Tanks reported entering Syrian border village

Thousands of Syrian refugees have been flooding into Turkey as the government tries to crush the three-month-old uprising.

The regime blames foreign conspirators and thugs for the unrest.

The Local Co-ordinating Committees, which track the Syrian protest movement, said tanks entered Khirbet al-Jouz and snipers were spotted on rooftops. The group was quoting residents on the ground in the village.

Syria has banned foreign journalists and restricted local media, making it nearly impossible to independently confirm the accounts.

AP Television News journalists on the Turkish side of the border yesterday saw armed men near the village and an armoured personnel carrier on its outskirts.

Nearly 100 Syrians who were living in makeshift tents on the Syrian side of the border fled into Turkey as the village was surrounded and Turkey deployed guards along the frontier.

The opposition estimates 1,400 people have been killed and 10,000 detained in the Syrian crackdown, drawing international condemnation and sanctions.

On Wednesday, the Syrian regime lashed out at European governments for threatening a new round of sanctions and accused the West of trying to sow chaos and conflict in the Arab nation.

But foreign minister Walid Moallem also reiterated the president’s call for national dialogue and spoke of democracy over the horizon – a bold assertion after more than four decades of iron-fisted rule by the family of President Bashar Assad and months of bloody reprisals.

An official said the European Union was planning to hit the Syrian regime with more sanctions, targeting seven more individuals and four companies in a bid to stop the crackdown against protests. The EU also has an embargo on sales of arms and equipment that can be used to suppress demonstrations.

Mr Moallem said the suggestion “amounts to [an act] of war” and warned “we will forget that Europe is on the map”.

He also said he was confident that, three months into an uprising against the Assad family’s 40-year rule, there would be no foreign military intervention nor a no-fly zone of the kind Nato has imposed over Libya.