UN divided as tanks besiege Syrian cities

Members of a pro-Islamic human rights group   Syrian tanks stormed the protest hub of Hama, activists said Wednesday, as the UN Security Council geared up for a third day of meetings to seek a response to the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Meanwhile, Syrian state news agency SANA said parliament would meet in an extraordinary session on Sunday to discuss "issues concerning the nation and its citizens." It did not elaborate. "There are some 100 tanks and troop carriers on the highway leading to the central city of Hama and about 200 tanks around the eastern city of Deir Ezzor," said Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He told AFP that all telephone and Internet communication had been cut in Hama and nearby areas.
In Hama, tanks were deployed in several districts and shelling could be heard across several neighbourhoods, another activist told AFP.
"From the sound of the shelling, it sounds like it's open warfare."  The Local Coordination Committees, which represents the protesters, said plumes of smoke could be seen over the city of 800,000 residents.
"People are deserting the city and are faced by live gunfire from security forces and army troops if they don't respond to orders to go back inside," a statement said.
The committees reported security checkpoints in and around Hama and said a building and several homes collapsed due to the shelling. They also said a nine-year-old boy was killed on Tuesday in the coastal city of Latakia when shots were fired at his house.  The accounts could not be independently verified as foreign reporters are not allowed to travel in Syria to report on the unrest. Meanwhile, Abdel Raman said an official in Deir Ezzor had been "advised by well-informed sources that residents should flee while they still had time," before the army storms the town by Friday.
And he said two people had been killed late Tuesday when security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the northern town of Raqqa and a third was killed during a protest in the coastal town of Jableh. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington is "working to move forward with additional targeted sanctions" and exploring broader sanctions that would "isolate the Assad regime politically and deny its revenue with which to sustain its brutality."  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon vented his growing anger at Assad's refusal to acknowledge international criticism, particularly after the weekend military offensive in Hama.
Assad "must be aware that under international humanitarian law, this is accountable. I believe that he lost all sense of humanity," he said on Tuesday.
Funerals were held on Wednesday for seven members of the security services and army who were killed by "armed terrorist gangs" in a suburb of Damascus as well as in Homs, Hama and Daraa, SANA said.  State television also aired an amateur video showing corpses being thrown from a bridge into a river, and said the bodies were of security forces killed by anti-government protesters. Rights activists, however, have challenged that account, saying the victims were pro-democracy protesters killed by the army.
The UN Security Council struggled through negotiations on how to respond to the Syria crisis that Russia's envoy warned was veering toward civil war. Diplomats said progress had been made but divisions remain among the 15 nations on the wording of any condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on protests and whether it should be a formal resolution or a less weighty statement.
European nations agreed to change their draft resolution on Syria, following pressure from opponents. But Russia said there was still not the "required balance" in the new version.
Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin called the new text "detrimental" to efforts "to do everything possible to pull away from the brink of civil war where Syria is finding itself, unfortunately and tragically."
International pressure to agree on a Security Council stand has mounted since weekend violence in which an estimated 140 people were killed in a military offensive on the flashpoint city of Hama and other protest towns.
Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United States have been trying to get a resolution passed for two months.
But Russia and China, two of the five permanent council members, have previously threatened to veto any such move. Brazil, India and South Africa have also opposed council action, suggesting it could lead to a Libya-style international military campaign against Assad.
European governments and NATO have strongly denied there they have any plan for a military intervention.  Diplomats say there is now agreement that there has to be a Security Council response. Following the second day of the new talks, council members agreed to refer the current draft text back to their national governments and to resume negotiations on Wednesday. "We are progressing toward a constructive text," said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There are still key unresolved issues which will go back to capitals."
Three people were killed Tuesday in Hama, including two brothers, when a rocket hit their car, and the third person was killed by a sniper, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
He also reported a "massive deployment of tanks on the road between Homs and Ruston" in central Syria where he said residents "are worried that the army is preparing to launch an operation."
On Tuesday night, there were demonstrations in Homs and numerous villages in the vicinity, as well as in the coastal city of Latakia and Baniyas.
Homs, Syria's third city, is due south of Hama, where an estimated 20,000 people died when the government of Assad's father, Hafez, put down an Islamist revolt in 1982.
Meanwhile, a group of Syrian dissidents met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, in what the State Department said was the first time she had met opposition figures.
Radwan Ziadeh said he and the other dissidents urged US President Barack Obama to press for UN sanctions against Damascus and call on Assad to quit power.
On Monday Clinton said the international community must "come together behind the people of Syria at this critical time."
Syria says armed gangs are responsible for the violence and the state news agency SANA reported that "saboteurs" stormed Monday the main courthouse in Hama and set fire to offices. SANA said the army was in Hama to clear the city of barricades set up by armed groups who it accused of sowing terror and attacking private and public property. UN human rights chief Navi Pillay warned the Syrian regime the "world is watching" its deadly crackdown while Italy recalled its ambassador in Damascus for consultation. Meanwhile, the European Union added five Syrian figures to a blacklist of individuals and businesses associated with the repression, including Defence Minister Ali Habib. Some 1,600 civilians and 370 members of the security forces have been killed since pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria in mid-March.