Gadhafi forces 'in control' of oil hub

A Libyan mourner fires shots in the air at a cemetery on August 12 during the funeral of five rebels killed in the battle for the control of the oil-rich town of Brega.Fighting was reported in coastal city of al-ZawiyaRebels say they captured the town of al-Qawalish to the southA government spokesman calls the rebel efforts "weak""Tripoli is safe," spokesman says

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Rebels claimed Saturday that they were gaining traction in a series of offensives in several parts of Libya controlled by ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Heavy gunfire was heard in al-Zawiya, located about 33 miles west of Tripoli, where rebels had arrived. Rebels had entered the center of the city and managed to cut off the road to Tripoli, they said. More than 20 injured and several casualties were reported.

While the Gadhafi forces tried to defend the capital from the west, rebels announced that they had cut off an important military supply route to the south.

Sixty miles to Tripoli's south, rebels said they captured the town of al-Qawalish and pushed the Gadhafi forces to the south, toward nearby Garyan, cutting them off from the road to Tripoli. The soldiers left behind heavy artillery and ammunition, rebel field commander Adel al-Zintani told CNN.

"We captured many anti-aircraft artillery vehicles, two full fuel tankers and 106 anti-tank piercing artillery and shells," he said. Seven people were injured in the clashes, he said.

Finally, in the opposition-held port of Misrata, missile attacks by Gadhafi forces ended after rebels captured the nearby town of Tawargha, National Transitional Council spokesman Guma El-Gamaty told CNN. That city was being used by Gadhafi forces to launch missiles indiscriminately into Misrata, he said.

Rebels also took a crucial bridge that links Tawargha to Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown and loyal stronghold, he said.

A government spokesman on Saturday downplayed the rebel claims.

"Small groups of armed gangs, 50 here, 50 there, some attacked south of al-Zawiya, some attacked north of Garyan, and Tawargha, but they have very weak influence on the ground," government spokesman Musa Ibrahim told reporters. "The people's armed forces are dealing with them, they do not represent a real threat. Tripoli is safe."

Earlier, the country's deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim said government fighters had pushed the rebels away from Tawargha and back to Misrata.

Five months into the Libyan war, the rebels have won international support in their effort to oust Gadhafi.

They have been aided by NATO airstrikes that began in March after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution that ordered civilians be protected.

This week, the government accused NATO of killing 85 civilians, including 33 children, in airstrikes Monday near the embattled city of Zlitan.

NATO has said there is no evidence that the strikes killed civilians, though journalists, including CNN reporters, taken by Gadhafi's government to the site of the strikes, reported seeing bodies of women and children.

It was impossible for CNN to confirm the extent of the casualties and if they were all civilian.

Kaim on Friday criticized the United Nations for what he claimed was an organizational silence over claims that NATO has violated the mandate of the Security Council by killing civilians and conducting a naval blockade.

The comments follow a statement a day earlier by a spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon, who said the U.N. secretary-general "is deeply concerned by reports of the unacceptably large number of civilian casualties as a result of the conflict in Libya."

Ban urged "all Libyan parties" to engage with his special envoy, Abdel-Elah Al-Khatib, "and respond concretely and positively to the ideas presented to them, in order to end the bloodshed in the country," the spokesperson said.

Kaim said Ban's statement fell short without a mention of NATO.

The changing nature of who controls what was underscored Thursday by events in Washington, where the Libyan Embassy officially reopened under the control of the Transitional National Council.

"This is a message that Gadhafi can no more rule Libya," said Ali Aujali, who was accredited Thursday as head of the Libyan mission.

The State Department had ordered the embassy closed in March and expelled diplomats loyal to Gadhafi. Aujali had resigned his post as the regime's ambassador to the United States in February, and has since represented the opposition in Washington.

The United States on July 15 recognized the rebel movement based in Benghazi as Libya's rightful government.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, Jomana Karadsheh, Yasmin Amer and Kareem Khadder contributed to this report.

CNN

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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Residents: Syrian forces in border city

Lebanese and Syrian anti-Assad demonstrators protest in the Lebanese city of Tripoli on Friday.Zabadani residents had held protests calling for Assad's ousterResident: Troops round up people indiscriminatelyOn Saturday, hundreds of Syrian exiles gathered in Turkey to show unityHillary Clinton expresses support for the opposition

(CNN) -- Syrian forces moved into a city near the Lebanese border Sunday, detaining dozens of people, residents said.

Tanks rumbled in before dawn into Zabadani, about 25 miles north of Damascus.Residents of the city had called for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in several demonstrations since anti-government protests took hold of the country four months ago.

One resident, who did not want his name used for fear of reprisal, said troops rounded up people indiscriminately -- including several who were waiting by the side of a street to go to work.

The troops then set up checkpoints around the city. People, he said, are afraid to leave their homes.

Another said phone services and electricity to the city has been cut off. He too confirmed the raids and the detentions.

On Saturday, hundreds of exiled Syrian activists met in Istanbul and elected a 25-member council as they sought to declare unity in their intention to oust Assad.

The National Salvation Council, composed of independents, liberals, Islamists and members of other parties, will serve as an umbrella organization representing various factions of the Syrian opposition -- sometimes seen as fractured in their demands.

"Bashar al-Assad is finished," said Haitham al-Maleh, a political prisoner who was released from jail in March in an attempt to appease protesters. "He must leave the country, leave the power. We want to build our government, our regime, without them.

"We will move together to be one opposition ... because you know we spent 50 years under a dictatorship," he said. "The civil society in Syria is finished. Now we are building ourselves for the future."

The Syrian National Salvation conference -- attended by about 350 opposition members -- unfolded as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was also in Istanbul for meetings with Turkish officials, expressed support for the opposition.

"What's happening in Syria is very uncertain and troubling, because many of us had hoped that President Assad would make the reforms that were necessary without seeing what we're now seeing in the streets of Syria, which are government tanks and soldiers shooting peaceful demonstrators," she said.

"There must be a legitimate, sincere effort with the opposition to try to make changes," she said. "I don't know whether that will happen or not."

Some opposition members were frustrated at what they perceived as a lack of response from the international community and hoped that a united Syrian opposition would ratchet up pressure on al-Assad.

"The international community seems to be still dancing around the issue of the Assad regime losing legitimacy and that could be due to a number of reasons," said M. Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American human rights lawyer.

"I think what we're trying to do is send these reassurances to the international community that a credible, competent council or body is being formed, and that we do not have to worry anymore about a vacuum of power or a vacuum for an alternative."

He said the Syrian opposition wants world powers to choke the regime economically, politically and diplomatically "to achieve a point of no return."

A similar opposition meeting was to have taken place in Damascus but because of violence Friday, the meeting was canceled. However, two prominent activists were able to connect to Istanbul via Skype and telephone.

But despite efforts to maintain a united front, there was disagreement still over whether to push for the ouster of al-Assad or to work to promote reforms within the current framework. And a banner that read the "Syrian Arab Republic" drew the ire of the Kurdish delegation for the inclusion of the word, Arab.

Also Saturday, at least one person was killed when Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters in the eastern town of Albu Kamal, according to the activist group Local Coordination Committees in Syria.

State television said, however, that "armed groups" attacked a police station, a mayor's home and other government sites in Albu Kamal and that two policeman was killed. It said a number of guards were injured.

At least 21 civilians and one soldier were killed Friday in demonstrations. Sixteen of the fatalities occurred in Damascus and its suburbs, one in Homs, three in Idlib and one in Daraa, said Rami Abelrahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Videos that allegedly showed the funeral processions for those killed were posted Saturday on Facebook pages belonging to Syrian activists. They showed people marching on the streets, carrying coffins and chanting slogans against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Protesters echoed the demands for reforms that they have voiced for months.

CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali, Yesim Comert and Mohammed Jamjoom contributed to this report.

CNN

Syrian forces shoot dead 10 in Hama (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shot dead 10 people on Tuesday in the Syrian city of Hama, activists said, and France called on the United Nations to adopt a firm stance in the face of "ferocious armed repression."

Tanks were still surrounding Hama, days after it witnessed some of the biggest protests against Assad's rule since a 14-week uprising erupted in March.

The attacks focused on two districts north of the Orontes River, which splits the city of 650,000 people in half. Residents said the dead included two brothers, Baha and Khaled al-Nahar, who were killed at a roundabout.

Troops raided towns to the northwest of Hama near the border with Turkey in Idlib province, and authorities intensified a campaign of arrests that has resulted in the detention of at least 500 people across Syria in the last few days, rights campaigners said.

In the eastern provincial capital of Deir al-Zor, security forces arrested Ahmad Tuma, a former political prisoner and secretary general of the Damascus Declaration, a grouping of opposition figures founded in 2005 to unify efforts to transform the country into a democracy.

"Heavily armed 'amn' (security police) came to Dr Tuma's clinic and dragged him away in front of his patients," one of Tuma's friends told Reuters by phone.

Some residents of Hama, scene of a crackdown by Assad's father nearly 30 years ago, had sought to halt any military advance by blocking roads between neighborhoods with garbage containers, burning tyres, wood and metal.

Tuesday's raid by security forces and gunmen loyal to Assad followed the killings of at least three people when troops and security police entered Hama at dawn on Monday.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said the world could not stand by "inactive and powerless" in the face of the violence.

"We are hoping that the Security Council adopt a clear and firm position and we call on all the members of the Security Council to take responsibility in light of this dramatic situation with a Syrian population subjected day after day to an unacceptable, ferocious and implacable armed repression."

French MP Gerard Bapt, head of the French-Syrian Friendship Committee, told Reuters: "With the Arab League not moving and with a nation like Saudi Arabia saying nothing publicly to condemn the killings by the Syrian regime it is difficult to see international pressure rising beyond the economic."

France, unlike its European partners and the United States, says Assad has lost legitimacy to rule. But a French campaign for U.N. condemnation of the crackdown has met stiff Russian and Chinese resistance.

France's foreign minister Alain Juppe, who held talks in Moscow last week, said on Tuesday there were signs Russia was beginning to question its Syrian stance. He said he attempted to sway his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, but that Russia was still threatening to use a veto against the resolution.

The U.S. State Department said Syria's actions belied Assad's promises to launch a national political dialogue.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Syria was "going in the wrong direction" and needed to take quick action to pull back security forces, stop violence, release political prisoners and launch political talks with the opposition.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig, U.N. Security Council president for the month of July, said at the United Nations on Tuesday that discussions continued about the Council possibly issuing a resolution on Syria.

"Discussions on a draft resolution that is on the table -- presented by the European Council members including mine -- will continue," said Wittig. "We don't know yet the result but there will be continued discussions on that initiative."

Wittig said he was hoping for support from other countries in the coming "days and weeks" for the resolution.

The U.N. is also expected to start discussing on July 14 the recent decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors to report Syria's covert nuclear activities to the Security Council for possible punitive action.

Asked why there has been no international intervention in Syria like there was in Libya, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said a request from the Arab League to impose a no-fly zone on Libya was a major factor behind action there.

HAMA SYMBOLISM

"Assad may wait to see whether large-scale protests in Hama continue. He knows that using military aggression against peaceful demonstrations in a symbolic place like Hama would lose him support even from Russia and China," Syrian activist Mohammad Abdallah told Reuters from exile in Washington.

Abdallah said using tanks to attack Hama would "totally discredit" a promise made by Assad to seek dialogue with his opponents. Troops and armor were attacking villages and towns in the Jabal-al-Zawya region, north of Hama, which had been the scene of large protests against Assad's 11-year rule, he said.

Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000, sent troops into Hama in 1982 to crush an Islamist-led uprising in the city where the Fighting Vanguard, the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, made its last stand.

That attack killed many thousands, possibly up to 30,000, and one slogan shouted by Hama protesters in recent weeks was "Damn your soul, Hafez."

Authorities have prevented most independent media from operating in Syria, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and authorities.

Rights groups say Syrian security forces have shot and killed at least 1,300 civilians across the country since the protests started and arrested over 12,000.

Several troops and police officers have been killed for refusing to fire at civilians.

Authorities say 500 police and soldiers have been killed by gunmen, who they blame for most civilian deaths.

Assad has promised a national dialogue with the opposition to discuss political reform in Syria, which has been under the iron rule of the Baath Party for nearly 50 years. Many opposition figures reject dialogue while the killings and arrests continue.

(Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage and Erika Solomon, Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Robert Woodward)

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Afghan war's deadly toll on US forces hasn't eased (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan – Despite U.S. reports of progress on the battlefield, American troops were killed in the first half of this year at the same pace as in 2010 — an indication that the war's toll on U.S. forces has not eased as the Obama administration moves to shift the burden to the Afghans.

While the overall international death toll dropped by 14 percent in the first half of the year, the number of Americans who died remained virtually unchanged, 197 this year compared with 195 in the first six months of last year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Americans have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting as the U.S. administration sent more than 30,000 extra troops in a bid to pacify areas in the Taliban's southern heartland and other dangerous areas. U.S. military officials have predicted more tough fighting through the summer as the Taliban try to regain territory they have lost.

President Barack Obama has begun to reverse the surge of American forces, ordering a reduction of 10,000 by the end of the year and another 23,000 by September 2012. But the U.S. military has not announced which troops are being sent home, or whether they will be withdrawn from any of the most violent areas in the south and east.

Rear Adm. Vic Beck, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Kabul, said he couldn't comment specifically on the U.S. death count, but noted that the casualties were unchanged despite the surge in forces. He attributed the overall decline in the international toll to coalition progress on the battlefield, including the discovery of a rising number of militant weapons caches. He also said Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead, although recent violence has raised concerns about their readiness to secure their own country.

Beck said insurgents were shifting their focus to attacking civilians, pointing to last week's attack against the Inter-Continental, a luxury hotel in Kabul, that left 20 people dead, including the nine assailants.

"The enemy is taking the fight more to innocent Afghan civilians because we're taking it to them pretty hard on the battlefield," he said.

According to the AP tally, 271 international troops, including the Americans, were killed in the first half of the year — down 14 percent from the 316 killed in the first six months of last year.

With the American deaths virtually unchanged, the decline reflects a drop off in deaths of troops from other contributing nations. In the first half of the year, 74 of these troops — from countries like Britain, France and Australia — died compared with 121 in the first six months of last year.

In the most recent deaths, NATO said two coalition service members were killed in roadside bombings — one Saturday in the west who was identified as an Italian, and another Friday in the south whose nationality was not available.

By contrast, a recent U.N. report found that May was the deadliest month for civilians since it began keeping track in 2007, and it said insurgents were to blame for 82 percent of the 368 deaths recorded. The U.N. does not usually release monthly civilian casualty figures but said it was compelled to do so in May because of the high number.

The Taliban have denied targeting civilians and insist coalition claims that insurgents have suffered heavy losses at the hands of foreign troops are false.

Monthly death tolls of foreign forces have varied so far this year, but they fell dramatically in June.

Overall, 65 international troops, including Americans, died last month. That's down 37 percent from the 103 who died in June 2010 — the deadliest month on record for foreign forces. More than 25 died last month in Helmand province in the south where fierce fighting continues in some hot spots, the AP tally showed.

"In the areas that we believe were pretty secure, there has been very little violence," U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Toolan Jr., the commander in Helmand province, said at a recent Pentagon briefing. He said he's still concerned about northern districts like Gereshk and Sangin.

He said his forces are working with their Afghan partners to try to keep hold of security gains made in recent months.

"I'm pretty sure, pretty confident we'll be able to do that, but it won't be without a fight," Toolan said. "But it will not be as big a fight, in my estimation, as it has been in the past."

Underscoring the dangers, a roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying a family Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing all 13 on board — the deadliest incident in a string of attacks since Friday that killed 18 civilians, according to Afghan officials.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, saying in a statement that "bombings that kill innocent civilians are the work of people who don't want the nation to have a life without sadness."

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Syrian forces kill 24, protesters tell Assad to go (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces killed 24 civilians on Friday, a prominent rights lawyer said, as tens of thousands of people called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down in some of the biggest demonstrations since a three month uprising.

Defying Assad's military crackdown, demonstrators took to the streets again after Friday prayers across the country, from towns near the western Lebanese border to the desert regions near Iraq in the east.

"Bashar get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a YouTube video taken by resident.

Encouraged by the widening protests, prominent opposition figures plan to convene a 'national salvation' conference in Damascus on July 16 to reach a broad based blueprint for solving Syria's political crisis.

"In light of the military solution chosen by the regime to end the revolution, the conference aims to reach a consensus guided by the popular protest movement for a transitional period and a national salvation government that lays the foundation for a new constitution and free elections," said a statement by the organizers, which was sent to Reuters.

The statement was signed by 50 figures, including Kurdish leader Mishaal al-Tammo, former judge Haitham al-Maleh, Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal leader from the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, economist Aref Dalila, a fierce critic of the Assad's family's involvement in business and Walid al-Bunni, a physician who played a major role in a movement for democracy crushed by Assad ten years ago known as Damascus Spring.

With an intensifying security campaign that rights campaigners said resulted in arbitrary arrests of over 1,000 people over the last week alone, organizers said the conference would be far more difficult to convene than a meeting of intellectuals allowed by the authorities last week that gave a rare platform to several opposition figures.

Lawyer Razan Zaitouna told Reuters by phone that the 24 dead included seven protesters in the central city of Homs, scene of widening protests against Assad and 14 villagers in the northwestern province of Idlib, where troops backed by tanks and helicopters have been storming villages to subdue dissent.

The assaults concentrated on the northern section of Jabal al-Zawya region, home to 15,000 people, many of whom are trying to flee to Turkey, which already has 10,000 refugees from attacks in Idlib earlier this month.

"Troops have heavily blocked the roads leading out of Jabal al-Zawya and only tens of people have made it to Turkey. The roads are also dangerous because there is random gunfire from helicopters and tanks," a resident of the region said.

In the city of Hama, video footage appeared to show tens of thousands of protesters massed in a central square. Witnesses and activists said demonstrators in Hama and in Kurdish eastern areas carried red cards, employing a soccer symbol to demand Assad's "sending off."

Authorities have banned most international media from operating in Syria since the outbreak of the protests in March, making it difficult to verify reports from activists and authorities.

State television said gunmen had fired on security forces in Homs in several other towns, wounding two of them.

In the old Homs district of Bab Sbaa, a witness said several armored vehicles deployed and soldiers fired at protesters from road blocks set up in main streets in the city of one million.

Another activist in Homs said troops surrounded a private hospital in Bab Sbaa and several wounded people rushed to another hospital on the outskirts of the city where security forces were not present.

ASSAD "RUNNING OUT OF TIME"

Protesters have taken to the streets for 14 weeks to protest against Assad in unrest which has claimed the lives of around 1,300 civilians, with security forces arresting over 12,000 people and shooting security personnel who refused to fire on civilians, according to rights groups.

Authorities say 500 police and soldiers have been killed by gunmen they also blame for most of the civilian deaths.

Alongside the military crackdown, Assad has promised a national dialogue on political reforms.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "disheartened" by reports of continued violence near the Syrian border with Turkey. Monday's meeting in Damascus, she said, was not enough on its own to address demands for reform.

"It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time," she said during a visit to Lithuania.

"They are either going to allow a serious political process that will include peaceful protests to take place throughout Syria and engage in a productive dialogue with members of the opposition and civil society, or they're going to continue to see increasingly organized resistance."

Around 100 people crossed over into Lebanon early on Friday, witnesses said. Thousands have fled to Lebanon during the three months of unrest, but many have returned and it is unclear how many remain in Lebanon.

Syrian television showed a pro-Assad demonstration of around 100 people in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, and state media reported several other large gatherings organized by the authorities on Thursday which they said expressed support for Assad's proposed reforms.

The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Assad and his top officials in response to the violent repression of the protests.

On Wednesday the U.S. Treasury Department said it was also imposing sanctions against Syria's security forces for human rights abuses and against Iran for supporting them.

The Treasury named the four major branches of Syria's security forces and said any assets they may have subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen and that Americans are barred from any dealings with them.

Damascus and Tehran both deny Western accusations that Iran has supported the crackdown on Syrian protesters.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Vilnius; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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Anti-Gaddafi Forces Distrustful of Western Reporters (Time.com)

As the push to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi has stalled, journalists have increasingly borne the brunt of the frustrations of Libya's rebels. Although the foreign press was eagerly welcomed just months ago, reporters in rebel-controlled areas have recently been harassed and intimidated. Officials of the rebel-led National Transitional Council (NTC) have steadily begun to treat correspondents as hostile elements: some have been prohibited from filming bomb scenes; others have been accused of being spies.

In several incidents in the months following the February uprising against Gaddafi, rebels have prevented journalists from recording events they consider embarrassing. For example, when a skirmish erupted in March after one fighter ordered another to stop firing an antiaircraft gun outside the town of Brega, which is about 130 miles (210 km) west of the rebel capital, Benghazi, other rebels kept correspondents from filming the incident. On another occasion, journalists were prevented from photographing a rebel who accidentally shot himself in April near Ajdabiyah, approximately 95 miles (155 km) west of Benghazi. (See TIME's video "Colonel Gaddafi's Camera-Ready Victory Celebrations.")

In Benghazi, reporters face similar restrictions. In April, a man barged into a press conference featuring the rebels' military chief of staff, Abd al-Fattah Yunis, and accused the former Gaddafi loyalist of persecuting the Libyan people for 40 years. After the intruder was rushed from the conference hall, journalists were barred from following him and were forced to remain in the room. In June, rebels prevented reporters from filming a car that exploded in a hotel parking lot in Benghazi.

In recent weeks the NTC has intensified pressure on journalists, with most of the intimidation occurring in the rebel enclave of Misratah, 117 miles (188 km) from Tripoli, the capital. Officials there accused reporters of being "spies" and working for "outside powers." They prevented journalists from traveling to the front and began vetting them, even though the reporters had already registered with the NTC Media Center in Benghazi and had been approved to work in all rebel-controlled areas of Libya. Suspicion has fallen particularly heavily on those correspondents from non-English-speaking countries, because Misratah's officials cannot read their foreign-language articles on the Internet. A Polish correspondent was accused of not being a "real" journalist because he took a number of pictures and no one there could understand his published pieces.

Officials in Misratah have stipulated that foreign correspondents can use only "approved" translators, a condition the NTC has not imposed in other areas under its control. In addition, journalists are being hassled about the subject of their articles. In June, one correspondent asked a media official to help arrange meetings with prisoners captured from Gaddafi's forces; the official chastised him and suggested that he instead visit civilian amputees wounded by Gaddafi fighters. When asked why he was muzzling coverage, the official responded, "I am the new Gaddafi! I control everything here!" Another writer was accused of being a spy because his questions had vexed a Misratah official. (See TIME's photo-essay "Scenes from the Battle for Libya.")

Some NTC officials sought to discount events in Misratah by blaming battlefield conditions. "There is paranoia in Misratah because Gaddafi is making a serious push lately," explains Jalal al-Galal, the council's media-committee spokesman. "When Misratis become agitated, they lash out at the first target they find, and that is foreigners."

Privately, NTC officials concede that the actions of their counterparts in Misratah are somewhat justified. "We can't discount that Gaddafi has spies operating in our midst," says a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We have an open environment where people come and go. And being a journalist affords the best cover to provide information." The rebels have already apprehended foreigners they believe were working for Gaddafi. In May they detained a group of French security contractors, claiming they were relaying military information to Gaddafi's forces in Tripoli.

Others, however, believe the problem lies with Libyans' unfamiliarity with Western journalistic standards. "Many here just don't understand how journalists behave," says Salah al-Senoussi, a professor of political science. "We never had a free media. For the last 40 years, the papers and television have been telling us how great our political system was, and no journalists ever challenged this farce. This is the legacy of Gaddafi. When journalists challenge the politicians, they believe there is some hidden agenda. Journalists are seen as enemies because they want information politicians don't want to give up."

And with Western reporters eager to learn why the rebels are faltering at the front and how they plan to resolve the dilemma, the NTC's frustrations with journalists are not likely to subside anytime soon.

(See TIME's photo-essay "The Libyan Conflict.")

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NATO warships fire on Gaddafi forces (Reuters)

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – NATO warships off the Libyan coast fired on government forces near the strategic town of Zlitan where they are blocking rebels from advancing on the capital, a rebel spokesman said on Wednesday.

More than 90 days into a NATO bombing campaign, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is refusing to relinquish power, leaving Western states counting on a combination of rebel advances on Tripoli and an uprising in the city itself to dislodge him.

"Last night, NATO struck from the sea at Gaddafi's forces positioned in the coastal area," a rebel spokesman inside Zlitan, who identified himself as Mabrouk, told Reuters.

"The (pro-Gaddafi) brigades are preparing for the next days. They have stepped up deployment here. They have brought several rocket-launchers. The number of checkpoints is also growing. The situation is getting more difficult."

There was no immediate confirmation from NATO that its warships had been in action off the town. Zlitan is about 140 km (90 miles) east of Tripoli and lies between the capital and the rebel-held city of Misrata.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, whose country is one of the biggest contributors to the NATO campaign, said an International Criminal Court ruling this week to issue a warrant for Gaddafi's arrest showed he was running out of options.

"Support for the regime within Libya is being eroded as we and our allies intensify the military, political and diplomatic pressure upon it," Hague told the British parliament.

"This (decision by the court) confirms that there can be no future for the Gaddafi regime leading Libya, and that any of its adherents who do not want to be associated with human rights violations should abandon it."

CONTRACT REVIEW

Before the conflict, many companies and governments courted Gaddafi to try to win lucrative contracts, especially those giving access to the country's plentiful oil.

An official with the rebel leadership said if it came to power, it would review all contracts signed under Gaddafi.

"If there appears to be proof of commissions or financial corruption we will consider ourselves free from them (the contracts)," Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the rebel National Transitional Council, told reporters in Paris.

Gaddafi's officials say the NATO campaign is an act of colonial aggression aimed at stealing Libya's oil. They have also dismissed the international arrest warrants, saying the court was a tool of the West.

Libyan state television said 15 people were killed when NATO air strikes hit a vegetable market on Tuesday in the town of Tawergha, south of Misrata.

A NATO spokesman denied the report, saying the alliance had not engaged any targets in Tawergha on Tuesday.

FITFUL PROGRESS

Libya's conflict began four months ago when thousands of people rebelled against Gaddafi's rule. It has since turned into the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" uprisings that have been sweeping through the Middle East.

For the last several weeks, advances by the rebels toward Tripoli have been fitful, a source of frustration for some Western governments who had hoped to see a swift and decisive conclusion to the conflict.

Gaddafi remains entrenched in the capital while rebel fighters are struggling to break out of their main stronghold in the east, and in the west they are hemmed into the small pockets of territory which they control.

A French military spokesman confirmed a newspaper report that Paris had bolstered rebel forces in the Western Mountains region, south-west of Tripoli, by dropping weapons and munitions to them by parachute.

Rebel fighters in the same region scored a tactical victory on Tuesday when they salvaged weapons from a government arms depot after it had been bombed by NATO.

A Reuters photographer saw a convoy of rebels drive away from the depot, about 20 km southeast of the town of Zintan, with their pick-up trucks loaded with cases of ammunition and towing anti-aircraft guns.

On Sunday, rebels in the region made their biggest breakthrough in weeks to reach the outskirts of the town of Bir al-Ghanam, about 80 km south of Tripoli.

However, Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi, speaking after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, dismissed any talk of rebel advances. "The situation in the Western Mountains is good and is under control," he said.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Lutfi Abu-Aun in Tripoli, John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Anis Mili in Arrujban, Libya and Keith Weir in London; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Syrian forces kill 15 protesters, activists say (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian security forces shot dead at least 15 people on Friday after tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, witnesses and activists said.

"Tell the world Bashar is without legitimacy," shouted several thousand protesters in the Damascus suburb of Irbin, the chants audible in a phone call to a witness at the protest.

The Local Coordination Committees, a main activists' group, said it had the names of 14 civilians killed in the merchant city of Homs, the impoverished town of Kiswa south of Damascus and in the residential district of Barzeh in the capital.

Another protester was shot dead in the town of Qusair, a rights group said.

Syrian state television blamed the killings in Barzeh on armed men who authorities say are behind the violence in the three-month uprising, and said members of security forces were wounded. Syria has expelled most foreign journalists making it hard to verify witness accounts or official statements.

"The security police first used teargas then they started shooting from rooftops when shouting against Assad continued," a Barzeh resident who gave his name as Hussam said by phone. "Three youths were killed and I saw two bodies shot in the head and the chest."

In the central cities of Homs and Hama, protesters shouted "the people want the downfall of the regime," while in Deraa, cradle of the uprising, people waved banners rejecting Assad's promise in a speech this week to launch a national dialogue.

Deraa protesters chanted slogans urging people in Damascus, which has seen fewer demonstrations than rural protest centers, to follow their lead. "People of Damascus, here in Deraa we toppled the regime," they chanted.

Protests also erupted in western coastal cities and eastern provinces near Iraq. Syrian troops swept to the northern border with Turkey on Thursday, prompting another 1,500 refugees to flee across the frontier into camps which Turkish officials say now host more than 11,000 refugees.

Syrian television said on Friday army units were "completing their deployment" in border villages. It said there had been no casualties during the operation and that soldiers were greeted with traditional welcomes of flowers and rice by residents.

Assad's repression of the protests, in which Syrian rights groups say more than 1,300 civilians have been killed, has triggered Western condemnation and a gradual escalation of U.S. and European Union economic sanctions against Syrian leaders.

Syrian authorities blame Islamist militants and armed gangs for killing more than 200 police and security personnel.

On Friday the European Union announced extended sanctions against Syria, including against three commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard accused of helping Damascus curb dissent. Syria denies Iran has played any role in tackling the unrest.

Four Syrian officials were also targeted, bringing to 34 the number of individuals and entities on the list which already includes Assad and his top officials.

Despite strong rhetoric among against Assad from Western leaders, there has been no suggestion they plan to go beyond economic sanctions to tougher action such as the military intervention launched against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

WASHINGTON WORRIED

The United States, which has also imposed targeted sanctions on Syrian officials, said a reported Syrian army move to surround and target the town of Khirbat al-Joz just 500 meters (yards) from the Turkish border was a worrying development.

"Unless the Syrian forces immediately end their attacks and their provocations that are not only now affecting their own citizens but (raising) the potential of border clashes, then we're going to see an escalation of conflict in the area," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

The crackdown has caused a crisis in Assad's once-warm relations with Turkey, which has become strongly critical.

Clinton said she had discussed the situation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and President Barack Obama had discussed it with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

Davutoglu, who said Erdogan would speak to Assad on Friday, talked to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on Thursday and Ankara summoned the Syrian ambassador.

In an apparent easing of Ankara's criticism, Davutoglu said Assad's speech contained "positive elements in it as signals of reform," but said it was important that action followed.

At the border, only a few Syrian troops were visible on Friday, some occupying a building on a hill overlooking the border, directly across from the Turkish village of Guvecci.

Three Syrian soldiers were manning a sand-bagged machinegun post on top of a house in the Syrian border village of Khirbat al-Joz. Camps on the Syrian side of the border fence appeared deserted and no more refugees were crossing.

The United States has steadily sharpened its rhetoric toward Assad, saying he is losing credibility and must either implement promised reforms or get out of the way.

Protests have grown in northern areas following military assaults on towns and villages in the Jisr al-Shughour region of Idlib province, west of Aleppo, that sent more than 10,000 people fleeing across the 840-km (520-mile) border with Turkey.

Syrian television said hundreds of people were heading back to Jisr al-Shughour. A refugee who said he was at Yayladagi camp said on Thursday a delegation of notables from the city told people it was safe to go back, but that refugees told them there would be "no return until the fall of the (Assad) regime."

Syria, a mostly Sunni nation of 20 million with Kurdish, Alawite and Christian minorities, is vulnerable to sectarian tensions. Assad belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and his opponents say he increasingly relies on loyalist Alawite troops and irregulars known as 'shabbiha'.

(Additional reporting by Omer Berberoglu and Umit Bektas in Guvecci, Turkey, Simon Cameron-Moore and Ibon Villelabeitia in Ankara, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Syrian forces prevent refugees fleeing to Turkey (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces swept through a northwestern border region Sunday to stem an exodus of refugees to Turkey that is raising international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, witnesses and a rights activist said.

Syrian human rights campaigner Ammar al-Qurabi also accused pro-government forces of attacking people who were helping the refugees as they tried to escape from a widening military assault to crush protests against Assad's autocratic rule.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross was due in Damascus Sunday to discuss expanding its relief effort with Syrian officials.

The latest assault followed the biggest protests across Syria Friday in four months of anti-Assad unrest, despite his clampdown on public dissent. Security forces shot dead up to 19 protesters Friday, rights campaigners said.

Assad will make a speech Monday about "current circumstances," the state news agency said, his first speech since April 16 and only his third since the start of the violence.

Authorities blame the violence on armed groups and Islamists, backed by foreign powers. Syria has barred most international journalists, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.

Qurabi said troops and gunmen loyal to Assad had blocked roads leading to the Turkish frontier in the rich arable region of Jisr al-Shughour, leaving thousands stranded.

"The Syrian army has spread around the border area to prevent frightened residents from fleeing across the border to Turkey," he told Reuters.

People trying to help had come under attack around the small town of Bdama near the Turkish border which Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to Assad stormed Saturday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said.

"Militiamen close to the regime are attacking people in Bdama and the surrounding areas who are trying to deliver relief and food to thousands of refugees stuck along the border and trying to flee," said Qurabi.

Qurabi's comments could not be independently confirmed, but a local resident backed up his account.

"There are roadblocks everywhere in Bdama to prevent people from fleeing but villagers are finding other routes through valleys to escape to the Turkish border," said Omar, a farmer from Bdama who managed to reach the border area.

Witnesses said pro-Assad forces were firing randomly, ransacking houses and burning crops in Jisr al-Shughour, an area known for its apple groves, olive trees and wheat.

"We received no bread today. There was one bakery operating in Bdama but it has been forced to shut. The 'shabbiha' (Assad's gunmen) are shooting randomly," one refugee, a carpenter who gave his name as Hammoud, told Reuters by telephone.

"One man in Bdama was injured today and we managed to smuggle him to hospital in Turkey. But many fear getting shot if they attempt to cross the border," the refugee added.

Bdama is one of the nerve centers providing food and supplies to several thousand other Syrians who have escaped the violence from frontier villages but chose to take shelter in fields on the Syrian side of the boundary.

TURKISH STRAINS

The number of refugees who have crossed into Turkey from Syria has reached 10,114, and another 10,000 are sheltering by the border just inside Syria, according to Turkish officials.

Sunni Muslim Turkey, seeking to restore its regional role, has improved its ties with Assad, who belongs to Syria's minority Alawite sect, and backed his drive to seek peace with Israel and improve relations with the United States.

But the mass killings of Syrian Sunnis have made Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan increasingly critical of Assad.

Erdogan has warned Syria against repeating a brutal campaign of repression in the 1980s that killed thousands. He has also sent his foreign minister and the head of Turkey's land forces to tour the border refugee region in the last several days.

The International Federation for Human Rights and the U.S.-based Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies said in a statement they had verified from local sources that Syrian forces had killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages in the last few days.

Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), will arrive in Damascus Sunday for talks with Syrian officials on expanding its relief effort in the country, the aid agency said.

The two days of talks follow an appeal by the independent aid agency last week for greater access to the civilian population, including people who have been wounded or detained.

Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March.

The Syrian Observatory for human rights has said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed. Other rights campaigners said tens of security personnel had been killed by loyalist troops for refusing to shoot at unarmed civilians.

Assad has increasingly been using the military to crush protests in areas that have been agitated by the killings. Central neighborhoods in the more mixed cities of Damascus and Aleppo, where security is intense, have not seen large protests.

In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, where tens of thousands marched Saturday in the funeral of two protesters killed on Friday, activists prepared for another big rally as large army garrisons were deployed around the city's main entrances.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; editing by David Stamp and Jan Harvey)

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Syria forces storm border town near Turkey (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stormed a town near the Turkish border Saturday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said, in a persistent military campaign to crush popular revolt.

The latest assault followed another Friday of protests, which have grown in size and scope over the last three months, despite Assad's violent clampdown on public dissent. Activists said security forces shot dead 19 protesters Friday.

"They came at 7 a.m. to Bdama. I counted nine tanks, 10 armored carriers, 20 jeeps and 10 buses. I saw shabbiha (pro-Assad gunmen) setting fire to two houses," said Saria Hammouda, a lawyer living in the border town in the Jisr al-Shughour region, where thousands of Syrians had fled to Turkey after the army clamped down on the area this month.

Bdama is one of the nerve centers providing food and supplies to several thousand other Syrians who have escaped the violence from frontier villages but chose to take shelter temporarily in fields on the Syrian side of the boundary.

"Bdama's residents don't dare take bread to the refugees and the refugees are fearful of arrests if they go into Bdama for food," Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

Another witness said government troops were also burning crops on nearby hillsides in an apparent scorched earth policy.

European powers initiated a detente with Assad before the unrest to try to draw the Syrian leader away from Iran and also stabilize Lebanon..

But they now say Damascus should face tougher sanctions over the violence against demonstrators seeking more political freedoms and an end to corruption and poverty.

Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March. One group has said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

"SECURITY GRIP IS WEAKENING"S

Tens of thousands rallied across Syria Friday, defying Assad's repression and ignoring a pledge that his tycoon cousin Rami Makhlouf, a symbol of corruption among the elite, would renounce his business empire and channel his wealth to charity.

People rallied in the southern province of Deraa where the revolt began, in the Kurdish northeast, the province of Deir al-Zor near Iraq's Sunni heartland, the city of Hama north of Damascus, on the coast and in suburbs of the capital itself.

"The security grip is weakening because the protests are growing in numbers and spreading. More people are risking their lives to demonstrate. The Syrian people realize that this is an opportunity for liberty that comes once in hundreds of years," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni told Reuters from Damascus.

The Local Coordination Committees, a main activist group linked to protesters, said 10 demonstrators were killed on Friday in Homs, a merchant city of 1 million people in central Syria.

State television said a policeman was killed by gunmen.

One protester was also reported killed in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, the first to die there in the unrest.

Thousands of people turned up to a funeral of a dead protester in Deir al-Zor, chanting anti-government slogans, Abdulrahman said.

The state news agency said nine people, including civilians and police, were killed in attacks by gunmen. Syria blames armed gangs and Islamists, backed by foreign powers, for the violence.

The Syrian government has barred most international journalists from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.

Two towns on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway north of Homs were also encircled by troops and tanks, residents said, five days after the army retook Jisr al-Shughour, sending thousands fleeing across the border into Turkey.

Refugees from the northwestern region said troops and gunmen loyal to Assad known as "shabbiha" were pressing on with a scorched earthed campaign in the hill farm area by burning crops, ransacking houses and shooting randomly.

The International Federation for Human Rights and the U.S.-based Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies said in a statement that, according to local sources, Syrian forces had killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages over the last few days.

The number of refugees who have crossed over into Turkey from Syria has reached 10,114, and another 10,000 were sheltering by the border just inside Syria, according to Turkish officials.

Journalists were given a brief tour of the Boynuyogun refugee camp in Hatay, where some 3,500 people were living in 600 tents.

One refugee described how security forces clamped down on anti-Assad demonstrations.

"We wrote anti-regime slogans on the walls. Then the government reacted by erasing the slogans and they arrested the guy who tore down Assad's picture," said a 26-year-old man from Jisr al-Shughour who said his name was Mohammed.

Another refugee named Adam said security forces arrested people in the middle of the night a couple of weeks after the demonstrations.

"They came to my house ... they started hitting me with the butts of their rifles on my back and head. They said "Is this the freedom you're asking for?'"

SECURITY COUNCIL DEADLOCK

Assad has responded to the unrest with a mix of military repression and political gestures aimed at placating protesters.

He has faced international condemnation over the bloodshed, and has seen the first signs of cracks in his security forces after a clash in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this month in which the government said 120 security personnel were killed.

There have been no mass desertions from the military, but the loyalty of Sunni Muslim conscripts might waver if the crackdown on mainly Sunni protesters continues.

Assad's family and many military commanders are members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. In a spillover of the unrest into Lebanon, Sunni and Alawite gunmen clashed in the northern city of Tripoli and four people were killed.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Kardeniz in Guvecci, Yann Le Guernigou and Stephen Brown in Berlin, Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; writing by Dominic Evans and Yara Bayoumy; editing by David Cowell)

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NATO hits rebel forces in Libya (AP)

By ADAM SCHRECK and DON MELVIN, Associated Press Adam Schreck And Don Melvin, Associated Press – 2 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO said Saturday it mistakenly struck a column of Libyan rebel vehicles in an airstrike near an eastern oil town two days earlier and expressed regret for any casualties that might have resulted.

The alliance has accidentally hit rebel forces before in its air campaign to protect civilians in the civil war between Moammar Gadhafi's military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power. The rebels have also complained that NATO's strikes have not helped them gain decisive momentum against the Libyan leader's better trained and equipped military, which still has firm control over most of western Libya. The rebels control much of the east.

The alliance statement gave no figures on casualties from Thursday's airstrike, but said it regreted "any possible loss of life or injuries caused by this unfortunate incident."

NATO said its forces spotted a column of military vehicles near the frequent flashpoint town of Brega where forces loyal to Gadhafi had recently been operating and hit them because they believed they posed a threat to civilians.

"NATO can now confirm that the vehicles hit were part of an opposition patrol," the statement said.

International military forces have had some trouble in hitting government troops because of their proximity to civilians. Gadhafi's troops have also used civilian vehicles, making them difficult to distinguish from rebel forces.

Earlier Saturday, NATO accused Gadhafi's forces of using mosques and children's parks as shields for his military operations and said the Libyan leader is "brutally attacking" his people.

At least two explosions shook the capital, Tripoli, Saturday as NATO jets soared above the city, hours after Gadhafi lashed out against airstrikes in a speech Friday night, insisting "NATO will be defeated." It was not immediately clear what had been hit or if any casualties were reported.

In Brussels on Saturday, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu dismissed Gadhafi's speech as "outrageous."

The alliance, which has a mandate to protect civilians, has been ramping up the pressure on Gadhafi's regime as a four-month uprising devolved into a civil war. Though most airstrikes happen under cover of darkness, daytime raids have grown more frequent.

Libya's Health Ministry released new casualty figures that put the number of civilians purportedly killed in NATO airstrikes through June 7 at 856. The figure could not be independently verified, and previous government-announced tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.

Lungescu rejected the casualty figures.

"We are saving countless lives every day across the country," she said. "We are conducting operations with utmost care and precision to avoid civilian casualties. Civilian casualties figures mentioned by the Libyan regime are pure propaganda."

She also accused Gadhafi and his regime of "systematically and brutally attacking the Libyan people," saying government forces "have been shelling cities, mining ports and using mosques and children's parks as shields."

Lungescu's comments also countered allegations from Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, who accused NATO on Friday of a "new level of aggression" and said the military alliance has intentionally targeted civilian buildings in recent days, including a hotel and a university.

Defense officials in London on Saturday gave details of British airstrikes over the previous two days, indicating an upswing in fighting along the Tunisian border in the far west.

Maj. Gen. Nick Pope, chief of the Defense Staff's Communications Office, said British fighter jets destroyed three armed Libyan trucks and badly damaged a fourth in the mountainous region around the rebel-held city of Nalut.

Abdel Salam Othman Abou el-Qassam, speaking by phone from the operations room of rebel Western Mountain military council, said Gadhafi forces tried to advance Friday on Nalut. They cut electricity and water supplies, after pounding the city with mortar fire for several days.

The rebels blocked the advance, he said, in heavy fighting with hundreds of pro-Gadhafi fighters. Eight rebel fighters died.

A day earlier, Pope said, jets used Paveway guided bombs to destroy a convoy of four armed trucks 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Misrata. Rebels have been fighting for weeks to break out of the port city toward Tripoli, 125 miles (200 kilometers) to the west.

Officials took journalists Saturday to visit a university building that the government claims was hit by a NATO airstrike.

Students and faculty told reporters that an explosion that tore a hole in a three-story building housing classrooms and offices happened sometime midday Friday, though accounts differed on the timing.

One English-speaking student interviewed by The Associated Press was being told what to say in Arabic by a plainclothes government official standing nearby.

No one was reported injured or killed. The campus sits a few hundred yards (meters) from what appears to be a military installation. The building that was damaged was an aging concrete structure next to what students said were new university buildings under construction.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States launched the first strikes against Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO, which is joined by a number of Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31.

Senior delegates from the Arab League, the European Union and the African Union along with envoys from the U.N. and the Organization of the Islamic Conference met in Cairo to review the developments in Libya.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa said the NATO mandate is not about bringing down Gadhafi's regime and a political solution is urgently needed.

"The situation has gone beyond what was expected. It is only natural that we speed up the search for a political solution and achieving a cease-fire," he said.

___

Melvin reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Hadeel al-Shalchi in Dafniya, Libya, and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Syrian forces round up hundreds near northern town (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops rounded up hundreds of people in a sweep through villages near Jisr al-Shughour on Monday, fleeing residents said, after President Bashar al-Assad's army retook the rebellious town.

Nearly 7,000 Syrians have already fled the region around Jisr al-Shughour, seeking sanctuary in neighboring Turkey, while thousands more are sheltering close to the frontier in rural areas just inside Syria, activists say.

Monday's wave of arrests followed an army assault on the northwestern town, with troops backed by helicopters and tanks regaining control one week after authorities said 120 security personnel were killed in fighting they blamed on "armed groups."

Some residents said the killings followed a mutiny, or a refusal by some troops to shoot protesters who had joined nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to Assad's rule.

Refugees from Jisr al-Shughour, sheltering on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey, said the military was combing villages to the east of the town and arresting hundreds of men between the ages of 18 and 40, in a pattern seen in other military crackdowns since the unrest started in March.

One person who escaped from Jisr al-Shughour, called Khaled, said two mosques had been hit by tank shelling and the bodies of three fleeing residents, a man, a woman and a child laid on a road 2 km north of the town near a packing material factory.

Mustafa, a 39-year-old mason who fled on Sunday, said there were nine bodies in Jisr al-Shughour and seven on the outskirts.

"This would be a relatively light death toll," one activist in Damascus said. "The shelling and firing have been indiscriminate and we have been fearing a higher death toll,"

Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed since the start of the uprising. One group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

ARMY TAKES CONTROL

The government says the protests are part of a violent conspiracy backed by foreign powers to sow sectarian strife.

Army units "have taken total control of Jisr al-Shughour and are chasing remnants of the armed terrorist gangs in the woods and mountains," the Syrian news agency said on Sunday.

It said a soldier and two armed men were killed in clashes around the town. The army defused explosives planted on bridges and roads, and uncovered mass graves containing mostly mutilated bodies of 10 security men killed and buried by armed groups.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

A man identifying himself as a Syrian army defector, whose comments were streamed on the Internet and translated by Britain's Sky News television, said anti-government forces had set traps to delay the military advance and let people escape.

"We waited to get about 10 percent of the population out. The remaining 90 percent had already managed to leave," the man, identifying himself as Lieutenant-Colonel Hussein Harmoush, told the online Ugarit News video news channel.

Thousands of people from the town of 50,000 people, located on a vital road junction, had already fled to Turkey, about 20 km (12 miles) away, before Sunday's assault.

Turkey has grown increasingly critical of Assad in recent weeks and has now set up four camps to accommodate refugees.

In a sign of tensions between the countries, which had close trade and political ties before the crisis, supporters of Assad protested outside the Turkish embassy in Damascus on Sunday.

Turkey's Anatolian news agency said some people climbed the embassy walls and hung a Syrian flag, and Syrian security forces prevented some protesters from trying to lower the Turkish flag.

A resident said the crowd, which had earlier marched past the French and British embassies, then tore down tourist posters on the outside wall of the Turkish embassy.

France, with British support, has led efforts for the United Nations Security Council to condemn Assad's repression of the protests. Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said last week Assad had lost the legitimacy to rule Syria.

Assad, who inherited power when his father died in 2000, has offered some moves aimed at appeasing protesters, lifting a 48-year state of emergency and promising a national dialogue -- steps which have been dismissed by many activists.

The privately-owned Al-Watan newspaper said on Monday a committee formed to investigate the unrest had imposed a travel ban on the former governor of Deraa, where protests broke out on March 18, and its head of security. It said there would be "no immunity for people who committed crimes."

Residents said the army unit attacking Jisr al-Shughour was commanded by Assad's brother Maher and employed the same tactics used to crush protests in other areas.

The United States has accused Syria's government of creating a "humanitarian crisis" and urged it to halt its offensive and allow immediate access by the International Committee for the Red Cross to help refugees, detainees and the wounded.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Millership)

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Iran forces attack protesters: opposition website (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran's opposition website Sahamnews said security forces attacked pro-reform demonstrators gathering in Tehran on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the 2009 disputed presidential election.

Witnesses said thousands of security personnel were deployed in Tehran to prevent a revival of the mass anti-government rallies that erupted after the 2009 vote.

"Security forces attacked the crowd with electric batons ... in the Vali-e Asr street to disperse the demonstrators," Sahamnews said.

Another opposition website, Kaleme, said "hundreds of demonstrators" were arrested by the security forces.

Opposition websites had called for a "silent rally" to mark the vote, which reformists say was rigged to secure the hardline president's win. Authorities say the election was the "healthiest" since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The Sahamnews website also said supporters of the opposition gathered in other parts of the city.

"Shopkeepers were ordered to close down their shops ... hundreds of people have gathered in other areas of Tehran," the website said.

Opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who spearheaded protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re- election in 2009, had been placed under house arrest after calling for a rally on February 14.

Two people were shot dead at the February 14 rally, during which thousands of the opposition supporters took to the streets in defiance of a heavy security presence to back uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, that toppled their leaders.

Iran, which crushed its own anti-government protests in 2009, says uprisings in the Arab world were inspired by the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution but are worried about revival of anti-government unrest.

Iranian leaders have portrayed the Arab Spring as an "Islamic awakening," while avoiding to support the popular uprising in Syria, its most important ally in the region.

Tehran has strongly condemned military deployment by Saudi Arabia to quell unrest in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are both allied to the West.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Syrian forces attack northern town, residents flee (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian tanks and helicopters stormed the town of Jisr al-Shughour on Sunday, residents said, and state television reported heavy clashes between army troops and gunmen opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.

More than 5,000 Syrian refugees have crossed the border and a UNHCR spokesman said the Red Crescent was preparing a fourth camp with room for 2,500 more. Witnesses said some 10,000 Syrians were sheltering near the border.

The assault on Jisr al-Shughour, astride a strategic road in northwest Syria, is the latest action by the armed forces to crush demands for political freedom and an end to oppression that pose an unprecedented challenge to Assad's 11-year rule.

Residents said earlier that most of the town's 50,000 people had fled toward the Turkish border about 20 kms away and tanks and helicopters were shelling and machinegunning the town.

Damascus has banned most foreign correspondents from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

"Heavy confrontations are raging between army units and members of armed organizations taking up positions in the surroundings of Jisr al-Shughour and inside it," state television said.

Army units defused bombs and explosive charges planted by gunmen on bridges and roads into the town, it said. "Two members of the armed organizations were killed, large numbers of them arrested, and lethal weapons in their possession were seized."

State television said the forces uncovered mass graves of security men killed and buried by armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour and said their bodies bore marks of "atrocities." It did not give details.

The government said last week that "armed gangs" had killed more than 120 security personnel in the town after large demonstrations there. Refugees and rights groups said the dead were mutinous soldiers, shot for refusing to fire on civilians.

"When the massacre happened in Jisr al-Shughour the army split, or they started fighting each other and blamed it on us," a woman refugee, who refused to give her name, told Turkish news channel NTV.

MOST RESIDENTS LEFT

A senior Western diplomat in Damascus told Reuters: "The official version is improbable. Most people had left Jisr al-Shughour after seeing the regime's scorched earth policy, shelling and the heavy use of armor in the valley."

"The refugee exodus into Turkey is continuing and the numbers are higher than those officially counted so far."

Asked if there were clashes in the town Mustapha, a 39-year-old mason who fled early on Sunday, told Reuters "What clashes? The army is shelling the town from tanks. Everyone has been fleeing.

"Even if we did have guns, what are they going to do in front of artillery? Syria is a tightly controlled dictatorship and all of a sudden the regime says Jisr al-Shughour is armed to the teeth. They are lying. They are punishing us for wanting freedom."

Residents said the army unit was commanded by Assad's brother Maher and was copying the tactics used in other centers to crush protesters demanding an end to Assad's autocratic rule.

The United States accused the Syrian government of creating a "humanitarian crisis" and called on it to halt its offensive and allow immediate access by the International Committee for the Red Cross to help refugees, detainees and the wounded.

Turkey has provided camps for refugees and sent the wounded to hospitals, but restricted access to the refugees, saying this is to protect their privacy.

Bassam, a tiler who fled to Turkey as troops approached the town, showed mobile phone camera footage of a dead man, between 18 and 25 years old, with a bullet wound in his leg, and a large exit wound in his stomach. He lay on a bloodied cloth.

Another picture showed a young man who had been shot in the head. He said the two were killed just outside Jisr al-Shughour by troops under the command of Maher.

"There are only a few people left. I escaped on my motorcycle through dirt tracks in the hills," he told Reuters.

He said troops burned wheat crops in three villages near Jisr al-Shughour in a scorched-earth policy aimed at crushing the resistance of protesters in the area.

Other refugees said troops killed or burned cows and sheep and burned crops on farmland around the village of Sarmaniya, south of Jisr al-Shughour.

The state news agency said "armed terrorist groups" had burned land in Idlib province as part of a sabotage scheme.

Human rights groups say security forces have killed more than 1,100 Syrian civilians in increasingly bloody efforts to suppress demonstrations calling for Assad's removal, political freedom and an end to corruption and poverty.

The Syrian protests were inspired by uprisings against other entrenched autocrats in the Arab world.

At the United Nations Russia and China snubbed Security Council talks called on Saturday to discuss a draft resolution condemning Syria's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, U.N. diplomats said.

Largely Sunni Muslim Turkey had backed Syria's ruling hierarchy -- members of the minority Alawite sect -- but has been increasingly critical of Assad's use of force to quell the protests.

Thousands of people were gathering on the Syrian side of the border, according to an activist helping coordinate the movement of refugees. "The border area has turned practically into a buffer zone," said Abu Fadi. "There are 7,000 to 10,000 people here now."

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Guvecci, Turkey; editing by Tim Pearce)

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Rebels, Gadhafi forces clash at Zawiya

Misrata, Libya (CNN) -- Government forces clashed with rebels in the Libyan city of Zawiya Saturday, said a rebel spokesman, one day after heavy fighting took place in the western city of Misrata.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Zawiya, spokesman Ahmed al-Hawaary told CNN. He said fighting began early in the morning. Rebels surrounded a group of forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the western part of the city, he said, adding that government forces control the eastern areas of Zawiya and the roads leading to Tripoli.

Zawiya is about 31 miles (50 kilometers) west of the capital city.

Rebels remain in control of some neighborhoods in Zawiya's city center and the west, al-Hawaary said.

The spokesman reported that NATO bombarded positions of forces loyal to Gadhafi in Zawiya, damaging equipment. It was not clear if anyone was injured or killed in those attacks, he said.

NATO intervened in March in the monthslong civil war under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians as Gadhafi tried to crush the revolt against him.

CNN could not independently confirm al-Hawaary's account of the clashes, which came one day after heavy fighting in Misrata.

Misrata has borne the brunt of the fighting in Libya for the past two months. More than 1,000 people are believed to have been killed there since early February, including 707 residents.

Fighting began there Friday at dawn and continued past midnight, leaving at least 31 people dead and more than 160 injured as rebels thwarted efforts by government forces to enter the city from the west and south.

The casualties were the heaviest in a month, said Dr. Khaled Abu Falgha with the city's Hekmah Hospital.

Relative calm returned Saturday, though rebels stepped up security at various checkpoints in the city and its outskirts. Many told CNN they feared forces loyal to Gadhafi could try to infiltrate their ranks.

Misrata is about 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Tripoli.

The Misrata rebels' media committee released a statement Saturday claiming that Gadhafi forces fired rockets on the Dafniya area, damaging farmhouses and crops. No immediate casualties were reported.

The rebels also said a number of government forces were captured and that some 300 of Gadhafi's soldiers were killed in clashes in Zlitan on Friday.

CNN could not independently confirm those claims.

CNN

Gadhafi forces kill 22 rebels in Misrata shelling (AP)

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and DIAA HADID, Associated Press Maggie Michael And Diaa Hadid, Associated Press – 1 hr 6 mins ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan government forces pounded the outskirts of the rebel-held city of Misrata on Friday, killing at least 22 people, a hospital physician said.

The doctor at Hikma Hospital, who would only give his first name, Ayman, said Moammar Gadhafi's forces used tanks, artillery and incendiary rockets in the bombardment of Dafniya, about 18 miles (30 kilometers) west of Misrata. He said at least 61 people were wounded in the attacks which began about 10 a.m. local time.

Gadhafi forces had renewed their shelling near Misrata on Wednesday. The city is one of the few footholds rebels have in western Libya and controls the country's largest port.

The doctor said residents had reported no sign of NATO aircraft in the Misrata region. There also were no reports NATO strikes in Tripoli, the capital. NATO had been pounding Tripoli and environs in recent days, stepping up backing for the four-month-old rebel uprising that seeks to oust Gadhafi from power after four decades.

Rebels have taken control of swaths of eastern Libya, although fighting has since come to a stalemate even with NATO support. Misrata remained one of the most important rebel footholds in the Gadhafi controlled west.

Government forces are surrounding Misrata on all sides but the north, where the city has access to the Mediterranean Sea for supplies and food through Libya's major port. Rebels have beaten back several government attempts to retake the city.

The Gadhafi forces are pushing back on rebel forces trying to break out of Misrata to the west toward Tripoli, where Gadhafi is increasingly cornered under NATO bombardment in the capital.

A rebel fighter in Misrata who identifies himself only as Abdel-Salem said Gadhafi's sons, Khamis and al-Moatassem, and top aid Abdullah al-Senoussi are in command of the operation in Zlitan, about nine miles (15 kilometers) from Dafinya. They are dug in trying to stop the rebel advance out of Misrata.

"The situation is very bad there. Gadhafi sent huge forces to Zlitan to fortify the city because he knows that if Zlitan falls in the hands of the rebels, the way to Tripoli will be wide open," Abdel-Salam said. "Now the ball is in the court of NATO, but we have not seen any NATO planes flying over despite the fierce battle."

According to Abdel-Salam, a bulk of Zlitan residents are Ghadafi loyalists.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin spoke of the degredation of Gadhafi's forces Friday after a classified briefing by senior Pentagon officials in Washington. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Gadhafi's military and political standing had been weakened by NATO air attacks.

Levin said administration officials offered no predictions on how long the war would last or when Gadhafi might go. He said NATO helicopters, likely British and French, have been taking out tanks without collateral damage.

Turkey's prime minister said in a TV interview broadcast Friday that his country has offered Gadhafi guarantees if he were to leave Libya but has recieved no response. He did not detail what sort of guarantees.

"He has no other option but to leave Libya, with the condition that he is given certain guarantees. That's the picture," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in the interview with the NTV channel.

"We have given him these guarantees; we said we will help you leave for wherever you would like."

In Norway, meanwhile, military officials said on Friday the country would scale down its fighter jet contribution the NATO force flying above Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by Aug. 1.

The Dutch government, however, has continue its forces' role in the NATO campaign through the end of the three month extension the alliance announced last week. It also plans to contribute a handful of new staff.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has urged NATO allies, including the Netherlands, to do more in Libya to share the burden with France and Britain, which are carrying out most of the air strikes.

The Dutch government still will not allow its six F-16 fighter jets involved in the mission to carry out airstrikes. Instead they will continue to enforce the no-fly-zone above Libya.

In addition, the government announced it will send experts in psychological operations and legal affairs to join the mission.

___

Michael reported from Cairo.

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Shooting video another blow to Pakistan's security forces (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The killing of an apparently unarmed man by paramilitary troops is likely to erode what little public confidence remains in Pakistan's security forces who have been on the defensive since Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid.

The incident, caught on video and broadcast on local television stations, triggered fresh criticism of Pakistan's human rights record and an unpopular government many say has failed to rein in the police and army, and who seem to act with impunity.

It also further dented the reputation of the powerful security establishment in this U.S. ally which has been deeply embarrassed by the fact that the al Qaeda leader was found and killed in Pakistan last month, and its subsequent failure to stop a small group of militants from besieging a key naval air base.

"It shows that our law enforcement agencies have truly become trigger happy and the brutalization of society that has come about as a consequence," Zohra Yusuf, head of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Reuters.

"It's very very disturbing and it's been happening too often."

In the footage, a plain-clothed man grabs the victim by the hair and drags him over to a group of paramilitary Rangers in the southern city of Karachi. He pleads for mercy, then one of the soldiers shoots him twice.

The man, identified as Sarfaraz Shah, falls to the ground and screams in pain. The soldiers stand beside him.

He collapses in a pool of blood beside a park named after late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was seen around the world as a symbol of democracy.

The Rangers initially described the incident as an encounter with an armed criminal, a senior police official said.

A cameraman from Awaz television channel who shot the video has received death threats from unknown people, one of his bosses said.

News of the death was splashed across the front pages of newspapers beside photographs of Shah's grieving relatives. "Karachi extra-judicial killing shocks Pakistan," read one banner headline.

The video comes a few days after a prominent journalist who had reported that al Qaeda was behind the brazen Pakistani Taliban raid on the PNS Mehran air base was tortured to death.

Suspicion immediately fell on military intelligence, which said it played no role in the killing.

The Daily Times said the military, paramilitary forces, police and intelligence agencies "who confidently violate human rights" should be held accountable for their actions.

"The security and law enforcement forces that do not respect the law themselves are inviting anarchy, which arguably is already underway," it said in an editorial.

Last year, a video emerged of two teenage brothers believed to be robbers being beaten to death before being strung up on a metal pole in broad daylight. Several policemen looked on.

The prime minister said an inquiry would be launched after the Karachi incident and the culprits punished. But increasingly frustrated Pakistanis have little faith in the government.

"What we saw on television shows that now there is the law of the jungle in this country and no one is accountable for his action or deeds. This is pathetic," said Mohammad Sultan, a retired soldier who now works as a security guard.

(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz in Karachi, Faris Ali in Peshawar and Asim Tanveer in Mingora, editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Syrian TV: Dozens of security forces killed in ambush

(CNN) -- Dozens of people were killed Monday in and around the northern Syrian city of Jisr Al-Shugur in the third consecutive day of violence there, according to reports from the government and opposition groups.

State television cited 120 security forces killed, including 82 in Jisr Al-Shugur. In addition, it said, dozens of civilians were wounded.

State television said the security forces were killed in a number of attacks: an ambush by "armed gangs" in the city, when government buildings were set afire and in clashes at a security center.

"The armed attacks targeted public and private buildings in various regions and lately there were similar attacks in Jisr Al-Shugur," Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Chaar said in a short statement on state television. "The state will deal with sternness and force within the law and we will not remain silent when it comes to any armed attack."

State television further reported that the "armed gangs" had stolen five tons of dynamite from a storage area near the Al Abyad Valley Dam.

The state security forces were facing hundreds of armed men in Jisr Al-Shugur and were trying to lift the siege of a neighborhood that had been taken over by the "gangs," state TV reported.

It said the state was sending reinforcements.

A resident of Jisr al-Shugur said earlier that the city was calm Monday, and that the clashes happened at nearby Khan Shaykhun, where 20 residents and an unknown number of security forces were killed.

He said residents were using hunting rifles.

The Syrian Revolution Facebook page said 10 helicopters were firing at civilians. The page predicted a major military incursion Monday night and appealed to residents to evacuate as soon as possible to Turkey.

An opposition member who lives outside Syria but has sources inside the country who have proved reliable in the past said the clashes over the past three days in Jisr Al-Shugur, Khan Shaykhun and surrounding villages were between members and supporters of the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood and the Syrian security forces.

He said that 90 security members and 23 opposition members were killed Monday. In addition, nine tanks were destroyed and two helicopters were downed, he said.

He said the weapons had been taken into the country from Turkey, whose border is about 20 kilometers away. The wounded, he added, were being taken to Turkey for treatment.

The man, who has asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, said Muslim Brotherhood supporters have long opposed the Syrian regime and were taking advantage of the uprising to settle their score. He further expressed concern that the brotherhood could hijack the peaceful secular uprising.

The Arabic Facebook group called the Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported that 42 people died Sunday in Jisr al-Shugur and its suburbs as the Syrian army and security forces sought to enter the city, where many of the stores have been closed in a general strike.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put Sunday's death toll at 47 -- 37 civilians and 10 security forces.

CNN was not able to confirm the reports. The Syrian government has restricted access to the country by members of the international news media and reliable information has been hard to get.

For example, two videos posted over the weekend on YouTube showed what Syrian opposition activists said was the slaughter of civilians in the besieged city of Daraa in the south of Syria. One video shows what appears to be a group of Syrian security forces standing over dead bodies, making jokes and discussing planting weapons on them.

The images included the bloody, mangled bodies of five men in civilian clothes. Men dressed in military uniforms walked around them, talking. "Show me those weapons," one said, "put them here."

Someone dropped what appeared to be weaponry onto the torso of one of the bodies.

"These are the weapons the committee will come film," a voice said.

Throughout the uprising in Syria, the Syrian government has described protesters as "armed criminals" and "terrorists," at times saying photos prove that the "criminals" were armed when security forces shot them.

The videos -- in which the bodies are bleeding from different areas -- are labeled online as having been shot April 30.

CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the videos.

CNN's Saad Abedine, Arwa Damon, Yousuf Basil and Nada Husseini contributed to this report.

CNN

Syria says 120 forces dead in tense northern town (AP)

BEIRUT – Armed men attacked Syrian security forces in a tense northern city on Monday, state television said, and 120 policemen and security forces were killed in a region where the army has carried out days of deadly assaults on protesters calling for the end of President Bashar Assad's rule.

Communications were cut to the area around Jisr al-Shughour on Monday and the details of the attack were impossible to verify, but there have been unconfirmed reports in the past by residents and activists of Syrians fighting back against security forces.

The government promised a "decisive" response, setting the stage for an even stronger government crackdown against a popular uprising that began in mid-March and poses the most potent threat in years to the 40-year regime of the Assad family.

"We will deal strongly and decisively, and according to the law, and we will not be silent about any armed attack that targets the security of the state and its citizens," said Interior Minister Ibrahim Shaar.

Jisr al-Shughour, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Turkish border, has been the latest focus of Syria's military, whose nationwide crackdown on the revolt has left more than 1,200 Syrians dead, activists say. The town was a stronghold of the country's banned Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Human rights groups said at least 42 civilians have been killed there since Saturday.

Syria's government has a history of violent retaliation against dissent, including a three-week bombing campaign against the city of Hama that crushed an uprising there in 1982. Jisr al-Shughour itself came under government shelling in 1980, when it was a stronghold of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, with a reported 70 people killed.

Monday's state television report said the officers were ambushed as they responded to calls from residents for protection from the armed groups. It said 20 policemen were initially killed, and then the groups blew up a post office and attacked a security post, killing other forces.

The report said the armed groups were hiding in homes and firing at security forces and civilians alike, using residents as human shields.

The TV reports could not be independently confirmed. The Syrian government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events.

Details of the operations in Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun have been sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful.

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso cast doubt on the government accounts.

"The protesters have so far been peaceful and unarmed," he said. Osso said there were unconfirmed reports of a few army deserters who switched sides and were fighting security forces.

Ahead of Monday's report, another activist said gunmen had successfully kept security forces out of the area, but he had no details. Fearing retaliation, the activist requested anonymity.

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