Syrians flee to Lebanon; death toll rises to 20 (AP)

BEIRUT – Hundreds of Syrians, some with gunshot wounds, have crossed into neighboring Lebanon in search of a refuge from the growing violence in their homeland, a Lebanese security official said Saturday.

Most arriving at the border came shortly after Syrian security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters across Syria on Friday. Syrian activists said 20 people were killed, including two children aged 12 and 13.

The Local Coordination Committees, a group tracking the Syria protests, said most of the deaths occurred in the Barzeh neighborhood of the capital, Damascus, and in the suburb of al-Kaswa. Others died when security forces opened fire in the central city of Homs, sending residents fleeing to the Lebanese border 20 miles (30 kilometers) away.

The Syrian opposition says some 1,400 people have been killed as the government has cracked down on a movement demanding an end to four decades of Assad family rule — a popular uprising renewed each Friday after weekly Muslim prayers.

The violence has prompted thousands of Syrians to seek a safe haven in neighboring countries. Up to 1,000 crossed Friday and overnight into northern Lebanon's Akkar region, near Wadi Khaled, a Lebanese security official said. Most crossed into the border village of Kneiseh from the Syrian village of al-Quseir, where Syrian activists said security forces fired on protesters Friday

At least six Syrians with gunshot wounds were among the arrivals, the Lebanese official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. The wounded were receiving treatment in Akkar hospitals.

The new arrivals join thousands of other Syrians who fled to Lebanon in May and early June, most during the Syrian military's crackdown on the border town of Talkalakh, a few minutes' walk from Lebanon's Wadi Khaled.

Unlike the earlier exodus, when the displaced Syrians camped out on the Lebanese side of the border, many new arrivals were staying with relatives or elsewhere in Beirut, the Lebanese official said.

The military's recent sweep through northwestern Syria, where armed resistance flared in early June, also has sent more than 11,700 refugees fleeing across the border to refugee camps in Turkey.

Defying government guns, thousands of Syrian protesters poured down city streets Friday to press demands for President Bashar Assad's ouster.

"Our revolution is strong! Assad has lost legitimacy!" a YouTube video showed protesters chanting Friday in Zabadani, a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Such reports on the protests and violence are difficult to verify independently, since Syria has barred foreign correspondents from the country and restricted reporting by local journalists.

Syria's streets have become the stage for a test of endurance between a 3-month-old pro-democracy movement, bloodied but resilient, and an iron-fisted but embattled regime. The latest round of protests and killings came as international pressure mounted on President Bashar Assad.

"We will not stand by while the Syrian regime uses violent repression to silence its own people," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said after the European Union expanded sanctions — asset freezes and travel bans — to more members of the Syrian leadership.

Yahoo! News

Over 1,500 Syrians refugees flee to Turkey (Reuters)

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – More than 1,500 Syrian refugees crossed to Turkey on Thursday, according to state-run Anatolian news agency, as the Syrian army swept up to the border in its campaign to stamp out anti-government protests.

The provincial government in Hatay said on Friday morning that the total number of refugees registered at the temporary shelter camps had reached 11,739, compared with 10,224 a day earlier. Most of Thursday's influx came from people who had set up makeshift camps just inside Syrian territory, who fled once the army appeared.

Reuters reporters in Guvecci, a Turkish village at the frontier, said the camps on the other side of the border fence appeared to be completely deserted, and they saw no more refugees crossing on Friday morning.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Yahoo! News

Syrians 'forced to attend Assad rallies'

(CNN) -- Syrian workers and students were forced to attend rallies in support of President Bashar al-Assad this week, a human rights campaigner from the country told CNN Wednesday.

Government workers were ordered to attend the rallies, said Ammar Qurabi, chairman of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

Qurabi provided CNN with a copy of what he said were leaked official government documents saying that government workers who refused to attend would have their pay docked and would be considered absent from work for the day.

CNN could not independently confirm the authenticity of the document. Syria has not responded to Qurabi's allegations.

Qurabi, who is from Syria but is currently in Egypt, says his organization received complaints from dozens of college students across the country that were forced to attend the rallies or face losing academic credits for the year.

Executives of pro-Assad corporations such as Rami Makhlouf's SyriaTel also required employees to attend the rallies by threatening to dock pay, Qurabi charged.

Syria's official news agency SANA reported Tuesday that "millions of Syrian citizens gathered in the public squares in support of the comprehensive reform program under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad."

State TV showed images Tuesday of thousands joining pro-regime rallies in Daraa, Aleppo and Homs. Some in the crowds chanted, "With our blood, with our souls, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar" and "God, Syria and Bashar only."

In addition to the pro-Assad demonstrations, fighting raged in a major Syrian city Tuesday, with at least two people killed and several others wounded, an activist group said.

Clashes erupted between protesters and security forces in Homs, according to the Local Coordination Committee in Syria, a network of activists that promotes and documents demonstrations across the country.

They occurred in al-Khalidiya neighborhood, and video said to be from the Homs unrest shows protesters running and throwing rocks and contains sounds of heavy gunfire. CNN cannot independently confirm the information.

Demonstrations critical of the government began in the southern city of Daraa months ago and were swiftly suppressed by security forces. Anti-government fervor caught on nationwide as more protests were met with tougher crackdowns.

After three months of protests, more than 1,100 have died and thousands more have been jailed, according to human rights activists.

Qurabi, the activist with the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said Tuesday that dozens of protesters were arrested the day before during peaceful anti-government demonstrations in the city of Aleppo.

The world's attention has been focused on the plight of Syrians displaced from their homes by violence.

At least 10,718 Syrian refugees, many of whom fled a military advance in and around the city of Jisr al-Shugur, have crossed the border into Turkey.

The U.N. refugee agency Tuesday said it participated in a government-sponsored mission to Jisr al-Shugur the day before, a trip that included diplomats, reporters and U.N. agencies.

"There was no evidence of people working in the fields. Jisr al-Shugur itself was almost deserted, with most shops shuttered and closed," the agency said, which "indicates significant displacement."

The agency said many people are "severely traumatized" by the ordeal.

"Syrian refugees spoke to our team about their fears and trauma. Many had lost family members, who they said were either killed, missing or in hiding. Our team heard accounts of murders, targeted assassinations, assaults, civilians getting killed in crossfire, torture and humiliation by the military," the agency said. "Most of these people had lost virtually all their belongings and property. In many cases their livestock were shot, fields were torched, and homes and businesses destroyed or confiscated."

On Monday, al-Assad offered vague promises of reform and called for refugees to go back home.

Al-Assad said he was "working on getting the military back to their barracks as soon as possible" but also warned the government would "work on tracking down everyone who shed blood or plotted in shedding the blood of the Syrian people, and we will hold them accountable."

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz contributed to this report.

CNN

Turkey plans crisis talks as Syrians pour over border

Istanbul (CNN) -- The Turkish prime minister plans to huddle with a special Syrian envoy on Wednesday in an effort help stem the growing tide of refugees racing into Turkey from conflict-wracked Syria.

The number of Syrians who've crossed the border now stands at 8,421, according to Turkey's disaster and emergency management directorate. That flight has been spurred by violence and a military offensive in the conflict-scarred country, and Turkey is worried that the border crisis could deteriorate and destabilize the region.

"It is impossible for us to remain indifferent to the developments there," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters.

"For us, the Syrians are people who have common future and destiny with us. Therefore, it is out of question to close the door to our Syrian brothers or the (refugee numbers) to stop after 10,000. However, when this turns into a big wave, it also has the potential to become a regional and an international matter."

Syrian security personnel have been carrying out a fierce crackdown against anti-government demonstrators over the past three months. Amnesty International says more than 1,100 people have died.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be meeting with the envoy, who is expected to provide an assessment of the refugee situation and the wider political unrest in Syria, an official from Erdogan's office told CNN.

The envoy represents Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the meeting follows a telephone conversation Erdogan and al-Assad had on Tuesday.

Davutoglu, who spoke to journalists at the airport in Ankara before flying to Hatay for a visit with the refugees, said Turkey hopes to initiate reforms that would alleviate the volatile conditions leading to the flight of ordinary citizens. He planned to attend the meeting between Erdogan and the Syrian envoy after his visit to Hatay.

Davutoglu said "escalating violence can increase the refugee wave" and Turkey is working on ways "to prevent escalation of violence."

His government touts a foreign policy dubbed "no problems," a strategy to promote good relations with its neighbors, and the Syrian situation has become a challenge for that policy.

Turkey fears a repeat of the enormous Kurdish refugee exodus from northern Iraq in 1991, and the country has spent the last decade promoting cozy relations and lucrative economic ties with Syria's al-Assad.

Over the last month, Erdogan began calling for reform in Damascus in a bid to curb the escalating violence.

"We hope that Syria changes its attitude towards the civilians to a more tolerant one and realize its steps for reform in a more convincing way for the civilians," Erdogan said last week, according to the semi-official Anatolian Agency.

Davutoglu said that Turkey's "wish and effort is for a process to begin at once that can prevent such a wave to continue increasingly."

He pointed to "reforms to be made as soon as possible, conditions to be eliminated that bring security forces and people against each other and to have a more peaceful approach, beyond focusing on security, in the attitude towards the civilian people. If all these were provided, the refugee wave would lessen."

Of the refugees, 4,368 are children and 73 Syrians are now being treated in Turkish hospitals, the emergency directorate said. More than 1,230 tents have been set up in a number of locations.

Actress Angelina Jolie, a longtime goodwill ambassador for the U.N. refugee agency, has submitted an application to visit the refugees in Turkey, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal confirmed to CNN by phone. He says the government is "evaluating" the request.

Many displaced Syrians have fled toward the border but have not made it over. CNN's Arwa Damon met with some of them at a makeshift campsite on Tuesday in Syria, and they described terrible conditions at the site and frightening and deadly violence.

Many of the refugees have fled from a region that includes Jisr al-Shugur, seized by the Syrian military over the weekend, a network of human rights activists said.

The Syrian government insists it is stopping "armed terrorist groups" who carried out a "massacre" in the city -- the killing 120 members of the security forces.

Opposition activists say the government's claims are a ruse to justify a crackdown on demonstrators demanding government reform, in keeping with the wave of political protests across the Middle East and North Africa this year.

But Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey said some Syrian soldiers rebelled after being ordered to fire on unarmed protesters and instead started fighting among themselves.

Syria's Cabinet on Tuesday hailed efforts by the army and security forces to restore calm in the Jisr al-Shugur area and surrounding villages, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

Adnan Mahmoud, the information minister, said the Cabinet urged citizens "who were forced to leave their homes to come back after calm and security were restored in the area," SANA said.

The minister said the Cabinet "assigned the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to contact the Turkish Red Crescent for cooperation to facilitate the Syrian citizens' return to their homes, noting that all necessary needs will be provided to secure the return, including medical aid for the patients and the injured."

CNN

Tanks deploy in east, Syrians flee northern town (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Thousands of Syrians fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape troops and tanks thrusting into the north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

In the tribal east, where Syria's 380,000 barrels per day of oil is produced, tanks and armored vehicles deployed in the city of Deir al-Zor and around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, a week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding an end to Assad's autocratic rule.

"Cars are continuing to stream out of Maarat al-Numaan in all directions," one witness told Reuters by phone. "People are loading them with everything, blankets, mattresses on roofs."

Syrian forces pushed toward the town of 100,000 that straddles the main north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria's second largest city Aleppo, after arresting hundreds of people in villages close to Jisr al-Shughour, near the border with Turkey, residents said.

The government said security had been restored in Jisr al-Shughour after fighting earlier this month in which it said 120 security personnel were killed, and urged residents who fled the military crackdown on the rebellious town to return.

Witnesses said residents assisted by deserting security forces had attacked a police compound in Jisr al-Shughour 10 days ago after police killed 48 civilians. About 60 police, including 20 deserters, were killed.

A statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday also said Syria's Red Crescent aid organization would coordinate with Turkey "to facilitate the return of Syrian citizens."

More than 8,500 Syrians have sought sanctuary in Turkey, which has set up four refugee camps across the border from Jisr al-Shughour.

A 36-year-old Syrian who gave his name as Ahmed fled with his wife and six children to Turkey after learning troops had arrived in Jisr al-Shughour, near a village where he resides.

"We came here to protect our family. We're not against them (security forces) but they fight us like we were infidels," Ahmed, sunburnt and dressed in a dirty tracksuit, told Reuters in a narrow street in the Turkish border village of Guvecci.

A Turkish Red Crescent official, who requested anonymity, said more tent camps were being prepared at the eastern end of the 800 km border, near the Turkish city of Mardin, far from where the current influx of refugees is concentrated.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said an envoy from Assad, Hassan Turkmani, would visit Turkey on Wednesday for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish leader had developed a close rapport with Assad but has grown increasingly critical of his military crackdown.

MOST RESIDENTS HAVE FLED

In Damascus, thousands of Assad supporters lined one of the capital's main thoroughfares and lifted a 2,300-meter-long tri-color Syrian flag, while waving pictures of the president.

Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed since the start of the uprising in March against Assad, whose family have ruled Syria for 41 years. One Syrian rights group, says more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

The U.N Human rights office accused Syrian security forces on Wednesday of brutally repressing protests through executions, mass arrests and torture.

Around 70 percent of Maarat al-Numaan's residents have fled, Othman al-Bedeiwi, a pharmacy professor there told Reuters by telephone on Tuesday. He said helicopters, which also fired at protesters on Friday, had been ferrying troops to a staging camp in Wadi al-Deif, several kilometers from the town.

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

On the edge of a limestone massif in a relatively prosperous agricultural area, Maarat al-Numaan is a center of Muslim pilgrimage with a rebellious history.

It was the site of the massacre of thousands of men, women and children by Crusader forces in 1099. In modern times, the town was focus of a brutal campaign to crush Islamist and leftist challengers to Bashar's father, the late Hafez al-Assad.

In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, witnesses said several tanks deployed inside the provincial capital, on the Euphrates river, after security forces pulled out from the streets last week.

But protests continued and a violent confrontation occurred this week between Assad supporters and protesters during which several people were seriously wounded, they added.

Rights campaigners said around 20 tanks and armored vehicles also deployed around the town of Albu Kamal to the east of Deir al-Zor city, but said there were no troops inside the town. Albu Kamal is also an official crossing point to Iraq.

Deir al-Zor province borders Iraq's Sunni heartland. The two sides are linked by family ties and trade routes that preceded the creation of the two states by colonial powers in the 1920s.

France and Britain have been pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn Assad's repression of the protests. But Russia and China have suggested they might use their veto power to kill the resolution.

As well as the refugees inside Turkey, more than half of whom are women and children, activists say another 10,000 are sheltering inside Syria close to the border.

Fleeing refugees described shootings by troops and Alawite gunmen loyal to Assad, known as "shabbiha," and the burning of land and crops in a scorched earth policy to subdue people of the region after large protests. The government has accused "armed groups" of burning crops in an act of sabotage.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Kardeniz in Guvecci, Turkey; Simon Cameron-Moore in Ankara; Editing by Dominic Evans and David Stamp)

Yahoo! News

Syrians flee town as troops approach (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrians fled a restive town toward the Turkish border, fearing bloodshed as troops with tanks approached, under orders to hit back after the government accused armed bands there of killing scores of its security men.

Though accounts of days of killing in Jisr al-Shughour ranged from an official version of gunmen ambushing troops to residents' reports of an army mutiny, it triggered international alarm that violence may enter a new and bloodier phase after three months of popular unrest that has left over 1,000 dead.

France and Britain, allies in the war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, took a lead in pushing U.N. moves against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But Russia, citing NATO's inconclusive bombing of Tripoli, said it would veto intervention against Syria in the United Nations Security Council.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, at U.N. headquarters in New York, said it was "a question of days, maybe hours" before the Council voted on a resolution condemning Syria. A draft circulated last month does not propose military intervention.

At Jisr al-Shughour, home to tens of thousands of people, residents said they were taking cover and bracing for attacks.

"The army is taking up position around Jisr al-Shughour," one anti-government activist told Reuters by telephone, saying residents have seen troops approaching the northeastern town from Aleppo, Syria's second city, and from Latakia on the coast.

"Most people have left the town because they are scared," he said, asking not to be named for his own safety. "They know the deaths will be high. People have gone to nearby villages close to the Turkish border. The doctors and nurses have also left."

On Monday, Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said army units would carry out their "national duty to restore security."

The government has expelled independent journalists, making it hard to determine clearly what is happening in the country.

Despite enthusiasm for pro-democracy movements that have unseated dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, few Western leaders -- let alone their autocratic Arab partners -- have shown a will to intervene in Syria, an Iranian ally whose volatile mix of ethnic and religious groups sits astride a web of regional conflicts.

FOREIGN PRESSURE

Assad's family and supporters from the minority Alawite sect have dominated Syria since his late father seized power 41 years ago. He has responded with promises of reform, and a crackdown on protesters in towns across the country. His officials accuse radical Islamists of fomenting a violent, armed revolt.

Neighboring countries, including Israel and Turkey, worry that a collapse into chaos could set off sectarian conflict and the emergence of violent, radical Islamists, as happened in Neighboring Iraq after the U.S. invasion of 2003.

But Western powers kept up pressure. British Foreign Secretary William Hague, in some of London's strongest language yet against the 45-year-old leader, told parliament: "President Assad is losing legitimacy and should reform or step aside." He said European governments were looking at further sanctions.

"We are working to persuade other countries that the Security Council has a responsibility to speak out," Hague added. Russia appears opposed to a general condemnation of Assad, let alone authorising military action against him.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who last month urged Assad to lead a transition to democracy or "get out of the way," did not mention Syria in remarks at a news briefing on Tuesday.

But in Brussels, Russia's envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said: "The prospect of a U.N. Security Council resolution that's along the same lines as Resolution 1973 on Libya will not be supported by my country ... The use of force, as Libya shows, does not provide answers."

Veto-holding Russia abstained on the Libya vote, allowing NATO to begin a bombing campaign that Western powers say saved civilians in rebel-held Benghazi from an onslaught by Gaddafi's forces, but which has failed to dislodge the Libyan leader.

Syria's ambassador to France strongly denied a report on Tuesday that she had resigned in protest at the government's repression of protests, saying it was part of a campaign of disinformation against Damascus.

Lamia Chakkour, shown standing in front of a portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Paris embassy, told France's BFM television that a report by news channel France 24, featuring a telephone interview with a woman claiming to be her, was false.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Yara Bayoumy in Beirut; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Yahoo! News

At least 44 Syrians killed in another bloody Friday (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian security forces shot dead at least 44 civilians in attacks on pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted across Syria on Friday, the Syrian National Organization for Human Rights said on Saturday.

Prominent rights campaigner Ammar Qurabi, who heads of the organization, said more than half were killed in the northwest province of Idlib, where tanks deployed on Friday to crush large demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The protests broke out in defiance of a military crackdown that another rights group says has killed more than 800 civilians in the past nine weeks.

The 45-year-old Assad had largely dismissed the protests as serving a foreign-backed conspiracy to sow sectarian strife.

Syrian authorities blame most of the violence on armed groups, backed by Islamists and outside powers, who they say have killed more than 120 soldiers and police. They have recently suggested they believe the protests have peaked.

Syria said on Saturday armed groups killed 17 people on Friday in the provinces of Idlib and Homs to the south.

Echoing language used in previous similar statements, the state news agency said the civilians, police and security forces were killed after armed groups exploited the commitment of police forces to specific instructions by the Interior Ministry "not to shoot, to preserve the lives of civilians."

It said saboteurs burned public buildings and police stations in Idlib, injuring eight policemen.

Syria has barred most international media since the protests broke out two months ago, making it impossible to verify independently accounts from activists and officials.

U.S. CRITICISM

The unrest has posed the gravest challenge to Assad's rule. In response, he has lifted a 48-year state of emergency and granted citizenship to stateless Kurds, but also sent tanks to several cities to suppress the protests.

Friday's violence came a day after the United States, which had at first muted its criticism Assad's handling of the unrest, told him to reform or step down.

"The president can still try to redeem himself by doing what a few leaders in Eastern Europe did, which is leading immediate transformation to a democracy and running himself in a fair elections if he wants," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni said.

"With all the blood the regime is spilling the protests have been growing and expanding in geographical scope ... The Syrians have been humiliated and they will no longer shut up," he added.

The main weekly Muslim prayers on Fridays are a rallying point for protesters because they offer the only opportunity for large gatherings, and have seen the worst death tolls.

Activists said protests broke out this Friday in the Damascus suburbs, Banias and Latakia on the Mediterranean, the oil producing region of Deir al-Zor, Qamishli in the east and the southern Hauran Plain.

Syrian human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouna said on Friday at least 12 civilians were killed in Maaret al-Numan, in Idlib province, after tanks entered the town to disperse protesters. She said 11 were killed in the central city of Homs, while seven died in Deraa, Latakia, the Damascus suburbs and Hama.

Rights campaigners said Idlib, a relatively prosperous agricultural province, took the brunt of the crackdown on Friday, during which hundreds of Syrians were arrested.

They said those killed included at least five protesters shot by security forces while they were marching from the town of Ariha to join other protests in Idlib.

"They took their dead and went back to Ariha and burned security and Baath Party headquarters and a Syriatel office," said one rights campaigner in the area.

Syriatel, Syria's largest mobile phone operator, belongs to Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf, who has expanded his control on various sectors of the economy since Assad succeeded his late father 11 years ago.

SLOGAN

Security forces arrested 12 members of the Assyrian Democratic Party, from Syria's Christian minority, in a raid on their headquarters in Qamishli on Friday, rights activists said.

Two witnesses said security forces fired at demonstrators and chased them in the streets of the Barzeh district of Damascus. Plain clothes police conducted house to house arrests, a resident said.

Security forces also fired live ammunition at a night demonstration in the besieged hill town of Zabadai west of Damascus, a rights campaigner in the area said, adding tanks had deployed at the southern entrance of the nearby town of Madaya.

Activists reported shooting in Banias and the Damascus suburb of Saqba on Friday. Both were subjected to security sweeps earlier this month aimed at crushing dissent.

A witness said security forces fired teargas on protesters in Hama, where around 20,000 had gathered in two separate areas. They also used teargas to disperse around 1,000 protesters in the town of Tel, just north of Damascus, another witness said.

Some protesters called on Friday for freedom, activists said. Others demanded "the overthrow of the regime," the slogan of uprisings which toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

(Writing by Dominic Evans and Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Alison Williams)

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Despite siege, Syrians vow to keep protesting

CAIRO (AP) — The Syrian military intensified its vigorous assault on the besieged city at the center of the country's uprising Sunday as defiant residents who have been pinned down in their homes for nearly a week struggled to find food, pass along information and bury their dead.

var data = blocks.columnist;if (data != undefined){document.getElementById('columnistmug').innerHTML=data;} AP

In this citizen journalism image acquired by the AP, Syrian anti-government protesters carry candles during a night gathering in the coastal city of Banias, Syria.

AP

In this citizen journalism image acquired by the AP, Syrian anti-government protesters carry candles during a night gathering in the coastal city of Banias, Syria.

President Bashar Assad is determined to crush the six-week-old revolt, which began in the southern city of Daraa but quickly spread across the nation of some 23 million people.

Now, the once-unthinkable protests are posing the most serious challenge to four decades of rule by the Assad family in one of the most repressive and tightly controlled countries in the Middle East.

"The security solution isn't working. People are still demonstrating," Damascus-based human rights activist Razan Zaitouneh told The Associated Press by telephone. "They can't stop these (protests) now."

A drought-plagued city near the Jordanian border, Daraa has been without water, fuel or electricity since Monday, when the regime sent in troops backed by tanks and snipers to crush protests seeking the ouster of Assad. The 45-year-old, British-trained eye doctor inherited power from his father 11 years ago but failed to fulfill early promises of reform.

He has portrayed the unrest as a foreign conspiracy by extremists and armed thugs, not true reform-seekers.

The death toll has soared to 545 nationwide from government forces firing on demonstrators ? action that has drawn international condemnation and U.S. financial penalties on top figures in his regime.

Syrian army tanks shelled the old quarter of Daraa on Sunday and rolled in six armored vehicles, flanked on either side by two buses packed with more security forces, residents said. Snipers nesting on rooftops and hiding in high mosque minarets have kept people cowering in fear inside their homes.

But residents remained defiant and resourceful, using battery-powered computers and satellite telephones to communicate with the outside world, and sneaking through alleyways to share information. With soldiers stationed at cemeteries ? apparently an attempt to pinpoint the families of protesters ? many were hiding corpses in refrigerated trucks.

Unable to leave their homes, Daraa residents chant "God is Great!" to each other from their windows in the evenings, infuriating security forces and raising each other's spirits.

"Our houses are close to each other, so even though we can't go outside, we stand by the windows and chant," said a Daraa resident, speaking to the AP by satellite phone. "Our neighbors can hear us and they respond."

Syrian troops opened fire above their heads to silence them, the resident said.

Other areas of the country also have come under military control, but Daraa has faced the most serious stranglehold. It was in Daraa that the protest movement kicked off six weeks ago, sparked by the arrest of a group of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in Daraa. Now, the city has become a symbol of the uprising.

The witness' accounts of the siege on Daraa could not be independently verified. Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots, making it almost impossible to confirm the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.

In a posting on a Syrian revolution website, one activist joked that if the newly married royals Prince William and Kate Middleton wanted to honeymoon somewhere away from media attention, Syria would be an excellent location.

The Obama administration hit three top Syrian officials as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard with sanctions over the crackdown.

"I think it's clear that (Assad) is willing to slaughter his own people," Arizona Sen. John McCain told the CBS show "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "The question is, what can we do to affect the outcome? And frankly, I don't see a military option. Libya, they had a group of people who at least were semi-organized that we could support."

The unrest in Syria has international repercussions because of the country's alliances with militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and with Shiite powerhouse Iran. If the regime in Syria falls, the instability has the potential to upend the regional power balance in a part of the world that already is riven with strife.

In recent weeks, there have been small signs that cracks are developing in the regime.

Hundreds of members of Assad's ruling Baath Party have resigned over the crackdown.

Human rights activists uploaded a video to YouTube on Sunday that they say showed another 200 party members publicly stepping down in Rasten, where protests turned violent on Friday.

"Our martyrs don't just deserve that we resign from the party. They deserve that we step on this party!" said one man speaking into a microphone as a few thousand residents crowded before an open stage.

The president has responded with overtures of reform coupled with a crackdown, but the rising death toll has enraged protesters to the extent that they are now demanding nothing less than the downfall of the regime.

On Saturday, Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar said the government is preparing a "comprehensive plan for the aspired reforms" in the coming weeks "in response to the citizens' demands and needs."

But previous overtures have failed to dampen the protests, and Safar's announcement ? which once would have been considered a leap forward for reform ? barely registered with those at the heart of the rebellion.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

USATODAY.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.