Britons urged to flee Syria as violence spirals

The Foreign Office updated its travel advice to say they "should leave now by commercial means whilst these are still operating". And it reissued an urgent warning against all travel to the country.

A spokesman said: "Those who choose to remain in Syria or to visit against our advice should be aware that it is highly unlikely that the British Embassy in Damascus would be able to provide a normal consular service in the event of a further breakdown in law and order and increased violent civil disorder.

"Evacuation options would be limited because of likely communication and travel restrictions."

Britons in Syria were urged to keep a close watch on the situation and "take responsibility for their own safety and security".

Thousands of Syrians have been pouring into streets across the country, calling for the regime to go.

Meanwhile Syrian troops backed by tanks and firing heavy machine guns swept into a village near the Turkish border yesterday, the latest in a series of intensified army operations in the north-west, where there have been heavy clashes between loyalist troops and defectors.

Troops backed by six tanks and several armoured personnel carriers, are reported to have entered the village of Bdama yesterday morning. The village is about 12 miles from the Turkish border.

Britain, France, Germany and Portugal are also sponsoring a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council to condemn Syria.

The attack on Bdama came a day after Syrian forces swept into Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway linking Damascus, the capital, with Syria's largest city, Aleppo. Yesterday's assault on Bdama was about 25 miles to the west.

Also yesterday, the committees raised the death toll in Friday's anti-government protests to 19.

The three-month uprising has proved stunningly resilient, despite a relentless crackdown by the military, pervasive security forces and pro-regime gunmen. Human rights activists say that more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained as president Bashar Assad tries to maintain his grip on power.

Bdama is adjacent to Jisr al-Shughour, a town that was spinning out of government control before the military recaptured it last Sunday.

Activists had reported fighting in Jisr al-Shughour between loyalist troops and defectors who refused to take part in a continuing crackdown on protesters seeking to oust Assad.

The fighting in the area, that started nearly two weeks ago, displaced thousands of people including some 10,100 who are sheltered in Turkish refugee camps.

On Friday, UN envoy Angelina Jolie travelled to Turkey's border with Syria to meet some of the thousands of Syrian refugees.

Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the takeover of Bdama will affect about 2,000 Syrian refugees who are staying not far from there on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey. He said that those refugees were relying on a bakery in Bdama to feed themselves. Abdul-Rahman said that now those refugees would not be able to go to Bdama to get bread.

The uprising has proven to be the boldest challenge to the Assad family's 40-year dynasty in Syria. Assad, now 45, inherited power in 2000, raising hopes that the lanky, soft-spoken young leader might transform his late father's stagnant and brutal dictatorship into a modern state.

But over the past 11 years, hopes dimmed that Assad was a reformist, but rather a hardliner determined to keep power at all costs.

On Friday, 12 people were killed in the central city of Homs, two in the eastern town of Deir el-Zour, two in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, and one in the northern city of Aleppo. A boy believed to be aged 16, who was in the streets protesting, and another person died in the southern village of Dael, the local co-ordination committees said.