Syrian troops have killed 20 people in a tank assault on the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, ignoring direct appeals from the UN to President Bashar al-Assad to end civilian bloodshed.
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.
Denial in Damascus as Syria revolts
Syria is in open revolt with hundreds killed, weekly protests now daily and chants against the President in every corner of the country. Except Damascus, writes a Syria expert for Channel 4 News.
Read more: Denial in Damascus
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 250 miles north-east of Damascus, was launched a day after UN 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 UN 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.
In Hama, tanks and armoured vehicles deployed throughout the city on Saturday, a resident said, after a week-long assault which one activist group said had killed 300 civilians.