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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Syrian tanks enter coastal town in new crackdown

BEIRUT (AP) — Troops in tanks and armored vehicles entered a key oil-industry city on Syria's Mediterranean coast Saturday, taking up position in a hilltop Crusader castle and cutting off power and phone lines. An activist said three women protesting the crackdown were shot dead.

The move against Banias, which had become a bastion of anti-regime protests in recent days, signals an expanding campaign by President Bashar Assad aimed at crushing the country's seven-week nationwide uprising.

Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization for Human Rights said the three women were protesting the siege and the cutting of power lines when they were shot dead by plainclothed security forces or pro-government gunmen.

Saturday's shooting occurred near al-Marqab, about a mile southeast of Banias. Qurabi said gunfire was continuing and several other people were wounded.

The events in Banias, a day after security forces killed 30 people in nationwide protests, came on the heels of a large-scale military operation in the flashpoint southern city of Daraa. The 11-day siege, in which about 50 residents were killed, triggered international outrage and condemnation.

The U.S. has already targeted three top Syrian officials as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard with sanctions over the crackdown. The European Union is expected to place sanctions on Syrian officials next week, and the U.N. said Saturday it is sending a team into Syria to investigate the situation.

An operation in Banias similar to the one in Daraa, where the uprising began, risks further isolating Assad's regime, which has used brutal military force to crush the unprecedented revolt against his family's 40-year dynasty.

Details of the troop deployment in Banias, for weeks the scene of demonstrations demanding regime change, were scarce as phone lines and other communication with the area were mostly cut off.

But an eyewitness reached by The Associated Press said soldiers deployed in Banias early Saturday on tanks and armored vehicles, stretching for several kilometers (miles) along the coastal highway as they approached.

He said tanks moved into the seaside area and were stationed in at least three Sunni villages just south of Banias. Soldiers were carrying out house-to-house searches and arrests in al-Marqab district about a mile southeast of the town and in two villages further south, claiming to be looking for weapons and terrorist fugitives.

The witness and activists said the army is now occupying the hilltop Marqab Castle, an 11th century Crusader fortress overlooking Banias. Several gunboats were seen off the coast.

"Banias is now surrounded from all directions, not a single person can go in or out," said the resident, who did not wish to be identified for fear of reprisals.

He said electricity and phone lines had been cut off, and residents were charging their mobile phones on car batteries.

Banias, which is home to one of the country's two oil refineries and is the main point of export for Syrian oil, has a potentially explosive mix of religious groups and sects. It is predominantly Sunni Muslim but is also home to many Alawites — the sect of the ruling Assad family and many senior officials. It also has a large power station.

Syrian officials and state-run media has tried to portray Banias as a hotbed of Islamic extremists to justify its crackdown. SANA said the army and security forces were pursuing fugitives in Banias and were able to arrest a large number of them and confiscate weapons used by them.

On Friday, witnesses said several thousand people held a protest in Banias calling for regime change.

"They are trying to portray us as criminals. We are not, we only want to live in freedom and dignity," said one Banias resident.

Elsewhere, up to 20,000 people took part in the funerals Saturday of seven people who were among those killed the previous day in the central city of Homs. A witness said soldiers on tanks and armored vehicles were deployed on intersections and roundabouts on the outer edge of the city while soldiers and security forces were heavily deployed inside.

In the Damascus suburb of Saqba, some 3,000 people took part in a funeral for a man reportedly shot dead by security forces manning a checkpoint as he was riding a motorcycle following a protest.

The Banias deployment came just hours after Friday's confrontations between security forces and protesters. A leading Syrian human rights activist said security forces killed 30 people across the country; Syria's state-run media said 11 soldiers and policemen were killed in Homs.

The uprising in Syria was sparked by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall in Daraa. Protests spread quickly across the nation of some 23 million people.

The army announced the end to an 11-day military operation in Daraa on Thursday, but residents have said troops still remain in the streets.

The National Organization for Human Rights said in a statement Saturday it had reports authorities were trying to cover up traces of crimes they committed in Daraa, paving roads and painting pro-government slogans on the city's walls ahead of the visit by the U.N. investigative team.

More than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers have been killed since the revolt began, rights groups say.

The bloodshed Friday was the latest spasm in what has become a weekly cycle of mass protests followed by a swift and deadly crackdown. Assad insists the unrest is a foreign conspiracy carried out by "terrorist groups."

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Workers enter Japan nuclear reactor building

TOKYO (AP) — Workers entered one of the damaged reactor buildings at Japan's stricken nuclear power plant Thursday for the first time since it was rocked by an explosion in the days after a devastating earthquake, the country's nuclear safety agency said.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said workers are connecting ventilation equipment in Unit 1 in an attempt to absorb radiation from the air inside the building. The work is expected to take about four or five days.

The utility must lower radiation levels inside the reactor before it can proceed with the key step of installing a cooling system that was knocked out by the March 11 quake and subsequent tsunami that left more than 25,000 people dead or missing along Japan's northeastern coast.

Workers have not been able to enter the reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, about 140 miles northeast of Tokyo, since the first days after the tsunami. Hydrogen explosions at four of the buildings at the six-reactor complex in the first few days destroyed some of their roofs and walls and scattered radioactive debris.

In mid-April, a robot recorded radioactivity readings of about 50 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1's reactor building ? a level too high for workers to realistically enter.

The decision to send the workers in was made after robots last Friday collected fresh data that showed radiation levels were safe enough for workers to enter some areas, said Taisuke Tomikawa, a spokesman for TEPCO.

Two workers entered the reactor building around 11:30 am for about 25 minutes. They were exposed to 2 millisieverts during that time, Tomikawa said.

A dozen workers split up into teams were expected to go into the building on a rotation for short periods to limit radiation exposure.

"This is an effort to improve the environment inside the reactor building," he said.

The workers were equipped with protective gear and a mask and air tank set similar to those used by scuba divers, according to an official at the Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency.

Outside the reactor building, the utility erected a temporary tent designed to prevent radioactive air from escaping.

TEPCO has laid out a blueprint for bringing the bringing the plant into a cold shutdown within six to nine months.

Japanese authorities more than doubled the legal limit of radiation exposure for nuclear workers since the crisis began to 250 millisieverts a year. Workers in the U.S. nuclear industry are allowed an upper limit of 50 millisieverts per year. Doctors say radiation sickness sets in at 1,000 millisieverts and includes nausea and vomiting.

Radiation leaking from the Fukushima plant has forced 80,000 people living within a 12-mile radius to leave their homes. Many are living in gymnasiums and community centers.

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Workers enter Japan nuclear building

An aerial view of the the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.NEW: Ventilating the reactor building will allow employees to work there longerAn earthquake and tsunami hit the nuclear facility in March The company says it should take about three days to bring down the contamination

Tokyo (CNN) -- Workers entered a reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Thursday for the first time since a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami damaged the facility, its operator Toyko Electric Power Co. said.

The workers went into the No. 1 reactor building shortly before noon to install air ducts for a ventilation system that will filter the air to reduce radioactive substances.

Once the radioactive contamination in the air is reduced, workers will be able stay in the building longer to install a cooling system that Tokyo Electric wants to use to do a cold shutdown of the reactor.

The company says it should take two to three days to bring down the contamination to levels suitable for workers to stay for extended periods when wearing protective suits, masks and air tanks.

Cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, were knocked out by the massive tsunami that struck Japan's Pacific coast after a massive earthquake March 11.

The disaster triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl as the cores of reactors 1-3 overheated and spewed huge amounts of radioactive contamination across the surrounding area.

The buildings that house reactors 1 and 3 were blown apart by hydrogen explosions in the first days of the crisis. Another hydrogen buildup is believed to have ruptured a water reservoir beneath the No. 2 reactor.

In April, Tokyo Electric has laid out a six- to nine-month timetable for winding down the crisis and bringing the reactors to a complete shutdown.

The disaster has led to mandatory evacuations of about 78,000 people living within 20 km (12.5 miles) of the plant and orders to people living another 10 km away to remain sheltered, affecting another 60,000-plus.

Yoko Wakatsuki contributed to this report

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