BEIRUT: Huge rallies played up support for Syria’s President Bashar Assad Thursday on the 1-year anniversary of the start of protests against his rule, as details emerged of another “massacre” in northwestern Idlib on the Turkish border.
 
Official media announced government forces had cleared “armed terrorists” from the northwestern city of Idlib, suggesting the army was gaining ground in the uprising which has cost upwards of 9,000 lives, according to new figures from monitors.
 
Opposition activists reported the discovery of 23 bodies, with what they said showed clear signs of torture, near Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the victims had been blindfolded and handcuffed before being shot dead and the bodies dumped, in an apparent repeat of a “massacre” of dozens of women and children in the flashpoint city of Homs last weekend.
 
It also said another 27 people had been killed in Idlib, including five defected soldiers. Three members of the Syrian regular army were also killed in an attack near Homs by armed opposition, the observatory reported.
 
Violence in the Idlib region has prompted a surge in refugees fleeing across the Turkish border. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry reported Thursday that about 1,000 Syrian refugees, including a defecting general, had crossed into the country in the past 24 hours.
 
“The number of Syrian refugees currently staying in Turkey boomed by 1,000 in a single day and climbed to 14,700 total,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said.
 
Turkey’s Red Crescent chief, Ahmet Lutfi Akar, warned that up to 500,000 Syrians may cross into the country seeking refuge from the bloodshed.
 
Turkey has said it may consider setting up a buffer zone inside Syrian territory to protect civilians from attacks by Assad’s forces, a Turkish deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay, said Thursday.
 
Marking the first anniversary of the start of protests in Syria, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said Assad has “responded with brutal repression, which has continued unabated.
 
“Its consequences are tragically unfolding before the world’s eyes. Well over 8,000 are dead as a result of the government’s decision to choose violent repression over peaceful political dialogue and genuine change,” he said.
 
Syrian state television meanwhile showed tens of thousands of people waving Syrian flags and Assad’s portrait in squares in Damascus, the northern city of Aleppo, Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, Suweida to the south and Hasaka in the northeast.
 
These cities have been relatively unscathed by the crackdown on dissent.
 
The authorities, who blame the bloodshed on foreign-backed “terrorist gangs,” announced a “global march for Syria” to counter anti-regime demonstrations being organized this week by the opposition across the world.
 
A sea of flags included the colors of Syria’s Russian and Iranian allies as well as Lebanon’s Shiite group Hezbollah and a bugler played in Damascus before a military band struck up the national anthem.
 
“We are not scared of death. We are ready to sacrifice ourselves for you, oh Syria,” the demonstrators chanted, many of them singing and dancing, and shouting: “Long live the army!”
 
In a breakdown of 9,113 deaths in the past 12 months, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll comprised 6,645 civilians, 1,997 members of Assad’s security forces and 476 defected soldiers.
 
In Aleppo and on the outskirts of Damascus, security forces broke up scattered anti-regime protests, according to the Local Coordination Committees, which organize demonstrations on the ground.
 
“Bashar, get out,” women chanted at a rally in the Jubar district of eastern Damascus, in a video posted by activists on the Internet.
 
Human Rights Watch stepped in to demand an end to the “scorched earth methods” being deployed by Assad, and insist that China and Russia stop blocking U.N. efforts to take tough action.
 
“City after city, town after town, Syria’s security forces are using their scorched earth methods while the Security Council’s hands remain tied by Russia and China,” HRW’s Sarah Leah Whitson said.
 
Moscow and Beijing have since October blocked two Security Council draft resolutions to condemn Damascus on the grounds they were unbalanced and aimed at regime change.
 
After a mission to Damascus, U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan is due to report back to the Security Council Friday on his efforts to end the violence and remains in contact with Damascus despite gloom among some Western diplomats over his chances of success. “The door of dialogue is still open. We are still engaged with Syrian authorities over Mr. Annan’s proposals,” Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in Geneva.
 
The former U.N. chief had received the president’s response to “concrete proposals” he submitted to the Syrian leader last weekend but had more “questions and is seeking answers.”
 
Assad confidently predicted at the start of 2011 that Syria was immune from the “Arab Spring,” in which the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen lost power.
 
But on March 15, a few dozen protesters braved the streets of Damascus to call for more freedom. Days later riots broke out in Deraa, on the border with Jordan, to protest against the torture of local boys caught writing anti-government graffiti.
 
Despite a crumbling economy and tightening sanctions, Assad still seems to have significant support within Syria, notably in its two top cities – Damascus and Aleppo. His ally Iran also remains supportive, anxious not to lose its main Arab friend.
 
But Syria faces growing isolation. Bahrain joined a lengthening list of countries as it shut its embassy in Syria Thursday, citing deteriorating security after Italy and Saudi Arabia said they were closing their Damascus embassies Wednesday.
 
Some Arab governments, notably Qatar, have advocated establishing an Arab peacekeeping force and arming the rebel Free Syrian Army. Those calls may be repeated at a meeting of Western and Arab states, the “Friends of Syria,” in Istanbul on April 2.
 
But Western nations have been reluctant to join those calls.
 
France, who has led condemnation of Assad, Thursday rejected weapons requests by the Syrian rebel forces, saying arming the Syrian opposition could lead to catastrophic civil war.
 
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France-Culture radio: “The Syrian people are deeply divided, and if we give arms to a certain faction of the Syrian opposition, we would make a civil war among Christians, Alawites, Sunnis and Shiites.” Juppe added that arming the opposition could lead to “a catastrophe even larger than the one that exists today.”