JEDDAH/AMMAN: The Gulf Cooperation Council urged Syria Sunday to immediately stop its “killing machine” against anti-regime protesters, and reiterated its demand for serious reforms.
After ending a meeting in Jeddah, the foreign ministers of the six GCC members states issued a statement calling for “an immediate end to the killing machine” in Syria and urged “the immediate implementation of serious reforms that meet the aspirations of the Syrian” people.

Last month, GCC states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain recalled their envoys from Damascus to protest against President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on anti-regime protests that erupted in March.
Syrian forces stepped up raids across the country to arrest activists Sunday after one of the bloodiest weeks in the six-month uprising against President Bashar Assad, residents and activists said. Dozens of people were seized in house-to-house raids in the eastern tribal province of Deir al-Zour, in the southern Hauran Plain and in villages around the city of Hama, which was among the hardest hit by armored assaults on protest flashpoints.
A lawyer from the southern city of Deraa, the cradle of the revolt against 41 years of Assad family rule, said he saw dozens of troops encircling the nearby village of Yadouda.

“I saw them by accident and fled. I heard that they later went into houses. They can come at any minute and raid and arrest,” the lawyer, who asked not to be identified, said by phone.
He said detainees could expect ill-treatment or worse.
“You either disappear and are never heard from again, come back red and blue with holes in your body from beatings and torture to make an example of you or simply return in a coffin.”

Syrian authorities say they are fighting armed gangs who have killed at least 500 security personnel.
The United Nations says 2,200 people have died in the uprising that erupted in mid-March, while a Syrian grassroots organization says security forces have killed 3,000 civilians.
Syria has banned most independent journalists, making it hard to verify the truth behind accounts of the violence from either side.

The Syrian Human Rights Organization Sawasiah said at least 113 civilians were killed last week in military raids and in gunfire aimed at protesters, including a family of five in Homs.
It said in a statement that three activists also died from apparent torture in prison in what it said was an increased drive by the authorities to eliminate street protest leaders.

“Last week saw unprecedented repression. The rights of many Syrians to live free of physical harm has been confiscated, among them women, children and elderly people,” it added.
Syrian demonstrators, while opposed to any foreign military intervention, have begun demanding international protection.

The Arab League’s secretary-general said after visiting Damascus Saturday that he had agreed with Assad on unspecified measures to end the bloodshed which would be presented to an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

Nabil al-Araby also said he had urged Assad to “speed up reform plans through a timetable that will make every Syrian citizen feel that he has moved to a new stage.”
Assad’s opponents say that previous reforms announced by Assad, such as ending emergency law, have made no difference.
The West, which had courted Assad before the uprising, has increased sanctions on the ruling elite. The European Union plans tougher steps against the Syrian oil sector, which is linked to Assad and his relatives, following a U.S. embargo.

But there has been no hint in the West of any appetite for military action along Libyan lines.
Southeast of the Golan, in the town of Hirak in Deraa province, Ahmad al-Sayyed, a resident, said Syrian troops had been carrying out daily swoops to quell dissent.
“They have stepped up arrests in towns that have seen heavy protests and that have managed to send video feeds to Al-Jazeera [satellite television channel],” he said.

Listing the latest raids, Sayyed said at least 250 people had been detained in Jeeza, 40 in Museifra, 50 in Busra al-Harir and 30 in Naimeh in the last 48 hours.
“They shoot in the air before they begin raids. They then drag young men and use electric sticks to beat them up and haul them away to detention centres,” he said.