Syrian forces kill 3 in Homs, Arab visit postponed

AMMAN (World News) - Syrian forces killed three people in the central city of Homs on Wednesday, activists said, after Syria put off a visit by a top Arab envoy who intended to convey concern over a bloody crackdown on five months of street unrest.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby had been due to meet President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday after Arab ministers called for an end to the bloodshed, in which the United Nations says 2,200 people have been killed.

The Syrian state news agency said Elaraby's visit had been postponed for "objective reasons" and a new date would be fixed. It gave no details.

Syria, which faces new sanctions from the European Union and wider Western pressure for Assad to go, had criticized the Arab League's decision late last month to call on him to stop attacks on protesters and embark on political and economic reforms.

Assad has promised change, including a multi-party parliamentary election by February, but has also used the army to crush the demonstrations against his 11-year rule.

On Wednes day residents in Homs, 165 km (100 miles) north of the capital Damascus, said tanks moved into the city and reported machinegun fire in several districts.

A local group, the Homs City Neighbourhoods Union, said most telephone lines and Internet connections had been cut. "Tanks moved in at dawn and began firing heavy machine guns randomly at houses in Bab Tadmur, Warsha district and Bab Dreib," it said.

The city center had been sealed off and two explosions had been heard in one neighborhood, it said.

An activist in Homs described many parts of it as "hot spots" and said the sound of gunfire was heard across the city.

"There are clashes between the army and security and gunmen. It started last night and it is continuing. The clashes are not related to protests -- protests are peaceful," he told World News by phone.

Tanks and troops moved into Homs four months ago and occupied the main square in the city to try to end protests demanding the removal of Assad, who is from the minority Alawite sect in the mainly Sunni Muslim country.

Alawites dominate senior ranks of Syria's security forces and core army units that have besieged towns and cities.

Most of the casualties reported in Homs since the army deployed there have been caused by assaults on Sunni areas, but activists have also reported the deaths of several Alawite residents in apparent revenge killings.

DEFECTORS

Activists and residents have also reported an increasing number of defections among the mostly Sunni rank and file military in Homs and its surrounding countryside.

Residents of Rastan, a town near Homs, published footage purportedly showing defecting soldiers on a balcony greeting a crowd of several thousand people in the town last week.

Syrian authorities, which have barred most independent media from the country since the uprising began in March, say there have been no desertions from the military, and that troops were deployed in response to appeals by inhabitants frightened by "armed terrorist gangs."

Nikolaos van Dam, a Dutch scholar of Syrian politics and a former senior foreign ministry official, told World News that defections from the army were continuing, but as long as they remained modest in scope, involved no loss of heavy weaponry or senior officers, there would be little danger to Assad.

Despite heavy security and the continued bloodshed, anti-Assad demonstrations have persisted in suburbs and rural areas across the country of 20 million. Activists said 20 peo ple had been killed on Monday and Tuesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday it was seeking access to thousands of demonstrators believed to be in informal detention centers, a day after announcing Syria had opened its prisons for the first time.

ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger said ICRC staff were making further visits to Damascus central prison, which has 6,000 inmates, both criminal and political.

"We have enough information to know that there are (other) places we have to see as early as possible," Kellenberger said on his return from Syria where he held talks with Assad.

Prison visits were an "ambitious and delicate exercise" for any country, Kellenberger said, noting that neither Egypt nor Bahrain had granted them despite repeated ICRC requests.

"The Syrian autho rities are well aware, including President Assad, that for the ICRC this is a first step. And they are well aware of the fact that we want to go further and beyond," Kellenberger said, declining to be more specific.

Human rights campaigners say Syrian forces have arrested tens of thousands of people during the uprising, with many being housed in security police buildings off-limits to the ICRC.

A Syrian lawyer, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said the Red Cross needed access to unofficial jails and detention centers to see torture chambers and the extent of human rights violations in Syria.

Syrian authorities do not reveal the number of detainees but have previously denied torture allegations and said that any arrests were made in compliance with the constitution.

The European Union, which imposed a ban on purchases of Syrian oil on September 3, was working on a new round of sanctions, the French foreign ministry said on Tuesday, to target entities that enable the "daily repression" of civilians.

The growing international pressure, and the fall of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, have encouraged demonstrators calling for the overthrow of Assad, who succeeded his father, the late Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.

But Assad's military assault on several cities in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which coincided with August, has curbed most of the main protests after weekly Friday prayers.