EU to ban oil imports from Syria to tighten noose on Assad

Foreign ministers and representatives of foreign ministries attend an Arab league meeting in its headquarters The European Union reached an agreement in principle Monday to ban oil imports from Syria, tightening the noose on President Bashar al-Assad, who has refused to heed international and regional calls

for an end to his brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters. “There is a political consensus on a European embargo of imports of Syrian petroleum products,” a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. The new sanctions were backed by all representatives at a meeting of experts from the 27-nation bloc in Brussels, another diplomat said. Individual EU governments are expected to give their final approval by the end of the week, the diplomat said. The EU buys 95 percent of the oil Syria exports, representing nearly one-third of government receipts, according to diplomats.

Syrian security forces killed six people and wounded dozens on Monday in raids in the northwest and around the capital, as tanks rumbled into a village bordering Lebanon further south, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and the Local Co-ordination Committes. The group's director said "dozens" of people were also rounded up.
A child was among five people killed when troops and security forces opened fire during search operations in the Sarmin district of the northwest province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

One person died when part of his home was levelled as Syrian forces raked houses in Sarmin with heavy machine-gun fire, the head of the Britain-based Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, said. At least 60 people were also wounded in Sarmin and six houses were partly destroyed, he told AFP by telephone. A sixth person was killed when security forces raided his home at dawn in the town of Qara outside Damascus during an arrest operation, the Local Coordination Committees reported.

Around 10 trucks and armoured vehicles entered Qara, said the group which organises anti-regime protests and has militants on the ground across Syria. It said some 40 people whose names were on a "wanted list" were detained. Meanwhile, troops backed by tanks and personnel carriers early on Monday (7am) stormed the village of Hit, two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the border with Lebanon, south of the central city of Homs, Abdel Rahman said. "There has been high intensity gunfire since 9:00 am (0600 GMT)," he told AFP, adding that at least five people were wounded and 13 were arrested. "The security forces have burned many houses there, and arrested tens of people. There are many wounded because of the indiscriminate shooting in the streets," the group's director, Rami Abdulrahman, said.

In other developments, activists say Syrian security forces have surrounded a town in central Syria that has become a hotbed of dissent against President Bashar Assad's regime. At least 40 light tanks and armoured vehicles, and 20 buses full of troops and Military Intelligence, deployed at 5:30am at the highway entrance of the town and began firing heavy machineguns, Reuters reported. The Local Coordination Committees activist network says the heavy deployment around Rastan early Monday sent residents fleeing out of fear the town would be stormed. Rastan has been the site of intense anti-regime protests.

Meanwhile, security forces broke up a sit-in by hundreds of people in front of the Badr Mosque in Malki, near the presidential palace in the center of Damascus, overnight on Monday. In other regions, military and security forces stormed the villages of Deir Ezzor and Bokamal, killing child and wounding dozens of residents, the coordination committees said. The forces also shot at protesters in the Daraa’s cities of Inkhel, Nawa and Daeel, Damascus suburbs including Douma and Kesweh, and in Deir Ezzor, Idlib and several neighborhoods in Homs.
The central parts of Damascus have been relatively quiet since the uprising began, but there have been some small protests, including one in Malki this morning.

For EMAJ Magazine, a Damascus woman, known by Al Jazeera, writes about an incident in a central Damascus neighbourhood earlier this month:
"The area was raided by more than fifty thugs and security officers searching for one unarmed young protestor who hopelessly hid behind the garbage box in the school yard. He was caught and beat violently by all fifty men with their wooden rods and guns. They then broke into the school and threatened to wreck the whole neighborhood if any word, photo, or video is released.

"This happened in my own street and the whole incident was witnessed by my own eyes. I was almost dragged and imprisoned by the security men as I was standing in the balcony with my family." An armed terrorist group attacked on Sunday the Agricultural Bank in Khan Sheikhoun City in Idleb province with the aim to steal the employees' salaries which count SYP 40 million.

Governor of Idleb, Khalid al-Ahmad, said in a statement to SANA that the law enforcement forces which were guarding the Bank confronted the armed group members. Two of the attackers were killed and two others were injured, while the rest fled away, added the governor. "While the Bank's management was distributing paychecks, a number of gunmen attacked the Bank attempting to steal the salaries of the employees working at the state institutions in the area and other parties dealing with the Bank," al-Ahmad explained. Another group of gunmen, added Idleb's governor, attacked a client's car which was heading towards Balioun area in Jabal al-Zawiyeh and seized a sum of SYP 1.5 million. Governor al-Ahmad also referred to gunmen's attack of the car of the accountant in charge of Heish area and seized the SYP 5 millions which were with him.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi is to visit Syria to try to resolve the crisis in the country. He will take with him an "initiative to solve the crisis", the league said, without giving further details.Syria on Sunday rejected an Arab League statement demanding an end to the bloodshed in the country as the organization’s chief waited for a green light to travel to Damascus and as Turkish President Abdullah Gul said he has lost confidence in Syria.

In other news, a senior Russian envoy delivered a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday, sources on both sides said, without divulging its contents. "President Assad received a message this morning from President Dmitry "Medvedev, delivered to him by the deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov," the official said. While he did not elaborate, he said the message dealt with "Syria's steadfast position". The Kremlin confirmed in a statement that Medvedev had sent a message to Assad but again did not reveal the contents. Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin had said last week that Moscow would send an envoy to Damascus, as the UN Security Council remained divided over new sanctions on Syria over its deadly crackdown on dissent.