More die as Syria’s tanks fire on rebel civilians

At least four people are confirmed dead as Syrian security forces pounded the city of Hama with tank shells and opened fire on protesters who streamed onto the streets across the country.

The six-day-old siege of Hama, which has killed at least 100 people, did little to intimidate protesters as marches calling for President Bashar Assad to quit spread from the capital, Damascus, to the southern province of Daraa and to Deir al-Zour in the east.

Other demonstrations were reported in Homs in the centre and in Qamishli, near the Turkish border.

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Security forces opened fire with live ammunition and tear gas in several cities. More than a dozen people were wounded.

At least four people were also killed in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen, said rights activists Mustafa Osso and the Local Co-ordination Committees, a group that tracks protests. Ten people were reported wounded in Arbeen.

Activists also said three people were wounded in Homs.

In Hama, tanks shelled residential districts at around 4am yesterday. The city of 800,000 has fallen out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks. But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive.

There was no official count of the dead. One resident said around 250 people had been killed since Sunday.

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A rights group that tracks death tallies reported up to 30 people were killed in Hama on Wednesday alone.

The tolls could not be verified because journalists are barred throughout Syria.

Although there has been a near-total communications blackout in Hama – with electricity, internet and phone service cut off – witnesses have painted a grim picture of life in the city.

People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street,” a resident told news agencies.

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Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the London-based Observatory for Human Rights, said about 1,000 families had fled Hama in the past two days, most to the villages of Mashtal Hilu to the west and al-Salamieh to the east.

Activists have expressed concern about worsening humanitarian conditions in Hama, saying medical supplies and bread were scarce even before the latest siege.

The uprising began in mid-March, inspired by the revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

Friday has become the main day for protests in Syria, despite the near-certainty that tanks and snipers will respond with deadly force.

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More than 1,700 civilians have been killed in the regime crackdown on the uprising since March.

Assad has largely brushed off international pressure on his regime.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he has warned Syria’s leader that he will face a “sad fate” if he fails to introduce reforms in his country and open a peaceful dialogue with the opposition.

In the United States, the Obama administration moved to further isolate Assad and his inner circle by imposing sanctions on a prominent pro-regime businessman and his firm.

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The sanctions against Assad family confidante Muhammad Hamsho and his firm, Hamsho International Group, freeze any assets they may have in US jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them.