Tanks roll as Syria faces new sanctions

SYRIAN tanks and armoured vehicles swept into the coastal city of Latakia yesterday as gunfire was heard in a district where thousands had protested against President Bashar al-Assad.

The deployment took place a day after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches in which demonstrators called for Assad's overthrow and vowed to "kneel only to God".

Assad's military crackdown on the five-month protests, in which activists say over 1,700 civilians have been killed, has prompted new United States sanctions on Damascus and criticism from Arab states after months of regional silence.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 20 military vehicles deployed on Saturday near the Ramle district of the Mediterranean city of Latakia, where 10,000 people had demonstrated on Friday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.

Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad family has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.