Monday, March 28, 2011

DAMASCUS: President Bashar Assad, facing the gravest crisis in his 11-year rule, deployed the army for the first time in Syria’s main port of Latakia after nearly two weeks of protests spread across the country.
Assad, 45, who has made no direct public comment since protests started sweeping Syria, was expected to address the nation shortly, officials said, without giving further details.

Dozens have died in pro-democracy demonstrations in the southern city of Daraa and nearby Sanamein as well as Latakia, Damascus and other towns over the last week.
Syrian officials said Sunday 12 people had died in Latakia. The government says unidentified armed groups, possibly backed by foreign powers, are trying to stir sectarian conflict across Syria.

The Interior Ministry urged citizens on state television to ignore “untruthful” appeals in text messages and leaflets to join a rally in Damascus’s Umayyad Square Sunday. It said they should stay away for their own safety.
The dispatch of troops to the streets of Latakia Saturday signals growing government alarm about the ability of security police to maintain order there. Latakia is a potentially volatile mix of Sunnis, Christians and the Alawites who constitute Assad’s core support.
“There is a feeling in Latakia that the presence of disciplined troops is necessary to keep order,” one resident said. “We do not want looting.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday the U.S. deplored the bloodshed in Syria, but a Libya-style intervention should not be expected.
Asked if one should expect U.S. involvement along the lines of airstrikes on Libya, Clinton flatly told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program “no.”

“Each of these situations is unique,” she added. “We deplore the violence in Syria, we call as we have on all of these governments … to be responding to their people’s needs, not to engage in violence, permit peaceful protests and begin a process of economic and political reform,” she said.

The unrest in Syria came to a head after police detained more than a dozen schoolchildren for scrawling graffiti inspired by pro-democracy protests across the Arab world.

Assad pledged to look into granting greater freedom but this has failed to dampen the protest movement.
Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told Al-Jazeera television news that the emergency law would be lifted, but did not give a timetable.

Syrian authorities also released political activist Diana Jawabra, her lawyer said, along with 15 others arrested for taking part in a silent protest demanding the release of children responsible for the graffiti.
This follows news of the freeing of 260 political prisoners.

There have also been protests in Hama, a northern city where in 1982 the forces of President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, killed thousands of people while putting down an armed uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood.
“An official source said attacks by armed elements on the families and districts of Latakia in the last two days resulted in the martyrdom of 10 security forces and civilians and the killing of two of the armed elements,” SANA news agency said.

The source said 200 people, most from the security forces, had been wounded. Rights activists said at least six people had been killed in Latakia in two days.

In Daraa, there were at least three funerals Sunday for those killed in the unrest in villages around the city. The funeral gatherings passed off peacefully with no security in evidence. Mourners in one of the funerals chanted: “The people want the downfall of the regime.”

Asked about security forces opening fire in recent days, government spokeswoman Reem Haddad told Al-Jazeera Sunday: “The security forces were given very strict orders not to shoot at anyone and they did not shoot at anyone at all until those people shot at them and at other citizens.” – Reuters, AP