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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New round of NATO strikes hits Tripoli outskirts (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO airstrikes rattled the Libyan capital Thursday with clusters of bombing runs believed to have targeted the outskirts of Tripoli.

At first, the intensity of the attacks suggested a return to the heavy NATO bombardment that hit military installations across the capital on Tuesday and flattened major buildings in leader Moammar Gadhafi's sprawling compound in the center of the city.

By nightfall Thursday, a total of 14 air attacks had been carried out, considerably fewer than Tuesday. There were eight explosions in a first series of strikes on Thursday and hours later, the sound of six more airstrikes boomed in the distance. Government officials did not say what had been targeted in the Thursday bombing runs.

The strikes are in support of a four-month-old rebel uprising that seeks to push Gadhafi from power after four decades. Rebels have taken control of swaths of eastern Libya, although fighting has since become a stalemate even with NATO support.

Gadhafi shows no signs of ceding power under the building pressure of the NATO strikes, despite repeated attacks on his compound, government buildings, military radar emplacements and other army installations.

But the chief of the U.S. CIA, Leon Panetta, said in testimony before the Senate Thursday the NATO military operation, strong economic sanctions, and enforcement of the no-fly zone are putting tremendous pressure on Gadhafi. U.S. President Barack Obama has named Panetta to take over as Defense Secretary this summer.

Among other signs of building pressure, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that there are "numerous and continuing" overtures by people close to Gadhafi to negotiate his departure from power.

Speaking to reporters after an international conference on Libya in the United Arab Emirates, Clinton said proposals from "people close to Gadhafi" presented to unspecified countries included the "potential for a transition." But she said she could not predict if they would be accepted.

Fighting on the ground between Libyan government forces and the rebels had largely died down after the NATO strikes began. The Western alliance took to the skies over Libya under a U.N. resolution that allowed NATO flights to protect civilians. What began as a no-fly zone quickly evolved into strong attacks on the regime.

On Wednesday, however, Gadhafi forces renewed their shelling near the western city of Misrata, killing 10 rebel fighters. Misrata is one of the few footholds rebels have in western Libya. NATO reported it had destroyed a "electronic warfare vehicle" and military training camp in the vicinity of the city as government forces had renewed their assault on the port city.

In Brussels on Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the shelling near Misrata underscored the continued need to protect civilians.

"It is an example that the Gadhafi regime still constitutes a threat to the civilian population," he said. "We will stay committed as long as necessary," Fogh Rasmussen added.

Media in neighboring Tunisia, meanwhile, reported more defections Thursday from Gadhafi's military, including a general and 10 ranking officers who they said crossed into the country this week.

Despite the inability of NATO and the rebels so far to oust Gadhafi, preparations are being made for a post-Gadhafi era in the country.

At Thursday's meeting in the United Arab Emirates, donors pledged more than $1.3 billion to help support Libya's main opposition group. Italy and France offered a combined $1.02 billion to Libya's Transitional National Council, while Kuwait and Qatar promised a combined $280 million to a fund set up to provide transparent assistance to the opposition.

The pledges came as council members appealed for urgent infusions of cash to keep from going broke. The council is trying to establish an alternative government to take over after Gadhafi.

Libya's former U.N. ambassador, Abdurraham Mohamed Shalgham, attended the gathering as a senior official of the rebels' National Council. He said NATO should focus more strikes on Gadhafi forces around Misrata to help "the youth freedom fighters to move toward the capital Tripoli." Shalgham said he believed Gadhafi was in the final days of his rule.

"I think our youth will be in Tripoli in some weeks," Shalgham said.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said on Thursday that Lisbon soon would recognize the rebel administration.

Also on Thursday, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade visited Benghazi to meet with the Council's leaders. He urged Gadhafi to stop fighting and called for NATO to end airstrikes.

"I am someone who can help you (Gadhafi) to relieve yourself from political power," Wade told reporters in a message to the Libyan leader, stopping short of offering Senegal as a country of refuge.

NATO rejected any post-Gadhafi role for the alliance, saying it was imperative that the international community, the United Nations in particular, start preparations for helping the country's transition to a democratic government.

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Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Benghazi, Libya, and Matthew Lee in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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