Tanks and troops bear down on Syrian town: Activists

NICOSIA: Several tanks and troop transports were heading on Friday for the northwest town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported activists there as saying.

"Tanks, personnel carriers and trucks full of soldiers were seen on Friday morning heading towards Maaret al-Numan," the Britain-based rights group quoted the activists as saying.

It said operations by Syrian security forces in Idlib on Thursday resulted in the deaths of two people, 73 arrests and another nine people missing.

Elsewhere, communications were still cut on Friday in the town of Zabadani some 50 kilometres northwest of Damascus. One man has been reported killed and 153 people arrested there since Tuesday.

Activists said protests took place late on Thursday in the cities of Homs and Hama, as well as in the Damascus area.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon called on Thursday for "coherent" global action over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's deadly crackdown on dissent, as Syria marked six months of anti-regime protests.

Opposition figures also identified members of a national council and protesters urged more rallies on Friday, undaunted by the crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 2,600 people.

Ban said of Assad that "when he has not been keeping his promises, enough is enough and the international community should really take coherent measures and speak in one voice."

The UN chief has had several telephone conversations with Assad since the protests erupted on March 15, during which the president repeatedly promised to end the bloody crackdown and institute political reforms.

Activists urged protests to take to the streets again on Friday, for rallies under the slogan "we advance toward the fall of the regime."

"We have been massacred and we are more determined than ever; we have been thrown in prison and are more determined than ever," the page said. "The revolution has burst forth and will not stop until the regime is overthrown.

"A new generation has been born in Syria during the six months of the revolution, a generation that refuses to be servile and to prostrate itself before images of the tyrant," it added.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011