Editor's NOTE: photo taken on Government tour an adherent of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad up a picture of President on market Hamidiya in Damascus, April 30, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Khaled Suleiman al-Khalidi al-HaririByAMMAN | SAT Apr 30, 2011 8: 50 pm EDT
AMMAN (Reuters)-women and children in the beleaguered Syrian city of Deraa Sung "God is greatest, against the tyrant" of roofs in the night after troops backed by tanks stepped up a crackdown on the city, said a resident.
Troops stormed in Deraa, cradle of a six-week-old rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule, a week ago to try to crush protests that are scattered all over the country of 20 million. Power and communications have been disrupted.
On Saturday, tanks shelled the old quarter of the southern city and security forces stormed the Omari mosque, a central point for protests.
"The shelling has intensified. It's the worst night. Women and children are on their roofs chanting "God is more ' against the tyrant," a resident in the neighborhood in the old quarter Manshia told Reuters by telephone.
He said security forces were entering homes and dragging men to buses.
The chants echoed the calls of Iranian demonstrators who took to rooftops in Tehran chanting "allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) during unrest following the elections in 2009.
Foreign correspondents are largely excluded from Syria since the protests escalated and began the crackdown.
A Syrian rights group said at least 560 civilians have been killed in the six-week-old uprising in support of demands for greater political freedom and action against corruption that has flourished under the Baath party, in power since 1963.
The uprising, unthinkable only months ago, flared after mass protests ruling authoritarian leaders in Egypt and Tunisia. Scattered demonstrations in Bahrain and escalated to the civil war in Libya.
EMERGENCY LAW LIFTED
Newly appointed Prime Minister Adel Safar was quoted as saying by State News Agency SANA as saying that his Government would in the coming weeks a "full plan" of political, judicial and economic reforms.
The promise was not likely to dampen the intensity of the protests. A serious crackdown followed the once-unthinkable gesture of lifting a decades-old emergency law this month.
The Government has little influence as Assad, his family and the security apparatus has a stranglehold on power.
Syria accuses armed groups for the violence. Soldiers on Friday killed 19 people when they are on demonstrators who tried to Deraa of nearby villages in a show of solidarity layoffs, a medical source said. Syrian rights groups put the death toll at 62 Friday.
SANA quoted an official military source as saying on Saturday that army and security forces units had his hunting "armed terrorist groups" who had attacked properties in Deraa.
The source said six members of the Group were killed in the operation, 149 wanted people were arrested, and a large cache of weapons and ammunition seized. Two members of the security services also were killed and seven injured.
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Written by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut; Edit by Ralph Boulton)
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