Military push compels more Syrians to flee for their lives

Syrian tanks pushed toward more towns and villages near the Turkish and Iraqi borders yesterday.

The move was an expansion of a brutal clampdown against a 12-week uprising to the north and east of the country, where more people fled in fear.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad appears to have abandoned all pretence of offering reform, sending tanks, helicopter gunships and only his most loyal forces into population centres to crush dissent.

Anti-government activists reported tanks in the northern market town of Maaret al-Numan and in smaller villages near Jisr al-Shughour, a town stormed on Sunday by Syrian elite forces backed up by helicopters.

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso said tanks were also moving in the large eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq. The Syrian government claimed to have thwarted cross-border weapons smuggling near there.

Othman al-Bedeiwi, a pharmacy professor in Maaret al-Numan, said by telephone that helicopters had been ferrying troops to a camp in Wadi al-Deif, several miles from the town.

He said: "We met the (provincial] governor and he assured us that the army will go in only to arrest 360 people it has on a list. The people of Maaret, however, are sceptical. My name is on the list to be arrested as being a gunman. I never carried a weapon in my life."

An estimated 8,000 Syrians have poured into neighbouring Turkey to escape the military push. They provided a grim picture of what they left behind.

Troops "damage homes and buildings, kill even animals, set trees and farmlands on fire," said Mohammad Hesnawi, 26, who fled Jisr al-Shughour. He accused pro-government militias, known as "shabiha", of atrocities there.

Turkish authorities were giving priority to women and children fleeing the border village of al-Hasaniya, where people "are eating fruit out of the trees, including apples and cherries," since there's not enough food for all, Mr Hesnawi said.

Only sketchy reports are emerging from the embattled northern area, since foreign journalists have been expelled from Syria.

Some analysts have said Mr Assad is trying to keep the opposition from establishing a base, as happened in Libya. Mr Assad initially had promised mild reforms, but his gestures have been rejected with thousands protesting across Syria.They say they won't stop until he leaves power, ending his family's 40-year rule.

In the past week, as the government appeared to be on the verge of losing control of major parts of the country, it abandoned most pretences of reform.

The crackdown has put paid to a view long held by many in Syria and abroad that Mr Assad is a reformer at heart, though one constrained by the old guard of his father, Hafez's, era. They are mainly members of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam in what is a mainly Sunni country.

Most of the major military operations have been carried out in border areas, including Jisr al-Shughour, the southern city of Deraa, near the border with Jordan, and the central province of Homs, bordering Lebanon. Activists claim that more than 1,400 Syrians have died and 10,000 have been detained by government forces since protests began in mid-March.