Syria tightens noose on protest hubs: activists

Updated at: 0147 PST, Wednesday, May 11, 2011
DAMASCUS: Syrian forces tightened the noose Tuesday on key protest hubs, including flashpoint Banias, sealing off neighbourhoods and arresting dissident leaders, activists said.

A pro-regime newspaper said the army had restored "calm" in Banias, while an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad told The New York Times she believes the regime has ridden out the worst of the uprising.

EU sanctions against the regime took effect on Tuesday, with the president spared but his younger brother heading a list of 13 officials targeted for their involvement in the brutal crackdown.

Foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said EU sanctions could be extended "including at the highest level of leadership" unless Damascus heeds calls to end the strong-armed crackdown.

And in New York, European powers were pressing the UN Security Council to act.

Three days after storming Banias, troops backed by tanks and security forces were still rounding up protesters on Tuesday, tracking down dissident leaders, human rights activists said.

"The army controls all the neighbourhoods of Banias, and arrests are still underway there and in the neighbouring villages of Baida and Marqab," said Rami Abdul Rahman, of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Troops are hunting down "leaders of the protest movement," he said.

On Monday, troops went house to house in Banias with lists of names, rounding up thousands of men and moving them to a municipal stadium to be questioned, activists said.

Most were released but more than 450 people are still being held in Banias, where tanks rolled in on Saturday to crush anti-regime protests, the Syrian Observatory said.

Security forces also rounded up regime opponents at dawn Tuesday in the key Mediterranean port of Latakia, in Damascus and in Idlib, northwest of the capital, another activist said.

Vans packed with people arrested by the security forces were seen Tuesday morning in Muadamiya, which has also been raided by the army, an activist said.

In the northern, mostly Kurdish regions of Qamishli, Derbassiye and Amuda, residents were summoned and told to sign statements pledging not to take part in demonstrations, activist Radif Mustafa said.

The pro-regime Al-Watan newspaper said troops restored "calm" in Banias and that Muadamiya was also under control after "the army entered the area to round up and arrest men terrifying local residents."

"The military operation in Banias led to the dismantling of a central operations cell with computers, Thuraya satellite telephones and sophisticated cameras used by armed elements" to fuel chaos, Al-Watan said.

The army did not suffer any losses, Al-Watan said, while adding that 26 armed men had been arrested, among them the leaders of a group operating in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to the Syrian president, told The New York Times she believes the worst is over.

"I hope we are witnessing the end of the story," said Shaaban. "I think now we've passed the most dangerous moment. I hope so; I think so."

For almost two months, near-daily protests have railed against Assad's regime, while troops and security forces have repressed the uprising brutally.

Between 600 and 700 people have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested since the start of the protest movement in mid-March, rights groups say.

But six prominent opposition figures were freed Monday and Tuesday.

These included Habib Saleh, who served three years in jail after being convicted of "spreading lies" that undermine the nation, activists said. Saleh was arrested in 2008 after publishing an article calling for political reforms.

The other five had been rounded up during the crackdown on protests.

The European Union has responded to the crackdown by imposing sanctions on 13 top officials.

Maher al-Assad, the president's 43-year-old brother, heads the list. He commands the Republican Guard and the army's feared Fourth Armoured Division.

Others targeted include Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and intelligence chief Ali Mamluk.

The EU sanctions include visa bans and an assets freeze, as well as an arms embargo and a ban on equipment that can be used for internal repression.

At the UN, German ambassador Peter Wittig told the Security Council that those responsible for deaths in Syria should be "held accountable."

France called on the Assad regime to cooperate with a Human Rights Council investigation into the clampdown and give humanitarian access to the protest city of Daraa and others.

And Britain's deputy ambassador Philip Parham said that "despite the best efforts of the Syrian government to suppress media coverage, we have witnessed the repeated and deliberate targeting of civilians and the use of tanks and other heavy weaponry against peaceful protesters."

The United States has already warned it would take "additional steps" against Syria if it continues the deadly crackdown. (AFP)