Syria tightens noose on protest hubs
SYRIA: Syrian forces tightened the noose Tuesday on key protest hubs,
including flashpoint Banias, sealing off neighbourhoods and arresting
dissident leaders, activists said.
A pro-regime newspaper said the army had restored "calm" in Banias,
while an adviser to President Bashar al-Assad told The New York Times
she believes the regime has ridden out the worst of the uprising.
EU sanctions against the regime took effect on Tuesday, with the
president spared but his younger brother heading a list of 13 officials
targeted for their involvement in the brutal crackdown. Foreign policy
chief Catherine Ashton said EU sanctions could be extended "including at
the highest level of leadership" unless Damascus heeds calls to end the
strong-armed crackdown.
And in New York, European powers were pressing the UN Security
Council to act.
Three days after storming Banias, troops backed by tanks and security
forces were still rounding up protesters on Tuesday, tracking down
dissident leaders, human rights activists said.
"The army controls all the neighbourhoods of Banias, and arrests are
still underway there and in the neighbouring villages of Baida and
Marqab," said Rami Abdul Rahman, of the London-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights.
Troops are hunting down "leaders of the protest movement," he told
AFP by telephone.
On Monday, troops went house to house in Banias with lists of names,
rounding up thousands of men and moving them to a municipal stadium to
be questioned, activists said.
Most were released but more than 450 people are still being held in
Banias, where tanks rolled in on Saturday to crush anti-regime protests,
the Syrian Observatory said.
Security forces also rounded up regime opponents at dawn Tuesday in
the key Mediterranean port of Latakia, in Damascus and in Idlib,
northwest of the capital, another activist said.
Vans packed with people arrested by the security forces were seen
Tuesday morning in Muadamiya, which has also been raided by the army, an
activist said. DAMASCUS, Wednesday, AFP
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