"Reforms" out of the Barrel of Guns Coming to a Town Near You: Syrian tanks deployed to deter more unrest

Reuters

"Syrian tanks deployed overnight in flashpoint areas, residents said today, in an effort to prevent further outbreaks of pro-democracy unrest, intensifying a crackdown on mass protests now in their fourth week. Once-unthinkable public dissent challenging President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule has spread across Syria despite his attempts to defuse resentment by making some gestures towards reform in the tightly-controlled country of 20 million. Witnesses said on Saturday security forces had used live ammunition and tear gas to scatter thousands of mourners in the southern city of Deraa, where protests first erupted in March, after a mass funeral for protesters killed on Friday......

Syrian security forces later deployed overnight in the Mediterranean coastal city of Banias, home to one of Syria's two oil refineries. Several tanks were seen in the northern district of the conservative city where protests intensified as Assad used increasing force to quell demonstrations in the south.....

The National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria said 26 protesters were killed in Deraa on Friday, after earlier reporting the deaths had occurred on Saturday. A statement on its website on Sunday listed the names of 26 people killed in Deraa and two in Homs, and also provided the names of 13 people arrested over the last 10 days. Syria has prevented news media from reporting from Deraa and mobile phones lines there appeared to be cut.....


"The regime is using more violence in Deraa because it thinks that the response of the local population can be contained," Syrian political commentator Ayman Abdel Nour said. "Make no mistake about the nature of the Syrian regime. Its strategy in dealing with the protests across Syria is down to one man who makes all the decisions: Bashar al-Assad," he told Reuters. Assad has said the protests are serving a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife, similar language his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, used when he crushed leftist and Islamist challenges to his rule in the 1980s, killing thousands. On Friday, rallies swept Syria, from Latakia in the west to Albu Kamal on the east, emboldened by the popular upheaval that ousted the autocratic presidents of Tunisia and Egypt. A Syrian rights group said at least 37 people had been killed in protests across the country on Friday....."