Syria Sends Tanks to Border Area Near Turkey, Holds Hundreds

(Updates with death toll in third paragraph, more protests in sixth. For more on the Middle East turmoil, see MET.)

July 1 (Bloomberg) — Syria’s army carried out attacks on anti-government demonstrators near the border with Turkey and detained hundreds at rallies across the country today, a human- rights activist said.

At least 60 tanks were sent north to the border province of Idlib, part of a deployment that includes helicopters, Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said by phone from Syria’s capital, Damascus. At least 10 people were killed and as many as 50 wounded in Idlib in the past day in raids on the village of Rameh, with more deaths reported today in Halab, he said. The Associated Press put the total at 12.

Three people died during rallies in the central province of Homs today, Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, said by phone from Cairo.

Security forces have killed more than 1,500 people since the start of the unrest, according Qurabi. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that President Bashar al-Assad is “running out of time” to meet protesters’ demands. A U.S.- led effort to get the United Nations Security Council to condemn the violence was blocked by China and Russia.

Arrests have been carried out in the Damascus suburbs of Barzeh, Douma, Harasta and Kaswa, and in the governorate of Raqa, Merhi said, while demonstrators including female students were detained in the northern city of Aleppo, where protests continued today. In Daraa, the southern city where the rallies against Assad’s rule began in mid-March, at least 200 people were held, Merhi said.

Protests numbered about 400,000 people in Hama and about 100,000 in Homs, with major protests also in other cities, he said.

National Dialogue

Critics of Assad’s leadership met at a conference in Damascus this week, and his government set up a national dialogue committee. Most activists say such measures won’t work without policy changes. Assad blamed the protests on a foreign conspiracy last week, while also saying that the demands of demonstrators “have merit” and that reforms are needed.

At least 20,000 people have been arrested since the start of the unrest, and half of them remain in detention, according to Qurabi.

Thousands of Syrians have fled across the border to Turkey to escape violence in northern towns, straining relations between the countries. About 10,500 refugees are currently staying in Turkish camps, Turkey’s government said today. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will visit Syria during a tour of the Middle East beginning this weekend, Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency said.

More ‘Resistance’ Possible

Clinton said the Syrian government’s actions so far aren’t enough to begin a transition to democracy.

Assad’s government can “allow a serious political process that will include peaceful protests to take place throughout Syria and engage in a productive dialogue with members of the opposition and civil society” or the government is “going to continue to see increasingly organized resistance,” Clinton told reporters in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The U.S. and its European allies accepted defeat yesterday in their latest effort at the UN to pressure Assad to halt his crackdown.

Russia led opposition that stripped U.S.-drafted language critical of the Assad regime from a Security Council resolution renewing the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission on the Golan Heights. Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa have blocked adoption of a draft resolution that would condemn the attacks and demand an immediate end to the Syrian violence.

–With assistance from Bill Varner at the United Nations, Vivian Salama in Dubai, Emre Peker in Ankara and Nicole Gaouette in Vilnius, Lithuania. Editors: Ben Holland, Heather Langan, Karl Maier, Andrew Atkinson

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