PARIS/BEIRUT/NICOSIA: France ruled out intervening in Syria without international backing, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday, while the European Union broadened sanctions to include the elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for providing equipment and other support to help Syrian President Bashar Assad crush the five-month-old revolt against him.

Sarkozy made the comments during a news conference on Libya Wednesday, as Syrian activists reported tanks stormed the eastern city of Deir al-Zour and at least seven people killed in the continued crackdown by Syrian security forces Wednesday.

“France will not intervene in Syria without an international mandate,” Sarkozy said, adding that the Syrian people “have the right to democracy,” following a meeting with Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of the National Transitional Council, the rebel movement that overthrew Gadhafi’s regime with the aid of NATO airstrikes.

“Syrians have the right to democracy too, and they are not condemned to being suppressed by a regime that does not understand we are living in a new century,” Sarkozy said.
Assad is facing a similar pro-democracy revolt to Libya, but his opposition is largely unarmed and he has so far been more successful than Gadhafi in his brutal crackdown on the streets.

“Let’s be clear, France will not intervene without an international mandate, that’s the baseline,” Sarkozy said.
“But that does not mean we should leave the Syrian people to be massacred by a regime that loses legitimacy day-by-day,” he said. France Tuesday along with other European nations and the U.S. circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution seeking an arms embargo and other sanctions. The draft targets Assad and his inner circle with economic measures, but has so far not won the approval of veto-wielders China and Russia.

Prior to this year’s revolt and crackdown, France had been wooing Syria, and Sarkozy braved criticism of Assad’s rights record to invite him to Paris in 2008 for the founding of the Mediterranean Union.
Now, he said: “The regime is condemned because in the 21st century, everyone must understand that dictators can no longer count on international indifference.”

Meanwhile, fresh European Union sanctions imposed Wednesday broadened the international pressure against Syria by directly targeting its key ally Iran in addition to other new targets that include several Syrian generals and close associates of Assad’s younger brother, Maher, who is believed to be in command of much of the crackdown. Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister and special envoy for Assad, also was named.
The EU’s official journal, which carried the statement, said the elite Quds Force “has provided technical assistance, equipment and support to the Syrian security services to repress civilian protest movements.”

The EU blacklist on Syria now contains 50 people and nine entities who face asset freezes and travel bans as punishment for one of the deadliest government crackdowns of the so-called Arab Spring.
Human rights groups said Assad’s forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising erupted in mid-March, touched off by the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

Assad has shrugged off international condemnation and calls for him to step down, insisting that armed gangs and thugs are driving the violence, not true reform-seekers. Economic sanctions could slowly chip away at the Syrian state, however.

Tanks stormed the eastern city of Deir al-Zour Wednesday, making sweeping arrests, according to Syrian activists. Deir al-Zour is an oil-rich but impoverished region known for its well-armed clans and tribes.

Syria has banned foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it impossible to independently confirm events on the ground. While widespread witness accounts and amateur video footage describe a brutal crackdown by security forces, Syria’s state-run news agency says security forces are the real victims of gunmen and extremists.

The official news agency, SANA, Wednesday released gruesome pictures of 14 decomposing corpses, saying “armed terrorist groups” kidnapped and tortured them in recent days and dumped their bodies around Homs, a city in central Syria that has been a hotbed of protests.
Arab ministers will hold an urgent meeting Saturday to discuss Syria, an Arab League official said, but a delegate to the regional body also played down the chances of foreign intervention.