More than 1,100 dead in Syria as Bashar al-Assad talks up concessions

SYRIAN troops pounded the central town of Rastan with artillery yesterday, renewing attacks in an area cut off for the past six days. At least 15 people died, bringing the total killed there to 72, activists said.

They claim more than 1,100 people have died in a nationwide crackdown by the government of president Bashar al-Assad since protests calling for democratic reforms turned into a mass movement seeking his removal, and an end to his family's almost 40-year rule.

A resident of Rastan, a protest stronghold, said the town's electricity was cut by shelling from tanks. He said a mosque and sports centre were also shelled.

"We have become refugees in our own country," said the man, who claimed he fled his home in the town centre to escape arrest and was sleeping rough.

"My family and sisters are still there, and I don't know how they are doing," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Earlier this week, Mr Assad's regime freed hundreds of political prisoners in an amnesty and the president set up a committee for national dialogue in an effort to end the ten-week uprising. But such concessions have been coupled with deadly attacks on the towns seen as the greatest threat to Mr Assad.

Electricity and telephone lines were cut last Saturday in Rastan and nearby towns, and the government attacks have been unrelenting ever since, activists say.

A movement consisting mostly of Syrian exiles met in Turkey yesterday, trying to find a unified voice and coherent response to the violence.

"The one who needs the amnesty is the killer," said Molham Aldrobi, a representative of Syria's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood who attended the conference in Antalya, Turkey.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, which help organise and document Syria's protests, said a four-year-old girl was among the most recent deaths in Rastan, where a total of 58 have been killed in the past three days. The nearby towns of Talbiseh and Teir Maaleh, which like Rastan have seen repeated demonstrations, have also come under attack.

There were no reports of protests yesterday in Homs but the Syrian opposition called for nationwide demonstrations today, the Muslim day of prayer, to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed in the uprising.

The images of children who activists say were killed during the crackdown have been circulating widely among Syrians on YouTube, Facebook and opposition websites, shocking the public and stoking even more fury against a regime the opposition says has lost all legitimacy.

Mr Assad issued an amnesty that was said to cover "all members of political movements," including the Muslim Brotherhood, which led an armed uprising against his father, Hafez, in 1982. Membership of the party is punishable by death.

The United States and France said the amnesty would not be enough.

Speaking in Washington on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said: "We need to see all political prisoners released, and we need to see an end to the violence that Syrian forces have been continually carrying out against civilian populations.

"The gesture of releasing a hundred or so political prisoners doesn't go far enough, and I think that the Syrian people would feel that way."

Mr Toner said the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, met Syrian officials on Tuesday and raised president Barack Obama's concerns over the crackdown, but he declined to elaborate.

In Paris, French foreign minister Alain Juppe said that Syrian authorities must be "much clearer, much more ambitious, much bolder than a simple amnesty".