Syrian military kills four in renewed assaults

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed four villagers Wednesday in a northwestern region near Turkey, rights campaigners said, in an expansion of a military campaign to crush dissent against President Bashar al-Assad.

The four were killed in tank-backed assaults on at least four villages in the Jabal al-Zawya region in Idlib province near the border with Turkey, an activist in Idlib and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Islam, is struggling to put down widening demonstrations in outlying rural and tribal regions, in suburbs of the capital and in cities such as Hama and Homs demanding an end to his autoratic rule.

Mass arrests and heavy deployment of security forces, including an irregular Alawite militia, known as shabbiha, have prevented demonstrations in central neighbourhoods of Damascus and in the commercial hub of Aleppo.

Military assaults on towns and villages in Idlib began five weeks ago after large demonstrations across the rural province demanding political freedoms, forcing thousands of refugees to flee to Turkey.

"We are seeing a military escalation following the regime's political escalation," the activist in Idlib who declined to be named for fear of arrest told Reuters by phone.

He was referring to the arbitrary arrests of thousands of Syrians that intensified in the last two weeks, according to human rights campaigners, despite the authorities convening what they described as a "national dialogue" conference composed mostly of Assad supporters. Assad loyalists also attacked the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus.

Syrian security forces arrested at least 30 people, including an actress and a writer, during a pro-democracy protest in Damascus Wednesday, the Observatory said.