Syrian head warns Western powers

29 October 2011 Last updated at 21:17 ET

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned of an “earthquake” if the West intervenes in his country.

In an interview with the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Mr Assad said involvement risked transforming Syria into “another Afghanistan”.

His comments came after the UN secretary-general made a new call called for the repression to end.

Activists said three people were killed on Saturday, when tanks shelled a historic district in the city of Homs.

The violence came a day after one of the bloodiest days of the seven-month-old uprising, during which 40 people died after Friday protests.

More than 3,000 people have died in the unrest since protests calling for the government of President Bashar al-Assad to step down broke out in March.

‘Faultline’

In the Sunday Telegraph interview, Mr Assad said Western countries “are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely”.

“Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the faultline, and if play with the ground will cause an earthquake,” he is reported as telling the London-based newspaper.

“Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region. If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region.

Tens of thousands rallied in Damascus on Wednesday in support of President Assad.

“Do want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?”

President Assad admitted that “many mistakes” had been made by his security forces in the early part of the uprising, but the paper said he insisted that “only terrorists” were now being targeted.

He said he had responded differently to the Arab Spring than other, deposed Arab leaders.

“We didn’t go down the road of stubborn government,” he said. “Six days after (the protests began), I commenced reform.

Mr Assad described the uprising as a “struggle between Islamism and pan-Arabism.

“We’ve been fighting the Muslim brotherhood since the 1950s and we are still fighting with them,” he said.

The latest statement from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Mr Assad must respond to demands for change with serious reform, “not repression and violence”, and called for an immediate halt to military operations.

His calls echo those of members of the Arab League who on Friday sent an “urgent message” to the Syrian government, denouncing “the continued killings of civilians” taking part in protests.

The League’s ministerial committee on the Syrian crisis also urged Damascus to “take the necessary measures” to protect civilians.

Friday was one of the most violent since the uprising began

On Saturday, two of the country’s main activist groups, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Co-ordinating Committees, said shells slammed into the Baba Amr district of Homs.

Reuters news agency reported one person was shot dead by a sniper and two were killed during machinegun fire between Mr Assad’s forces and defectors in the city.

Raids and arrests also were reported around the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, the Associated Press reports.

In another incident near Homs, up to 20 Syrian soldiers were killed and 53 wounded in clashes with presumed army deserters, according to Agence France Presse.

In a separate incident, 10 security agents and a deserter were killed in a bus ambush near the Turkish border, AFP reported, quoting activists.

The Observatory said the bus was transporting security agents between the villages of Al-Habit and Kafrnabuda in Idlib province when it was ambushed “by armed men, probably deserters”.

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