Agence France Presse 

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT: The U.S. said Thursday its envoy to Syria is in the besieged city of Hama to show solidarity with residents protesting against President Bashar Assad’s regime, as protesters geared up for more demonstrations under the banner “No to dialogue.”

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stressed that Ambassador Robert Ford traveled independently. Nuland said Ford “spent the day expressing our deep support for the right of the Syrian people to assemble peacefully and to express themselves.”

Ford reached the city after passing checkpoints run by the military and Hama residents. Nuland said he met nervous residents and saw many shops closed. He also visited a hospital treating wounded people.

Nuland said Ford hoped to remain in Hama Friday, with many people worried about a potential crackdown. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ambassador Robert Ford visited the tense city “to make contact” with opposition leaders.
Hundreds of people have fled Hama fearing a military crackdown ahead of Friday demonstrations. Already activists say security forces killed 22 people in the city over four days of protests.

Syrian authorities have been trying to quell protests in Hama, traditionally a center of opposition to central government, and had positioned tanks on the main entrances to the city except in the north.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that about 100 families – or 1,000 people in total – had left Hama, where it said Syrian troops had killed 23 civilians since Tuesday.
The crowds leaving Hama were headed for Salamiyah, some 30 kilometers to the southeast.

Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights, said on Wednesday there had been a worsening of the security situation with the “pursuit of search operations, assassinations and arrests in this city.”
The newspaper Al-Watan, which is close to the government, said Thursday that the situation in Hama was calm and that barricades erected in the streets by protesters had been dismantled.

It reported that the authorities had told demonstrators to avoid any confrontations and clear the streets so residents could go to work and to avoid what it called a “last resort” military operation.

It also said protesters were calling for the former governor to be reinstated, for detained demonstrators to be freed, for a pledge that the security forces would not intervene and for a guarantee of freedom to demonstrate.
Last Friday, an anti-government rally brought out half a million people in Hama, according to pro-democracy activists. The security services did not intervene and Assad fired the city’s governor the next day.
Human rights activists said on Thursday that anti-government demonstrations took place overnight in several towns in response to a number of pro-Assad rallies held Wednesday.

The activists said thousands demonstrated in the northwest town of Idlib, at Harasta in the southwest and near the southern town of Deraa, while hundreds of protesters rallied in Saqba, a Damascus suburb.
On Thursday, the army slapped a curfew on Jebel Zawiya in Idlib province, a focal point of the military sweep in which 300 people have been detained in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory said.
“The unannounced curfew imposed on the villages of Nasfara, Kfar Awaid, Kfar Ruma and Kfar Nubol prevented residents from meeting their needs,” said activist Rami Abdel Rahman.
“It also prevented farmers from doing their daily work,” he added.

Residents of Hama and the central city of Homs staged a general strike ahead of Friday protests, which activists have called under the theme of “no dialogue” with the regime, Abdel Rahman said.  “Dialogue makes no sense if security forces do not pull out of the streets and the regime does not stop its violence against citizens,” lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said.

Meanwhile, activists from the Local Coordination Committees from Beirut told The Daily Star Thursday that no opposition groups would agree to any further dialogue.
“There will be no dialogue while the military remains in Syrian cities,” said Beirut-based activist Rami Nakhe. “Tomorrow the Syrian streets will march in solidarity with the people of Hama.”
“The regime will try to minimize the deaths in Hama because they know what a sensitive place it is in Syrian people’s hearts.”

Rights groups say that more than 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people arrested by security forces since mid-March.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon called on the Syrian president Thursday to make good on his promises of reform.