Syrian security forces stormed the city of Homs and cut off telecommunications Damascus – Agencies Syrian security forces stormed the city of Homs and cut off telecommunications as heavy shooting was heard while troops raided homes, Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday. It is thought that at least nine people have been killed. “Most land and cell phone lines and the Internet have been cut off. Tanks moved in at dawn and began firing heavy machineguns randomly at houses in Bab Tadmur, Warsha district and Bab Dreib,” Syrian activists told Reuters.
“Troops also deployed in Bab Sbaa, two explosions were heard in al-Khader neighborhood and they sealed off the city center,” said a statement by Homs City Neighborhoods Union sent to Reuters.
The operation comes after Syria asked Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi to postpone a visit to the Arab country for talks on the violent crackdown on protests that broke out mid-March.
Aleppo joined other Syrian cities protesting against the government Tuesday after one of the city's well-known scholars, Ibrahim Salqini died. The official cause of his death was a heart attack, according to government-run SANA news.
Activists raised doubts about the circumstances of his death. The scholar signed a document, which CNN has obtained, along with heads of mosques from all around Syria, condemning government violence against religious sites.
Thousands of mourners attended his funeral, according to an activist and the Local Coordination Committees of Syria.
Mourners chanted anti-government slogans, including "better death than humiliation," according to the activist.
Syrian security forces started firing when the demonstration reached the cemetery, according to the same activist.
Several people were injured and many detained, said the activist and the LCC.
Officials do not usually comment on opposition allegations concerning the killing or wounding of protesters.
Access to Syria has been severely restricted for international journalists, and it is rarely possible to verify accounts by witnesses and activists.
President Bashar al-Assad faces the biggest challenge to his rule since inheriting power from his father 11 years ago, with increased international condemnation of the violence.
More than 2,450 civilians and 700 members of the security forces have been killed during the crackdown, while 15,000 people have been injured and at least 20,000 are in prison, according to Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. The UN puts the death toll at more than 2,200.
Syria postpones visit by Arab League Chief
Syria requested the 11th-hour postponement of a planned visit by the Arab League chief to press for an end to its bloody crackdown on dissent as security forces killed four more people.
Syria said that circumstances had forced it to postpone Wednesday's visit by Nabil al-Arabi in which he had been due to present an Arab League reform initiative of which Damascus has been strongly critical.
"Syria has asked Arab League secretary general Nabil al-Arabi to delay his visit to Damascus due to circumstances beyond our control," the official SANA news agency said late on Tuesday.
"He has been informed of those circumstances and a new date will be set for his visit," the news agency added.
A Syrian diplomat, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters news agency late on Tuesday that the visit by Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby had been delayed but not cancelled.
"It will take place when conditions permit," he added without elaborating.
Arabi had been commissioned by the 22-member bloc to travel to Damascus on Wednesday with a 13-point document outlining proposals to end the government's bloody crackdown on dissent and push Syria to launch reforms.
According to a copy of the document seen by AFP, Arabi will propose that President Bashar al-Assad hold elections in three years, move towards a pluralistic government and halt immediately the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The initiative, agreed at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo last month, calls for a "clear declaration of principles by President Bashar al-Assad specifying commitment to reforms he made in past speeches."
The initiative angered Syria which said it contained "unacceptable and biased language."
Assad has pledged reforms and in August issued a decree allowing opposition political parties alongside the ruling Baath party in power since 1963 with the constitutional status of "the leader of state and society."
But his regime insists its policies will not be dictated from abroad.
Arabi said Tuesday that he had been instructed by the Arab League "to carry a clear message to the Syrian authorities about the situation in Syria and the need to stop the violence and launch immediate reforms."
Arab foreign ministers held a special meeting on Syria on August 27 and called on Damascus "to follow the way of reason before it is too late" and to respect "the right of the Syrian people to live in security."
Mounting criticism
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, made his strongest remarks yet on Tuesday against the Syrian government's crackdown.
He condemned the violence, which he said was being committed by President Bashar al-Assad's regime against his people during the five-month-old uprising.
Ban called on Assad to take "bold and decisive measures before it's too late".
"It's already too late, in fact,'' Ban said in New Zealand, where he was attending a meeting of Pacific leaders.
"If it takes more and more days, then more people will be killed.''
Ban said it was time for UN members to unite and take "coherent measures".
Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Syria denounced Assad's regime in a posting on Facebook.
Ambassador Robert Ford said he accepted that members of Syria's security forces had died during protests, but their numbers were far less than the number of protestors killed.
Ambassador Ford also said that the Syrian government, with a "clear preponderance of arms and force, bears the responsibility for the violence."
"We support the right of Syrians to protest peacefully. Peaceful protestors are not 'terrorists,'" he added.
Fresh sanctions planned
Assad's extreme response to demonstrations has led to broad international sanctions aimed at isolating his regime.
On Tuesday, a French government official said the European Union was working on a fresh round of sanctions against Syria that would target economic entities.
"We are working with our partners on a seventh round of sanctions that would target economic entities," said Bernard Valero, a French foreign ministry spokesman.
The EU on Friday adopted a ban on oil imports from Syria, which is expected to hit the government hard as the EU buys 95 percent of Syria's crude exports, providing a third of its hard currency earnings. The bloc has not excluded further sanctions.
Meanwhile Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, said on Tuesday it would adopt the bloc’s sanctions imposed on Syria to protest against Damascus’s violent repression of demonstrators.
The US ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford, who has earned Damascus's wrath by making a widely reported visit to the flashpoint city of Hama, denounced Assad's regime.
Ford said in a strongly worded post on Facebook that although Syrian security forces had died during protests, their numbers were "far lower than the number of unarmed civilians killed.
"Neither the Syrian protest movement nor the international community will believe that this Syrian leadership desires or is capable of the deep, genuine and credible reforms that the Syrian people are demanding," he wrote.
The Arab League last week publicly called for restraint and an end to the violence in Syria.
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday was granted access to a detention facility in Syria for the first time since unrest broke out in the country, the committee's president said after meeting with Assad.