DAMASCUS, June 12, (Agencies): Syrian troops on Sunday fought violent battles with “armed gangs” in flashpoint Jisr al-Shughur town, state television said, as international outrage mounted at the regime’s harsh crackdown on protesters.
Syria’s official media also reported that a mass grave was found in Jisr al-Shughur, allegedly containing the bodies of security agents killed by the gangs.
Rights activists reported heavy gunfire and explosions in the northwestern town near the Turkish border after troops backed by helicopter gunships and around 200 tanks launched a two-pronged assault early on Sunday.
“Army divisions entered Jisr al-Shughur and purged the state hospital of armed groups,” the television said.
“Violent clashes pitched the army divisions against armed groups positioned inside and around the town,” it added.
The army entered the town “after defusing dynamite placed on the bridges and roads by the armed groups,” the report said, adding that “two armed men were killed and many more arrested, with machine guns also seized.”
A mass grave was discovered in Jisr al-Shughur containing the bodies of security agents from the city’s police headquarters, the television later said, without specifying the number of bodies.
“Armed groups had mutilated the corpses which were removed from the mass grave,” it added.
The rights activists, reached by telephone, told AFP the army fired barrages of shells into Jisr al-Shughur before entering the town, largely deserted after thousands fled ahead of the crackdown.
“The army started at about 7:00 am (0400 GMT) to shell the town intensively with tanks and heavy weaponry before launching an assault from the east and south,” one activist said.
“Explosions were heard and helicopter gunships patrolled over the city.”
Another activist, citing residents, said that explosions had been heard throughout the morning and columns of smoke could be seen rising from the town.
Syria’s Idlib province, in which Jisr al-Shughur falls, has long been a hotbed of hostility towards the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
It has been the focus of military operations for the past week, following what the authorities said was the massacre of 120 policemen by “armed gangs” in the town on Monday.
Human rights activists and residents deny the allegations of a massacre and say a number of policemen were executed by other security force members when they refused to fire on protesters in Jisr al-Shughur.
The crackdown in Idlib has seen more than 5,000 people flee across the border into Turkey, according to latest figures given on Sunday by Turkey’s Anatolia news agency.
Accounts
As the death toll mounted, detailed accounts emerged from some of the thousands who fled to Turkey from the bloodshed in Idlib.
Among them were Syrian army deserters who told of atrocities committed by soldiers in suppressing protests, who themselves were under threat of execution if they disobeyed orders.
Tahal al-Lush described the operation, in Ar-Rastan, a town of 50,000 people in Homs province, that had pushed him to desert.
“We were told that people were armed there. But when we arrived, we saw that they were ordinary civilians. We were ordered to shoot them,” said Lush, with a blank stare in his eyes.
“When we entered the houses, we opened fire on everyone, the young, the old... Women were raped in front of their husbands and children,” he said.
The harrowing reports of atrocities committed during Syria’s crackdown have sparked fresh international outrage.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed concern at the mounting death toll, while the United States and the EU urged Assad to let aid workers in to help relieve the humanitarian crisis.
Washington on Saturday called on Syria to let medics in, after reports that Syrian forces backed by helicopters had the previous day killed at least 25 protesters across the country, including in and around Jisr al-Shughur.
Fridays have become a rallying point in the revolt against Assad’s regime, whose backlash on pro-democracy protests that erupted in mid-March has killed more than 1,200 civilians, rights groups say.
The European Union also appealed to Assad to let international aid agencies in to help civilians caught up in the violence.
Both the EU and the US are backing a UN Security Council resolution proposed by Britain and France that condemns Syria for its crackdown.
Germany said on Sunday the army’s latest operations made a Security Council resolution all the more pressing.
“The dangerous situation makes a clear reaction from the UN Security Council all the more urgent,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country currently holds a non-permanent seat on the council, said in a statement.
Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the council, oppose any resolution on Syria.
Damascus blames the unrest on “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators. It is not possible to verify the accounts as foreign journalists are not allowed to circulate freely in Syria.
Demonstrators
Some three hundred demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal Saturday to to call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
Chanting “the people want an end to the regime” and, in Arabic, “God, Syria, freedom is all we want,” the protesters gathered in front of Concordia University in west Montreal before the start of their march.
In a vivid piece of street theater, protesters wearing T-shirts adorned with photos of Assad “opened fire” on other demonstrators, a grim reference to the more than 1,100 civilians that human rights groups say have been killed during protests in the country.
“The Syrian people deserve better than this, they deserve freedom,” said Abdul Hamdo, a computer analyst and ethnic Syrian.
Added another man, 42, who did not want to give his name: “I am scared for my friends and family who are still there.”
Canada announced economic sanctions against Syria at the end of May, and declared persona non grata those in charge in Damascus.
Canada, and particularly Montreal, has a large community of people from Lebanon, which borders Syria.
Yemen
Talks to resolve Yemen’s political crisis have failed after the deputy to wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to speak with groups demanding he cede power immediately, opposition figures said.
Saleh, forced to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for wounds suffered in an attack on his palace nine days ago, has has refused to leave office despite nearly six months of street protests and many diplomatic attempts to remove him.
The ensuing political paralysis and long-standing conflicts with Islamist insurgents, separatists and rebel tribesmen, has fanned Western and regional fears of Yemen collapsing into chaos and giving al-Qaeda a stronghold alongside oil shipping routes.
A member of the group of opposition parties demanding Saleh transfer power now said international efforts to broker an agreement to that end had collapsed because the acting leader, Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, would not talk to them.
“The American and European efforts for a dialogue between opposition parties and the ruling party has failed. The vice-president has refused to deal with or meet opposition parties,” Mohammed al-Mutawakkil said.
“He justifies that by saying he is preoccupied with dealing with the fuel crisis and the ceasefire, as well as the security situation in the provinces.”
A ceasefire has held in Sanaa since Saleh left a week ago, after more than 200 people were killed and thousands fled during two weeks of clashes between his loyalists and the forces of tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, who backs the protesters.
The capital, however, is all but paralysed by shortages of fuel and electricity, and violence in a southern province — whose capital Islamist gunmen seized last month — has worsened.
Yemen’s army killed 21 al-Qaeda members in the southern province of Abyan on Saturday, 18 of them in Zinjibar, the provincial capital that fell. Ten soldiers were killed in fighting there and another city, Lawdar, state media said.
Residents of Zinjibar said fighting continued early on Sunday, leaving at least four soldiers and several gunmen dead.
Yemen’s health ministry said it would send 10,000 tonnes of medical supplies to people who have fled Zinjibar, including some 10,000 in the southern port of Aden.
A Yemeni NGO, Seyaj, called for help evacuating some 500 people trapped in the town due to continued fighting.
Opposition parties have said they will form their own transitional assembly in a week if Saleh does not cede power. It is not clear whether those parties have any significant influence over many of the protesters.
Saleh has three times backed out of plans crafted by oil-rich Gulf neighbours to quit after a transitional period.
His opponents have accused him of handing over Zinjibar to Islamists to reinforce his threat that the end of his three-decade rule, as demanded by protesters, would amount to ceding the region to al-Qaeda.
Saleh has not been seen in public since the palace attack, which left him with burns and shrapnel wounds. Yemen’s ambassador in London said on Saturday that he was recovering and in a “stable condition”.
Saudi medical sources and Yemeni officials said Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Megawar and another cabinet member injured in the palace attack had been taken for more surgery, and described their condition as “serious”.
Interfax news agency reported two planes had been dispatched to evacuate Russian nationals who want to leave the country. About 1,000 Russians citizens are in Yemen.
Five people have been arrested over suspected links to the bomb attack that wounded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on June 3, a diplomat in Yemen told AFP on Sunday.
Some 50 people have so far been questioned, the source said by telephone, requesting anonymity and declining to provide further details.
Libya
 Rebels fought forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for a second day in the town of Zawiyah on Sunday, bringing the revolt against his rule to within about 20 kms (12 miles) of the capital.
A rebel spokesman in the town said 13 rebel fighters and civilians were killed in fighting there on Saturday, and the main road to neighbouring Tunisia — a supply line that has kept the country running despite sanctions — was shut.
Zawiyah was the scene of fierce battles soon after a nationwide rebellion against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule in February, but his security forces snuffed it, characterising how the revolt elsewhere had lost its initial momentum.
Three months later, the war has shifted against Gaddafi, with his grip on power weakened by defections in his entourage, the impact of sanctions on supplies and NATO air strikes that have pounded his compound in Tripoli.
The fresh outbreak of fighting in Zawiyah, which is the site of a big oil refinery, marks the closest the armed rebellion has come to Gaddafi’s stronghold in the capital for months.
“The situation is bad, very bad,” a rebel spokesman, who gave his name as Ibrahim, told Reuters on Sunday by telephone from Zawiyah, which is about 50 kms west of Tripoli and about 20 kms from its western outskirts.
“Fierce fighting is taking place now. The (pro-Gaddafi) brigades have been receiving reinforcements ... There are many snipers on rooftops of buildings and mosques. They are the main threat to the residents,” he said.
“The coastal road linking Tripoli to Tunisia is closed. The brigades are in control of the eastern side of the road while the revolutionaries control the western side.
“There were 13 martyrs, including a 7-year-old boy, from fighting yesterday.”
Accounts from Zawiyah could not be independently verified because reporters were not able to reach the areas where the violence was taking place.
Officials in Tripoli say there is no serious fighting in Zawiyah, just small groups of fighters who have gone there from rebel-held areas to “make trouble”.
Attacks
Though weakened after months of fighting and NATO attacks, Gaddafi’s forces have not buckled.
An ambulance worker in rebel-held Misrata, Libya’s third-biggest city, said six rebel fighters were killed by pro-Gaddafi forces when they clashed in farmland between Misrata and the neighbouring town of Zlitan.
Pro-Gaddafi forces also killed five people in an artillery bombardment on Sunday of Zintan, part of the rebel-held Western Mountains region, according to a rebel spokesman.
“They (pro-Gaddafi forces) launched a vast attack at 07:00 this morning, using mortars and Grad rockets,” the spokesman, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters from Zintan.
“The shelling is still going on ... The revolutionaries are trying to defend the town,” he said.
Another rebel spokesman said NATO warplanes had on Saturday, for the first time, attacked government troops in Ghezaya on the border with Tunisia.
Forces loyal to Gaddafi based in Ghezaya had been trying to take back control of a nearby border crossing on which the Western Mountains rebels depend for bringing in supplies.
Gaddafi says he has no intention of bowing to international pressure to step down. He has called the NATO intervention with warplanes and attack helicopters an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya’s plentiful oil.
But Western governments say they believe that it is only a matter of time before his rule collapses.
Rebels are gradually expanding the areas they control around Misrata, which lies about 200 km east of Tripoli, and in the Western mountains region. They are inching closer to the capital.
In Tripoli itself, residents have told Reuters of anti-Gaddafi protests, though these have been quickly dispersed by his security forces.
“The districts of Tripoli are waiting for a signal so they can all rise up together,” said a resident of the city who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.
There have been reports that unrest has spread to areas of the country until now untouched by the rebellion — though it is not possible to confirm those accounts independently.
Rebels in the Western Mountains say pro-Gaddafi forces have shelled the nearby town of Ghadames to try to put down a rebellion there. The town is on the border with Algeria and lies in a region with huge oil reserves.
The rebel leadership, from its headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, said there were large anti-Gaddafi protests on Friday and Saturday in Sabha, an oasis town in the Sahara desert.
Security forces responded with live fire, and at least one protester was killed, the rebels said in a statement. Sabha is the historic home of Gaddafi’s tribe, the Gaddadfa.
Recognised
The United Arab Emirates Sunday recognised the National Transitional Council in Benghazi of the rebels battling to oust Moamer Kadhafi, the official WAM news agency reported.
The decision to recognise the NTC as the “sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people” was announced by Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, who said the UAE would soon open a provisional office in Benghazi.
“The NTC has, in practice, become the representative of Libya and the Libyan people. Therefore, the United Arab Emirates will create relations with it at government level in all questions concerning Libya,” the minister said.
The UAE move comes after a meeting on Thursday in Abu Dhabi of the contact group on Libya. The federation becomes the 12th nation to recognise the NTC, after Australia, Britain, France, Gambia, Italy, Jordan, Malta, Qatar, Senegal, Spain and the United States.
Bahrain
Thirty three Bahrainis faced military court hearings on Sunday, on charges of illegal activities during weeks of protests that rocked the Gulf island kingdom earlier this year, the state news agency said.
Opposition groups estimate about 400 people, most of them from the country’s majority Shi’ite population, are on trial, but the government says the numbers are far less.
Bahrain’s Sunni rulers, who host the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Manama, called in troops from fellow Sunni-led Gulf states to help crush mostly Shiite-led democracy protests in March. The government said the protests had a sectarian agenda and help from Shiite power Iran, which the opposition denies.
Bahrain lifted emergency law last week, but tensions remain and the trials of dozens of politicians, activists and doctors has provoked more resentment among Shiites. Several villages have seen daily protests since last week.
Two detained members of the main Shiite opposition group Wefaq, Jawad Fairouz and Matar Ibrahim Matar, pled not guilty on Sunday to spreading false news to the media and joining illegal gatherings.
Their family said the trial was called without warning to them or their attorneys. The military prosecutor general has previously said attorneys can consult detainees after the first hearing, which determines whether defendants have a lawyer.
Relatives of Matar said they rushed to court after an assistant to their lawyer, who was at the courthouse, learned Matar was to appear in court. They missed the hearing but were allowed to visit him, the first time since he was detained.
“He said he was treated well and only beaten lightly once,” a relative said. “He had on the same clothes as when he was taken ... He looked well, and healthy, but he is in a solitary confinement. He has spent 41 days in jail all alone.”
Wefaq says some 50 people have already been sentenced, from light prison terms to two execution sentences.
Bahrain’s official news agency reported seven more people were sentenced on Sunday, with prison terms of one to six years for convictions that ranged from illegally storing weapons to attempted murder of policemen.
Twenty people were brought in for another hearing on charges over the use of violence in protests that blocked off the kingdom’s financial district, but their trial was postponed.
Among those sentenced was a Shiite female poet to a year in prison on charges of joining illegal protests and incitement against the monarchy.
Twenty-year-old Ayat al-Qurmuzi was arrested after reciting poems which mocked the king and prime minster in Pearl Roundabout, the focal point of the protests where activists camped out for some six weeks in February and March.
A relative at the trial said Qurmuzi smiled as her sentence was delivered and a move for appeal was accepted. The relative said diplomats and rights group had put pressure on the government to lighten her sentence.
The family member, who saw Qurmuzi after the hearing, said the young poet complained of days of torture. The government says there is no systematic use of torture and all cases of abuse presented will be investigated.
“She said she was beaten and electrocuted, and they would stick her hands in toilets,” said the family member, who was angry about Qurmuzi’s sentence.
“Expressing your opinion should not be a crime ... We want her released immediately, this sentence is unjust.”
Jordan
King Abdallah II on Sunday vowed reforms leading to parliamentary government and a tougher fight against anti-corruption, warning against “chaos” and the media creating a climate of “hatred.”
In his first televised address since pro-reform protests began in January, the king pledged a new electoral law that would result in “a parliament with active political party representation... that allows the formation of governments based on parliamentary majority... in the future.”
“The practical approach to this meets the constitutional review now being undertaken by the royal committee I recently tasked to explore possible amendments appropriate for Jordan’s present and future,” he said.
The opposition, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm the Islamic Action Front, wants sweeping reforms, including a new electoral law that would lead to a parliamentary system of government and elected prime minister.
But the king said “no one in Jordan has a monopoly on reform or its promotion.”
“We seek a state of democracy, pluralism and participation through political reforms... away from the dictates of the street and the absence of the voice of reason,” he added.
Reiterating his “firm” fight against corruption, the king warned that dealing with it “on the basis of rumours and gossip... mars Jordan’s reputation both regionally and internationally, negatively affecting any endeavour to attract investment.”
“We want a media that can carry the message of freedom and reform, optimise the accomplishments of our country and protect national unity and the relationship among Jordanians,” he said.
“I take this opportunity to warn of the deterioration of political and media discourse into one that aims to trigger hatred,” the king added.
He said Jordanians should be “aware of the difference between the required democratic transformations and achievable ones on the one hand, and the risks of chaos” on the other.