Syrian tanks storm eastern city (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian troops killed 20 people in a tank assault on the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Sunday, an activist group said, despite a direct U.N. appeal to President Bashar al-Assad to stop using military force against civilians.

The assault on Deir al-Zor, capital of a restive oil-producing province, began one week after Assad sent the army to seize control of Hama, focal point of nearly five months of protest against his autocratic rule.

Facing international condemnation, including from Syria’s regional allies, Assad defended the military campaign against what Damascus portrays as an armed insurrection.

“Dealing with outlaws and convicts who stage highway robbery and seal off cities and terrorise the population is a national duty,” state news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling visiting Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

An Assad adviser said neighbouring Turkey, which condemned the attack on Hama as an atrocity, should not meddle in Syrian affairs and warned Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu he would get a frosty reception when he visits Damascus on Tuesday.

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union said most casualties in Sunday’s attack on Deir al-Zor were in al-Joura district in the west of the city.

A resident told Reuters: “Early this morning columns of army tanks and bulldozers, under cover of heavy rounds of gunfire, stormed into the western and northern entrances of the city and dismantled barricades set up by residents.

“A dozen tanks are taking position in the main square in Jubaila market in the northern sector of Deir al-Zor,” the resident, who gave his name as Abu Bakr, said by telephone.

Syria has barred most independent media since the start of the uprising against Assad, making it hard to verify accounts from residents, activists and authorities.

The military assault on Deir al-Zor, about 400 km (250 miles) north-east of Damascus, was launched a day after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Assad he was alarmed by the escalating violence and demanded he rein in the army.

“In a phone conversation with President Assad…the Secretary General expressed his strong concern and that of the international community at the mounting violence and death toll in Syria over the past days,” the U.N. press office said.

Ban “urged the president to stop the use of military force against civilians immediately,” it added.

Residents of Deir al-Zor, situated on the Euphrates river in a province bordering Iraq’s Sunni heartland, had been bracing for an assault on their city.

A video posted on the Internet last week showed a tribal meeting discussing preparations for armed resistance to any military move against them.

Deir al-Zor resident Abu Bakr, from the Jubaila area which has seen some of the largest anti-Assad demonstrations in recent weeks, said mosque loudspeakers were blaring “Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)” on Sunday.

Another resident said tanks and armored personnel carriers had crossed the Euphrates and deployed in the center of town.

“Shells are now hitting al-Joura district,” he said, the sound of machinegun and tank fire echoing in the background. “No one dares go out in the street near the main square.”

In a separate assault on the Houla plain north of the central city of Homs, Syrian forces killed at least seven villagers, activists said.

TURKISH MESSAGE

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who forged close ties to Assad but has been sharply critical of the crackdown, said his foreign minister, Davutoglu, would visit Damascus on Tuesday. “Our message will be decisively delivered,” he said.

Assad’s adviser Bouthaina Shaaban hit back on Sunday, criticizing Ankara for failing to condemn “the savage murders of civilians and military men by armed terrorist groups.”

“If…Davutoglu is coming to Syria to deliver a decisive message, then he will hear even more decisive words in relation to Turkey’s position,” Shaaban said.

An official source also criticized a statement by Gulf Arab states who broke months of silence on Saturday to express concern about over the violence in Syria. The source, quoted by SANA, said the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council had ignored the “killing and sabotage carried out by armed groups.”

Syrian authorities say gunmen have killed 500 police and soldiers since March. Reinforcing the message that Syria faces an armed revolt backed by outside forces, state television broadcast footage on Sunday of 250 shotguns, explosives and ammunition it said were seized at the border with Lebanon.

Rights groups say Syrian security forces have killed at least 1,600 civilians since the start of the protests, inspired by Arab uprisings which overthrew leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

In Hama, tanks and armored vehicles deployed throughout the city on Saturday, a resident said, after a week-long assault which one activist group said had killed 300 civilians.

Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, crushed an armed Islamist uprising in Hama nearly 30 years ago, killing many thousands of people and razing parts of the city’s old quarter.

Hama stands as a symbol of defiance to the Assad family due to the 1982 uprising and because, until Bashar al-Assad sent in the tanks to crush the latest protests, it was the scene of some of the biggest demonstrations against his rule, with more than 100,000 gathering on Fridays to chant for his overthrow.

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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