Gunfire echoes around Syria’s Deraa

Gunfire and artillery echoed early on Tuesday around the besieged city of Deraa, the heart of Syria’s month-long uprising, as civilians sought refuge indoors from tanks and snipers on the streets, a resident said.

The president, Bashar al-Assad, facing a nationwide challenge to his 11-year autocratic rule, sent the army into Deraa and two restive suburbs of Damascus on Monday to crush protesters, killing 20 people according to a prominent Syrian rights group.Assad’s use of force, echoing his father’s suppression of Islamists in Hama in 1982, was condemned by the United States, but Western countries which launched air strikes against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi have taken no action against the Syrian leader.Western criticism of the crackdown was initially muted, partly because of fears that a collapse of his minority Alawite rule in the majority Sunni country might lead to sectarian conflict, and because Washington had hoped to loosen Syria’s alliance with Iran and move it toward a peace deal with Israel.Arab states, quick to criticise Gaddafi’s repression of Libyan rebels, have similar concerns and also remained silent as the death toll in more than five weeks of Syrian unrest rose to over 350. Some are also putting down pro-reform protests on their own soil.Syrian rights organisation Sawasiah said on Tuesday security forces had arrested 500 pro-democracy sympathisers across Syria after tanks rolled into Deraa. It said 20 people were killed in the southern city and two others in Douma, one of the Damascus suburbs stormed by security forces on Monday.Amnesty international, citing sources in Deraa, said at least 23 people were killed when tanks shelled Deraa in what it called ‘a brutal reaction to people’s demands.’Last week Assad lifted Syria’s 48-year state of emergency and abolished a hated state security court. But the next day 100 people were killed during protests across the country.Activists say Friday’s violence and the storming of Deraa on Monday showed Assad had decided on force, not reforms, to deal with the protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world which toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia.‘The regime has chosen to use excessive violence. It worked in 1982, but there is no guarantee it will work again in the age of the Internet and phone cameras,’ said a diplomat referring to Hafez al-Assad’s Hama crackdown which killed up to 30,000.