Syria claims uprising under control: NYT

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WASHINGTON: Syria's embattled government has ridden out the worst of a roiling seven-week uprising, a senior official told The New York Times in an interview on Monday.

"I hope we are witnessing the end of the story," Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad who often serves as a spokeswoman, told the US paper in an hour long interview.

"I think now we've passed the most dangerous moment. I hope so, I think so," Shaaban said giving a glimpse at the mindset of a 40-year-old regime that has barred most foreign journalists from Syria since the beginning of the uprising.

"We want to use what happened to Syria as an opportunity," Shaaban added.
"We see it as an opportunity to try to move forward on many levels, especially the political level."

The Times reporter was allowed in the country for a few hours, the report added.

Syrian security forces rounded up thousands of men as they went house to house in a bid to crush an anti-regime protest movement in the coastal city of Banias on Monday, as shots rang out in a Damascus suburb surrounded by troops, activists said.

The European Union meanwhile said an arms embargo and sanctions against 13 Syrian officials deemed responsible for the regime's brutal crackdown on protesters would come into force on Tuesday.

And the United Nations complained that Syrian authorities blocked one of its teams from entering the southern town of Daraa, epicenter of the protests, and voiced concern for the plight of Palestinian refugees there.

The Syrian military launched its action in Banias and Homs after ending a 10-day lockdown in which dozens were killed and scores detained in Daraa.

Shabaan told the Times: "You can't be very nice to people who are leading an armed rebellion, in a sense."

Rights groups say more than 600 people have been killed and 8,000 jailed or gone missing in the eight-week crackdown on protesters.

The Committee of the Martyrs of the 15 March Revolution puts the death toll at 708. (AFP)