemnation and pressed on with lethal military force to suppress mostly peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged Assad in a phone conversation on Saturday to immediately stop the use of military force against civilians.

The central city of Hama had been the focus of the crackdown for most of the past week, though Deir el-Zour has also been under siege.

In Hama, an official at Hourani Hospital reported that eight newborns died in their incubators on Wednesday when electricity was cut in the city, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group had no further details.

Authorities have imposed a media blackout on Hama and the reports could not be immediately confirmed. Electricity, Internet and phone lines have been cut for seven days, and residents have reported dwindling food and medical supplies amid frequent shelling and raids. Rights group say at least 100 people have been killed, while some estimates put the number as high as 250.

The military attacks also spread Sunday to the central town of Houleh in Homs province, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Hama and 212 miles (340 kilometers) east of Deir el-Zour. Rihawi said at last 10 people were killed in Houleh while Qurabi said the toll was 17.

Both Houleh and Deir el-Zour have witnessed intense protests against Assad since the uprising began. Deir el-Zour is the capital of an oil-rich province by the same name, but the region is among the country's poorest and was hit by drought in the past years. It is inhabited by Arab tribes that extend into Iraq, and Syrian authorities have said they thwarted attempts by Iraqis to smuggle arms from Iraq into Syria.

Qurabi said security forces also shot and killed 10 people in the northwestern city of Idlib Sunday. He said those killed in Idlib were taking part in a funeral of eight protesters shot dead by security forces Saturday night in the city.

Rihawi had no figures from Idlib but the Local Coordination Committees, a key activist groups tracking the Syrian uprising, said at least four people were shot dead in Idlib when security forces opened fire at a funeral.

In Hama, state-run news agency SANA said troops removed all barriers and roadblocks in the main streets, but continued "to chase remains of terrorists" who took positions in two neighborhoods.

SANA claimed anti-regime gunmen in the city had killed 13 policemen whose bodies were removed Saturday from the Orontes River, which runs through Hama. An amateur video posted online by government supporters last week showed men throwing what it said were dead plainclothes policemen's bloody bodies from a bridge into the river, turning the water to a red stream.

Turkey, which borders Syria, said Sunday it would send its foreign minister to Damascus on Tuesday to deliver a strong message condemning the crackdown on the protesters. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country's patience was running thin and that Turkey could not remain a bystander to the violence.

Syria's reaction was quick. State-run TV quoted Assad's adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, as saying that Turkey's foreign minister "will hear stronger words because of Turkey's stance that did not condemn until now the brutal killings of civilians, members of military and police."

Gulf Arab countries broke their silence Saturday on the bloodshed, calling for an immediate end to the violence and for the implementation of "serious" reforms in Syria. In a statement posted on its website, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council expressed deep concern and regret for "the escalating violence in Syria and use of excess force."

Syria's state-run TV quoted an unnamed official as saying the GCC statement was ignoring the sabotage that armed groups are conducting.

Assad again promised to pursue reforms, SANA reported, something he has promised before but failed to deliver.

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Bassem Mroue can be reached at http://twitter.com/bmroue

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Syrian troops fire on protesters, killing 10 (AP)

BEIRUT – Security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 10, as tens of thousands poured into streets across Syria on Friday, chanting for the fall of President Bashar Assad and defying a fierce military siege of Hama, where tanks shelled residential districts around dawn.

The six-day-old assault on Hama, which has killed at least 100 people, seemed to do little to intimidate protesters, though the marches were smaller than previous Fridays, perhaps in part because this was the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

Protests spread from the capital, Damascus, to the southern province of Daraa and to Deir al-Zour in the east. Other demonstrations were reported in Homs in the center and in Qamishli, near the Turkish border.

"Hama, we are with you until death," a crowd marching through Damascus' central neighborhood of Midan shouted, clapping their hands as they chanted, "We don't want you Bashar" and "Bashar Leave," according to amateur videos from Friday posted on line by activists.

In another district of the capital, Qadam, protesters carried a banner reading, "Bashar is slaughtering the people and the international community is silent."

Security forces opened fire with live ammunition and tear gas in several cities, activists said. At least seven people were killed in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen, according to the London-based Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, a group that tracks protests. They said one person was killed in the suburb of Moaddamiya and two in the central city of Homs.

State-run TV said reported that two policemen were killed and 8 wounded when they were ambushed in the northern town of Maarat al-Numan

Activists also said three people were wounded in Homs.

In Hama, government tanks shelled residential districts in Hama around 4 a.m., just as people were beginning their daily fast, one resident told The Associated Press.

The evening before, the shelling hit around sunset, while residents were having their meal breaking the fast, the resident said, asking for anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

"If people get wounded, it is almost impossible to take them to hospital," the resident said by telephone.

On previous Fridays — the day of the biggest protests — Hama has seen massive marches by hundreds of thousands that were the largest in Syria. But under the siege, with electricity, internet and phone services cut off and food supplies running short, there were no immediate reports of protests in the city during the day Friday.

Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen largely out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks. But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive that left corpses in streets Sunday and sent residents fleeing for their lives, according to residents.

State-run Syrian TV on Friday showed footage from inside Hama, with images of streets blocked by makeshift barricades set up by protesters. It showed a tank removing a large cement barrier as well as a bus that had its windshield shattered.

The report also showed a yellow taxi car with a dead man in the driver's seat and bloodstains on the door. A picture carried by state-run news agency SANA showed empty streets with debris and damaged cars.

SANA said the Syrian army is restoring "security and stability" to Hama after it was "taken over by terrorists."

Hama has seen government crackdowns before. In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement there. Hama was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

Although there has been a near-total communications blackout in Hama, witnesses have painted a grim picture of life in the city. "People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street," a resident said Thursday, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank." He said he left Hama briefly through side roads to smuggle in food supplies.

The uprising began in mid-March, inspired by the revolutions sweeping the Arab world. Friday has become the main day for protests in Syria, despite the near-certainty that tanks and snipers will respond with deadly force.

More than 1,700 civilians have been killed in the regime crackdown on the uprising since March.

Assad has largely brushed off international pressure on his regime.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday he has warned Syria's leader that he will face a "sad fate" if he fails to introduce reforms in his country and open a peaceful dialogue with the opposition.

In the United States, the Obama administration moved to further isolate Assad and his inner circle imposing sanctions on a prominent pro-regime businessman and his firm.

Thursday's sanctions against Assad family confidante Muhammad Hamsho and his firm, Hamsho International Group, freeze any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. Hamsho's holding company has about 20 subsidiaries ranging from construction, civil engineering, telecommunications and hotels to carpet sales, horse trading and ice cream production.

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Bassem Mroue can be reached http://twitter.com/bmroue

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Dozens die, thousands flee Syrian tank assault in Hama (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops killed at least 45 civilians in a tank assault to occupy the center of the besieged city of Hama, an activist said on Thursday, in a sharp escalation of a campaign to crush an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

Thousands of civilians were fleeing the city, a bastion of protest surrounded by a ring of steel of troops with tanks and heavy weapons.

Electricity and communications have been cut off and as many as 130 people have been killed in a four-day military assault since Assad sent troops into the city on Sunday, activists say.

Reacting to the intensifying assaults on Hama and other Syrian districts, the U.N. Security Council condemned the use of force against civilians -- its first substantive response to nearly five months of unrest in Syria.

In Hama, residents said tanks had advanced into the main Orontes Square, the site of some of the biggest protests against Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000. Snipers spread onto rooftops and into a nearby citadel.

An activist who managed to leave the city told Reuters that 40 people were killed by heavy machinegun fire and shelling by tanks in al-Hader district on Wednesday and early on Thursday.

The activist, who gave his name as Thaer, said five more people from the Fakhri and Assa'ad families, including two children, were killed as they were trying to leave Hama by car on the al-Dhahirya highway.

Hama has been one of the main centers of protest against Assad, reviving memories of 1982, when Assad's father sent troops to crush Islamist protests in the city, killing thousands of people and razing much of al-Hader district to the ground.

Last week tanks also moved into the eastern provincial capital of Deir al-Zor and the town of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq's Sunni heartland. Both towns have also witnessed large pro-democracy protests.

"The security apparatus thinks it can wrap this uprising up by relying on the security option and killing as many Syrians as it thinks it will take," a diplomat in the Syrian capital said.

"Tanks are firing their guns at residential buildings in Hama and Deir al-Zor after the two cities were left for weeks to protest peacefully. This is the first time the regime is using tanks with such targeted ferocity," the diplomat said.

Syrian authorities say the army has gone into Hama to confront armed groups trying to take control of the city. They say at least eight soldiers have been killed by gunmen.

The contrasting accounts from activists and state media are difficult to verify because Syria has barred most independent media since the beginning of the protests.

Rights groups said the lack of communication with the besieged city was alarming. There were also some reports that water supplies were blocked.

"Hama has been cut off. We're in the dark and of course we're very worried," said Human Rights Watch's Beirut-based senior Syria and Lebanon researcher, Nadim Houry.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 1,500 families managed to flee Hama in the last 48 hours, heading mainly to the east or the west of the besieged city. Other activists said authorities had blocked the road north toward Aleppo and Turkey.

"We are talking about hundreds of families leaving Hama since yesterday by cars and pick-up trucks," said one activist in touch with the families which escaped.

"The Aleppo road is the most dangerous, with most 'shabbiha' (pro-Assad militia) stationed there to prevent movement up to Turkey," he said. A resident of Aleppo said police were turning families from Hama back at roadblocks.

Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory said seven other people were killed across Syria during protests on Wednesday night, three of them in the southern Deraa province and two in the Damascus district of Midan.

ELECTION LAWS

Alongside the military crackdown, Assad has also lifted a state of emergency in place for nearly 50 years and promised constitutional changes to open Syria up to multi-party politics.

On Thursday he formally approved laws passed by the cabinet last week allowing the formation of political parties other than his ruling Baath Party and regulating elections to parliament, which has so far been a rubber-stamp assembly.

But most figures in Syria's fractured opposition reject any dialogue with Assad while the repression continues.

The United States, which says Assad has lost legitimacy to rule, described him on Wednesday as the cause of instability in the country. "Syria would be a better place without President Assad," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

In New York, Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, president this month of the Security Council, read out a statement condemning "widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities".

The U.N. document agreed after three days of hard bargaining urged Damascus to fully respect human rights and comply with its obligations under international law.

But it also urged all sides to act with restraint, reflecting divisions between the West on one hand, and China and Russia, which has a naval base in Syria. Russia said it was important that the U.N. document discouraged international involvement in Syria's affairs.

"Moscow is convinced that a solution to the situation in that country must be brought about by the Syrians themselves without any outside interference in the all-Syrian dialogue," the foreign ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

A Syrian pharmacist who managed to talk with her family in Hama told Reuters that they had tried to flee but that the "shabbiha" were randomly shooting residents.

The official Syrian news agency said "armed terrorist groups" had abducted three oil-well guards in Deir al-Zor on Wednesday, and killed one policeman.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans)

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Syrian siege of Hama raises humanitarian concerns (AP)

BEIRUT – Gunmen in plainclothes are randomly shooting people in the streets of the besieged Syrian city of Hama and families are burying their loved ones in gardens at home for fear of being killed themselves if they venture out to cemeteries, a resident said Thursday.

Military forces on Sunday launched an offensive against anti-government dissent in Hama and at least 100 people have been killed since, according to human rights groups. Phones, Internet and electricity have been cut or severely hampered for days. The resident told The Associated Press people are being forced to ration food and share bread to get by during the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims fast from dawn to dusk then celebrate with large, festive meals after sundown.

"People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street," said the resident, who spoke by phone on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank." He said he left Hama briefly through side roads to smuggle in food supplies.

The resident said around 250 people have been killed since Sunday. Hozan Ibrahim, of the Local Coordination Committees which tracks the crackdown on protesters, said up to 30 people may have been killed in Hama Wednesday only based on reports from fleeing residents. But neither of those numbers could be immediately verified.

Families have resorted to burying their loved ones in home gardens or roadside pits "because we fear that if we go to the cemetery, we will end up buried along with them," the resident said.

He said the army and pro-government gunmen known as "shabiha" have been shooting randomly at people and keeping food supplies from entering the city. He said he knew they are allied with the military because they sometimes walk behind soldiers and talk to them.

Activists have expressed concern about worsening humanitarian conditions in Hama, saying medical supplies and bread were in short supply even before the latest siege. Phones and Internet in Hama have been cut or severely hampered for at least two days. Electricity has been out or sporadic since Sunday.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the London-based Observatory for Human Rights, said some 1,000 families have fled Hama in the past two days, most of them to the village of Mashtal Hilu west of Hama and al-Salamieh to the east.

The siege of Hama is part of a new government offensive to put down the country's uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule. Now in its fifth month, the protests have been gaining momentum in defiance of the military crackdown.

Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen largely out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks. But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive that left corpses in streets Sunday and sent residents fleeing for their lives, according to residents.

In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement there. Hama was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

In other parts of Syria, security forces killed at least seven protesters overnight when they went out to demonstrate after special nighttime prayers for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, activists said.

Assad has sought to deal with the extraordinary revolt against his family's 40-year-dynasty through deadly force, but has also acknowledged the need for reform.

On Thursday, he issued two legislative decrees that will allow the formation of political parties alongside the Baath Party and enable newly formed parties to run for parliament and local councils. Both draft bills were endorsed by Cabinet last month, and were key demands of the opposition movement. But opposition figures now dismiss the moves as maneuvering tactics and insist they want regime change.

On Wednesday, Syrian tanks stormed Hama under heavy shelling, taking over a main city square. Activists said authorities have effectively imposed a news blackout on the city by cutting cellular and land lines and Internet.

Phone calls by the Associated Press to the city on Thursday were not going through. Abdul-Karim Rihawi, Damascus-based chief of the Syrian Human Rights League, said there was no information coming out from Hama on Thursday.

"A high number of casualties is expected from such a massive military operation," he said.

Rihawi said that elsewhere in Syria, seven people were killed by security forces Wednesday night. Two protesters were shot dead in the Damascus central neighborhood of Midan, three in the southern village of Nawa and one in the ancient city of Palmyra. An 11-year-old boy was also killed when security forces opened fire on a protest in Talbiseh, near Homs, he said.

He said more than 60 Syrian children have died since the start of the protests in March.

The Local Coordination Committees confirmed the deaths.

Since Ramadan started on Monday, Muslims have been thronging mosques for the special nightly prayers after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast. The gatherings have turned into large anti-government protests that draw fierce military force to try to break them up.

Abdul-Rahman said military operations were also under way in the central city of Homs, where heavy machine guns and automatic gunfire was heard throughout the night in the Bab Sbaa and Qalaa districts. At least 27 people have been arrested in security raids, he said.

Amateur videos posted by activists online showed dozens of people in Damascus' district of Midan clapping their hands and shouting: "We don't love you, Bashar!" and "Bashar, leave!" after emerging from the city's Daqaq Mosque. The footage, which activists said was taken Wednesday night, then shows chaos breaking out as gunfire is heard, and the camera zooms onto vehicles with bullet holes and smashed windows.

Another video also posted overnight showed a large group of people in Hama's Kfarzita district marching and shouting: "The people want to topple the regime."

The military offensive against Hama, 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of the capital Damascus, prompted the U.N. Security Council to act after months of deadlock.

A Council statement late Wednesday condemned Assad's forces for attacking civilians and committing human rights violations. It called on Syrian authorities to immediately end all violence and launch an inclusive political process that will allow the Syrian people to fully exercise "fundamental freedoms ... including that of expression and peaceful assembly."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the statement "demonstrates the rising international concern at the unacceptable behavior of the regime and shows that President Assad is increasingly isolated."

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called the statement "a turning point in the attitude of the international community" and said Syria must now halt the attacks and implement reforms.

About 1,700 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in mid-March, according to tallies by activists.

Authorities in Syria blame the unrest on a foreign conspiracy and armed extremists seeking to destabilize Syria, as opposed to true reform-seekers.

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

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Syrian army kills 80 people storming Hama (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian tanks firing shells and machineguns stormed the city of Hama Sunday, killing at least 80 civilians in a move to crush demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, rights activists and residents said.

Assad's forces began their assault on the city, scene of a 1982 massacre, at dawn after besieging it for nearly a month. The state news agency said the military entered Hama to purge armed groups "shooting intensively to terrorize citizens."

A U.S. embassy official dismissed the official account, saying Syrian authorities had begun a war against their own people by attacking Hama. Britain and France, which had led European overtures toward Assad, also condemned the assault.

"It is desperate. The authorities think that somehow they can prolong their existence by engaging in full armed warfare on their own citizens," U.S. Press Attache J.J. Harder told Reuters by telephone from Damascus. He described the official Syrian description of the violence as "nonsense."

The Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah said the civilian death toll in Hama had risen to 80. The independent group cited medical officials and witnesses in its report.

Syrian authorities have expelled most independent journalists since the unrest began in March, making it difficult to verify reports of violence and casualties.

Hama has particular significance for the anti-Assad movement since Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, sent in troops to smash an Islamist-led uprising there in 1982, razing entire neighborhoods and killing up to 30,000 people in the bloodiest episode of Syria's modern history.

The current unrest has pitted primarily demonstrators from the Sunni Muslim majority against Assad's minority Alawite sect, which dominates the security services and ultra-loyalist army divisions commanded by Assad's feared brother Maher.

BID TO CRUSH PROTESTS BEFORE RAMADAN?

Some critics said Assad's assault on Hama suggested an attempt to stamp out unrest before Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month where people refrain from food and drink between dawn and dusk, begins Monday.

"Assad is trying to resolve the matter before Ramadan when every daily fasting prayer threatens to become another Friday (of post-prayer protests). But he is pouring oil on a burning fire and now the Hama countryside is rising in revolt," said Yasser Saadeldine, a Syrian Islamist living in exile in Qatar.

He said the attack on Hama marks a significant escalation in Assad's reliance on the military to stifle dissent.

"Assad has chosen to dig deeper into the security option, especially with a retreat in the tough international and regional stances against the regime," Saadedine told Reuters.

European Union governments planned to extend sanctions against Assad's government Monday by slapping asset freezes and travel bans on five more people. The EU has already imposed sanctions on Assad and at least two dozen officials and targeted military-linked companies in Syria.

A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said reports of violence inflicted on peaceful protesters were "appalling," calling on Assad to desist from attacks now and pursue meaningful democratic change.

The U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, visited Hama earlier this month in a gesture of international support for what he described as peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations.

Hama residents said tanks and snipers were firing Sunday at unarmed residential districts where inhabitants had set up makeshift roadblocks to try and stop their advance.

They said that irregular Alawite "shabbiha" militia accompanied the invading forces in buses.

Citing hospital officials, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier that the death toll in Hama was likely to rise, mentioning that dozens were badly wounded in the attack.

A doctor, who did not want to be further identified for fear of arrest, told Reuters that most bodies were taken to the city's Badr, al-Horani and Hikmeh hospitals.

Scores of people were wounded and blood for transfusions was in short supply, he said by telephone from the city, which has a population of around 700,000.

"Tanks are attacking from four directions. They are firing their heavy machineguns randomly and overrunning makeshift road blocks erected by the inhabitants," the doctor said, the sound of machinegun fire crackling in the background.

The state news agency said military units were fighting gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns.

Another resident said that in Sunday's assault, bodies were lying uncollected in the streets and so the death toll would rise. Army snipers had climbed onto the roofs of the state-owned electricity company and the main prison, he said.

Tank shells were falling at the rate of four a minute in and around north Hama, residents said. Electricity and water supplies to the main neighborhoods had been cut, a tactic used regularly by the military when sweeping into restive towns.

The Alawites have dominated Syria, a majority Sunni Muslim country, since the Baath Party took power in a 1963 coup.

In 2000, Assad succeeded his late father, keeping the autocratic political system he inherited intact, while expanding the Assad family's share of the economy through monopolies awarded to relatives and friends.

Opposition sources said Sunday that secret police personnel had arrested Sheikh Nawaf al-Bashir, head of the main Baqqara tribe in the rebellious province of Deir al-Zor.

Bashir, who commands the allegiance of an estimated 1.2 million Baqqara, was abducted in the Ein Qirsh district of Damascus Saturday afternoon, they added.

Hours before his arrest Bashir told Reuters he was striving to stop armed resistance to a military assault on the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor and convince inhabitants to stick to peaceful methods, despite killings by security forces.

INSPIRATION: ARAB SPRING

Assad is trying to choke off an uprising that broke out in March, inspired by the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and has spread across many areas of Syria.

Unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, however, there has been no swift downfall of Syria's autocratic elite because of a much harsher security crackdown on protesters and the fears of a significant number of Syrians who have not joined the unrest about possible sectarian anarchy if Assad is driven out.

In southern Syria, rights campaigners said security forces killed three civilians when they stormed houses in the town of al-Hirak, 35 km (20 miles) northeast of the city of Deraa.

Local activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added dozens of people, including three women, were arrested.

The Observatory said troops also arrested more than 100 people in the Damascus suburb of Mouadamiyah. A Western diplomat said he saw several tanks enter the suburb.

"The regime thinks it can scare people before Ramadan and make them stay home. But especially the people of Hama have shown themselves to be resilient," the diplomat said.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, once one of Assad's main allies, said in May "we do not want to see another Hama massacre," and warned the 45-year-old president that it would be hard to contain the consequences if it were repeated.

The Syrian leadership blames "armed terrorist groups" for most killings during the revolt, saying that more than 500 soldiers and security personnel have been killed.

An activist group, Avaaz, said in a report last week that Syrian security forces had killed 1,634 people in the course of their crackdown, while at least 2,918 had disappeared. A further

26,000 had been arrested, many of whom were beaten and tortured, and 12,617 remained in detention, it said.

In the east of the country, Syrian forces began an assault two days ago in a tribal oil-producing province on the border with Iraq's Sunni heartland.

Residents said at least 11 civilians were killed in Deir al-Zor Saturday and Sunday. "There are army tanks in the streets, but most of the deaths have been at the hands of Military Intelligence," one of the residents told Reuters.

The Syrian Revolution Coordination Union said 57 soldiers in Deir al-Zor, including two lieutenants and a captain, had defected to the demonstrators. It said residents had formed local committees and erected makeshift barriers to try to halt the advance of tanks and armoured vehicles inside the city.

Syrian television said an army colonel and two soldiers have been killed by armed groups in Deir al-Zor.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi and Oliver Holmes; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Gunfire, explosions erupt as Syrian city besieged (AP)

BEIRUT – Gunfire and explosions erupted Thursday in the city at the heart of Syria's anti-government uprising as soldiers launched a massive crackdown, witnesses said. Terrified residents cowered inside their homes and used mosque loudspeakers to call for blood donations to help the wounded.

Details about the siege in Homs were sketchy, as most witnesses told The Associated Press they were too scared even to look out their windows. The city has seen some of the most intense violence as the regime tries to stamp out a revolt that has lasted more than four months.

"I can see smoke billowing from the neighborhood," a witness told The Associated Press by telephone from the Bab Sbaa area of Homs, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Damascus. Heavy gunfire crackled in the background. "We cannot leave our homes."

Calls for blood donations blared from mosque loudspeakers, raising fears of mass casualties. But the gunfire was too intense for people to collect any victims.

As darkness fell, another resident said the violence had tapered off, with only intermittent cracks of gunfire. He said Syrian soldiers in personnel carriers were leaving the area.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by the government.

The regime has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted coverage, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events on the ground or casualty figures.

Activists say up to 50 people have been killed in Homs since Saturday, a wave of violence that has signaled a potentially dangerous turn in the uprising. According to witnesses and activists, much of the bloodshed has taken on sectarian overtones — a fearsome development in Syria's religiously mixed society.

Opposition figures have accused President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite regime of trying to stir up trouble with the Sunni majority to blunt the growing enthusiasm for the uprising. The protesters have been careful to portray their movement as free of any sectarian overtones.

Sectarian warfare would be a dire scenario in Syria, evoking painful memories of the worst days of the Iraq war. The Syrian regime's supporters have exploited those fears by portraying Assad as the only force that can guarantee law and order.

Human rights groups say more than 1,600 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on a largely peaceful protest movement. But authorities blame the unrest on gunmen and religious extremists looking to stir up sectarian strife.

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.

The Assad family has ruled Syria for more than four decades with Bashar, and his father, Hafez, before him, leading one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The uprising, which kicked off in mid-March, is the most potent threat the Assad family dynasty has ever faced.

On Thursday, Syrians held general strikes across several cities in what has become a weekly ritual one day before tens of thousands take to the streets for protests following Friday prayers. The strikes are part of a strategy to squeeze the economy as Assad struggles to put down the uprising.

So far, the opposition has yet to bring out the middle and upper middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses. But there will be little to prop up the regime if business comes to a halt, private enterprises go bankrupt and the government cannot pay state employees.

The violence in Syria has drawn widespread international condemnation.

On Thursday, the German Foreign Ministry said "the siege of the city of Homs" must end.

"All of the concerned population must be granted access to medical care," the statement said. "Syria must finally honor the basic human and civil rights to which it has committed itself under international law."

The United States and France both angered the regime two weeks ago when their ambassadors traveled to the central city of Hama, a bastion of opposition support.

Syria warned the envoys this week not to travel outside the capital without permission.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal dismissed the warning Thursday and said it illustrates "the isolation ... of the Syrian regime."

Nadal told an online briefing, "it is naturally part of the role of ambassadors to move around in the countries where they reside." He noted that Syria's ambassador to France can travel where she wants.

The U.S. State Department said the Syrian order reflected a government that has something to hide.

Also Thursday, a group of lawyers in the southern Syrian village of Sweida said security forces did not intervene as regime supporters attacked them.

Lawyer Alaa Saimoua said up to 60 lawyers had gathered at their office to discuss ways to protest attacks against lawyers by pro-regime gunmen known as "shabiha" that occurred few days earlier.

"We were besieged for six hours," he said. "When we tried to go out, we were attacked by shabiha who beat some lawyers and threw stones at the building, smashing its windows, all under the eyes of security forces."

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AP writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Bassem Mroue can be reached at http://twitter.com/bmroue

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Syrian opposition calls for civil disobedience (Reuters)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Syrians should wage a campaign of civil disobedience to try to force President Bashar al-Assad from power, an exiled dissident said on Saturday at a meeting in Turkey aimed at forging a united opposition.

The opposition, divided between Islamists and liberals, is holding a "National Salvation Congress" to try to unite behind the goal of ending 41 years of Assad family rule, but is struggling to agree on whether to form a shadow government.

"I'm for anything that unifies the Syrian people and helps our people inside, and unifies our ranks in confronting this illegitimate repressive regime that has usurped power and human rights," opposition figure Wael al Hafez told the meeting in Istanbul, echoing comments made by others.

"We want to raise the intensity of the peaceful confrontation by civil disobedience and to choke the regime economically and paralyze the state with the least damage."

The West has criticized Assad's crackdown on four months of protests demanding political freedoms. On Friday, his troops killed at least 32 civilians, including 23 in the capital Damascus.

Secret police killed one protester and wounded five on Saturday when they opened fire at pro-democracy demonstrators in the eastern border town of Albu Kamal near Iraq's Sunni heartland.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Turkey, said Friday's protests in Syria had been the largest yet, and Assad's repression was "troubling."

"The brutality has to stop," she said in a televised interview with a group of young Turkish people at an Istanbul coffee shop on Saturday.

LINGERING HOPE OF REFORM, RECONCILIATION

Later at a joint news conference with Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Clinton said: "Now Syria's future is up to the Syrian people, but of course the efforts by the opposition to come together to organize and to articulate an agenda are an important part of political reform."

She expressed hope that the people and Assad's government could be reconciled to work together.

"It's what the Syrian people are doing, trying to form an opposition that can provide a pathway hopefully in peaceful cooperation with government to a better future."

Davutoglu repeated warnings to Assad's government to implement reform or face being swept away by democratic forces.

"A government that does not consider the demands of its society won't survive," said Davutoglu, who had earlier urged Assad to undertake "shock therapy" reforms.

"Assad said he was going to have multi -party groups in parliament ... I hope Syria has opposition parties and that Syria has opposition parties that raise their voice," he said.

The opposition said security forces had targeted a wedding hall in Damascus where it had planned to hold a simultaneous conference, connected by video link to the one in Istanbul.

"Several martyrs are fallen and others have been arrested," said Haitham al-Maleh, a former judge who was among political prisoners released by Assad in March when the uprising began.

"The regime cannot deny us our freedoms. This state is for the Syrians, not Assad family's property," Maleh told the meeting in Istanbul of several hundred people.

Most of his audience have lived in exile for years, if not decades, and many have paid a heavy price for their dissent in previous crackdowns by the ruling Baath Party. Unlike other meetings in recent months in Turkey, some members of the opposition inside Syria managed to attend.

Assad's promises of reform have failed to quell the protests. Rights groups say some 1,400 civilians have been killed in the crackdown.

"My feeling is that the situation has reached a point of no return and the regime has also reached a point it cannot retreat after such a level of bloodshed," said Hassan Najar, an exiled Syrian originally from Aleppo, now based in Germany.

"After 41 years, the question is how can you bring together a fragmented opposition? We have had only four months and what has been achieved is a miracle."

The dissidents at the meeting appeared to fall into two camps -- Islamist and secular liberals. Splits seemed to open among them over whether to form a government-in-waiting or wait to see how the uprising unfolds, and they could opt form a united body without presuming a leadership role.

"People are demanding that the opposition speed up unifying its efforts so that people deal with it as a credible alternative," Ali Sadreddin Bayanouni, the former head of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood told Reuters.

(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Syrian protesters take aim at economy (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrians held general strikes in cities and towns across the country Thursday, part of a strategy to squeeze the economy as President Bashar Assad tries to crush a four-month-old revolt against his autocratic rule.

Security forces kept up their crackdown, however, and at least five people were killed.

The calls to strike have become a ritual every Thursday, a day before thousands take to the streets following Friday prayers. But activists said this week's response was the most widespread so far, suggesting a new momentum to the uprising.

"All the shops have closed, we have announced a general strike," said an activist in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, speaking to The Associated Press by telephone. He asked that his name not be published for fear of retribution.

Security forces in Deir el-Zour, near the border with Iraq, opened fire from their cars on thousands of protesters demanding Assad's ouster, killing at least two people. Two others were killed in the central city of Homs when security forces backed by tanks raided neighborhoods, activists said.

A Syrian soldier also was killed in Homs, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources on the ground. The circumstances of the death were not immediately clear.

The uprising has proved remarkably resilient in a country known for its brutal dictatorship, backed up by pervasive security forces and a loyal military. Although Assad's regime is shaken, it still draws from a significant base of support.

So far, the opposition has yet to bring out the middle and upper middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses. But there will be little to prop up the regime if business comes to a halt, private enterprises go bankrupt and the government cannot pay state employees.

Unlike some Arab countries that have been able to stave off unrest with their oil wealth, Syria has little to fall back on.

Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, which help organize the protests, said general strikes could attract Syrians who have been hesitant to join the uprising.

"The aim is to push more people to join the uprising in a way that does not endanger their lives," he said. "The other aim is to pressure the regime economically."

Syria has banned most foreign media and placed tight restrictions on reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently confirm accounts out of Syria.

It was difficult to determine the extent of Thursday's protests, but residents and activists said they were most pronounced in Homs, the Damascus suburb of Douma, Deir el-Zour, as well as towns in northern and southern Syria.

Some security forces attacked shops that took part in the strike in Homs, shooting up windows and setting fires, Idilbi said.

Assad is trying to crush the rebellion with a deadly government crackdown that activists say has killed some 1,600 people since the middle of March.

The government disputes the toll and blames the bloodshed on a foreign conspiracy and "armed gangs." The regime has acknowledged the need for reform, however, and has promised to enact sweeping changes, including constitutional reform.

But protesters say the gestures are empty promises.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA, a mouthpiece for the regime, said masked gunmen tried to cut roads in Deir el-Zour Thursday and forced shop owners to close their stores. It added the gunmen terrorized people and vandalized some shops whose owners refused to close.

The report also said gunmen abducted two police officers and a student in Hama.

SANA's reports often contradict witness accounts.

Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights, said the violence is proof that the regime is escalating its crackdown against anyone who dares protest and that the promises of reform were merely "ink on paper."

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

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Syrian protesters attack US embassy (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian government supporters smashed windows at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Monday, raised a Syrian flag and scrawled graffiti calling the American ambassador a "dog" in anger over the envoy's visit last week to an opposition stronghold, witnesses said.

French Embassy security guards in the capital fired in the air to hold back supporters of President Bashar Assad's regime who were also protesting the French ambassador's visit to the same city, Hama, in central Syria. Protesters smashed embassy windows and shattered the windshield of a diplomatic SUV outside the compound. The French flag was removed and replaced with a Syrian one.

"God, Syria and Bashar. The nation that gave birth to Bashar Assad will not kneel," read graffiti written outside the embassy. One witness said three protesters were injured when guards beat them with clubs. The witness asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

There was no immediate word on casualties among protesters at the American Embassy demonstration.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration will formally protest the attack and may seek compensation for damage caused when a mob breached the wall of the compound before being dispersed by Marine guards.

The official said the State Department would summon a senior Syrian diplomat on Monday to condemn the assault and demand that Syria uphold obligations to protect foreign diplomatic missions. The official said no buildings were entered and there were no injuries to embassy personnel. But the official said the attackers damaged the chancery building.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Syrian security forces were slow to respond to the attack.

The Syrian regime called the French and American ambassadors' visits to Hama last week interference in the country's internal affairs and accused the envoys of undermining Syria's stability.

The protests erupted after U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford harshly criticized the Syrian government's crackdown on a popular uprising.

Some 1,600 civilians and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say. Syria blames what it calls "armed gangs" and Muslim extremists for the violence.

Hiam al-Hassan, a witness, said about 300 people had gathered outside the French Embassy while hundreds others were at the American diplomatic compound.

"Syrians demonstrated peacefully in front of the French embassy but they were faced with bullets," said al-Hassan.

On Sunday, Ford attacked the Syrian government for allowing pro-government protests while beating up anti-regime demonstrators. The pro-Assad protests in Syria are known as "mnhebak," or "we love you."

"I have not seen the police assault a "mnhebak" demonstration yet," Ford wrote on the embassy's Facebook page. "On July 9, a "mnhebak" group threw rocks at our embassy, causing some damage. They resorted to violence, unlike the people in Hama, who have stayed peaceful."

"And how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere," he said. "I saw no signs of armed gangs anywhere not at any of the civilian street barricades we passed," Ford added.

Monday's protests coincided with government-organized talks in Damascus on possible political reforms after four months of unrest.

However the talks did not stop Syrian forces from pressing their crackdown on the opposition.

Before the embassy attacks, Syrian troops stormed the country's third-largest city with armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, a rights activist. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs, activists said.

The clashes in Homs in central Syria suggest the Assad regime will not ease its four-month-old crackdown on the opposition despite proposing some political changes.

Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa called Sunday for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by the authoritarian Assad family dynasty. But the talks, which wrap up Monday, are boycotted by the main anti-government factions and are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs to immediately end the bloodshed.

The two days of meetings, however, were seen as a major concession by Assad's regime after the most serious challenge to its rule.

In Homs, an activist in the city told The Associated Press clashes occurred after security forces on Sunday killed the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) Monday.

Street lights were turned off then troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns atop Russian-made armored personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

He said some people cowered in their bathrooms during the height of the assault. At least one person was killed and 20 wounded, the activist said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said forces pushed into parts of Homs.

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