More gunfire, arrests reported in Syrian crackdown

[April 26, 2011]  BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunfire reverberated Tuesday in the southern Syrian city of Daraa where the dead still lay unclaimed in the streets a day after a brutal government crackdown of the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, residents said.

A Syrian human rights group said authorities detained dozens across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.

The Syrian army, backed by tanks and snipers, launched a deadly raid before dawn Monday on Daraa, where the uprising in Syria started more than a month ago. At least 11 people were killed in the southern city.

A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 350 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt -- inspired by uprisings in the Arab world -- with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad's downfall.

The White House has stepped up its condemnation of Assad's regime, but stopped well short of demanding his ouster. U.S. officials said Washington has begun drawing up targeted sanctions against him, his family and his inner circle to boost pressure on them to halt the repression. Washington also was conferring with European countries and the United Nations about options.

The United States told all its nonessential staff and the families of all its embassy workers to leave the country, but kept the facility open for limited services. It also advised all Americans to defer travel to Syria and advised those already in the country to leave.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said he couldn't provide a precise figure for those arrested Tuesday because it was difficult to get through to Daraa after authorities cut telephone service in the city.

A Daraa resident told The Associated Press on Tuesday "dead bodies were still in the streets because no one has been able to remove them."

"We are being subjected to a massacre," the man screamed over the telephone as gunfire crackled in the background. "Children are being killed. We have been without electricity for three days. We have no water."

The man said Syrian special forces were in the streets of the impoverished city near the border with Jordan. Tanks had opened fire in the city, he added.

The witness, contacted via a Jordanian cellphone, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world.

Daraa, located in a parched region of 300,000 people in the south, has seen some of the worst bloodshed in the past five weeks as the uprising gained momentum. Recently, the city has absorbed many rural migrants who can no longer farm after years of drought.

The uprising was touched off by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall.

The attack on Daraa was by far the biggest in scope and firepower. Video purportedly shot by activists showed tanks rolling through streets and grassy fields with soldiers on foot jogging behind them.

State-run television quoted a military source as saying army units entered the city to bring security "answering the pleas for help by residents of Daraa."

Syria has a pivotal role in most of the flashpoint issues of the Middle East -- from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran's widening influence. Instability has thrown into disarray the U.S. push for engagement with Damascus, part of Washington's hopes to peel the country away from Hamas, Hezbollah and Tehran.

[Associated Press; By BASSEM MROUE]

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