DAMASCUS, July 5, (Agen-cies): Security forces killed at least 10 people on Tuesday in Hama as residents mobilised to keep the Syrian army out of the flashpoint city at the hub of an anti-regime revolt, activists said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting medical sources, said the casualty toll had risen to 10 dead and more than 35 wounded in the city, which has been surrounded by the military.
“Heavy gunfire has been heard in several districts” of Hama, it said.
The group said the body of one of those killed was dumped in the Orontes river of Hama, which is famous for its ancient watermills.
The activists, contacted by telephone from Nicosia, said a child was among three people shot dead by security forces on Monday on the outskirts of the city, north of Damascus, that is home to 800,000 people.

“Tanks are now posted at access routes to the city except for the northern entrance,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory.
“Residents have mobilised. They’re prepared to die to defend the city if need be rather than allow the army to enter,” he told AFP.
“Residents have been sleeping on the streets and put up sand barriers and tyres to block any assault.”
Another activist insisted that Hama, where as many as 500,000 people took to the streets for a demonstration on Friday against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, was putting up a “100 percent peaceful” resistance.
On Monday, more than 20 people were arrested on the fringes of the city, the Observatory said, adding angry residents countered by burning tyres and hurling stones.
Apart from the three killed including 12-year-old Omar Khalluf, between 20 and 25 other people were shot and wounded during the sweep which rounded up as many as 300 people, according to a resident contacted from Nicosia.

There was no independent confirmation of the reports from activists as Syrian authorities have curbed foreign media coverage.
In the capital, about 70 serving and former MPs held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in Syria, in the third such gathering in a week.
Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists on their Facebook site, Syrian Revolution 2011, called for a nationwide general strikes on Thursday.
Assad, faced with a revolt since mid-March, sacked the governor of Hama province on Saturday, a day after the massive rally during which security forces kept out of sight.
Since security forces gunned down 48 protesters in the city on June 3, Hama has escaped the clutches of the regime, according to activists. The next day, more than 100,000 mourners were reported to have taken part in their funerals.
Hama was the scene of a 1982 bloodbath in which an estimated 20,000 people were killed when the army crushed an Islamist revolt against the rule of the president’s predecessor and late father, Hafez al-Assad.

In Idlib province, northwest Syria, activists said security forces on Tuesday mounted an assault on the town of Kfar Nubol, the scene of several demonstrations against Assad.
The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey is falling rapidly, according to official figures released Tuesday, but some of them sneak back into Turkey to stay outside tent cities, local sources said.
At least 267 Syrians went home on Monday and Tuesday, taking the total number of refugees who left Turkey over the last two months to 5,673, the country’s disaster and emergency management agency said on its website.
But 9,678 refugees are still being sheltered in six tent cities run by the Turkish Red Crescent in Hatay province in south Turkey, it added.
The number of refugees fleeing the Syrian government’s bloody crackdown and entering Turkey peaked at 11,739 at the end of June, when Syrian troops stormed border villages where many displaced people had massed.

Since then the number has declined, due to the Syrian army’s control along the Turkish-Syrian border and the assurance Syrian refugees were given for their safety if they decided to return, a Turkish diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“I think some of them gave credence to the statements of Syrian authorities. Also, some have learned that it is now safe to return to their homes,” the source said.
“We do not encourage people to return to Syria but we take anyone who expresses a desire to return to the border. We bring them to the place where they crossed into Turkey,” the source added.
Yemen
Yemeni warplanes bombed southern cities held by militants on Tuesday while a top general called in a television interview for foreign intervention to help avert a regional security crisis.
Protests demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s three-decade rule continue to paralyse the country. He clings to power despite an assassination attempt that forced him to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia, leaving the country in limbo.
Islamist militants suspected of ties to al-Qaeda have seized two cities in the southern province of Abyan, including its capital Zinjibar, forcing tens of thousands of Yemenis to flee.
Western powers and neighbouring oil giant Saudi Arabia fear al-Qaeda is exploiting a growing security vacuum in the country, from which it has already launched failed attacks against the United States and Riyadh.

A top general who defected from Saleh and joined protesters in March told broadcaster CNN International that the political standoff in Yemen, a country awash in weapons, put the impoverished country and its oil-rich Gulf neighbours at risk.
“We need the intervention of our friends and quickly because propagandas might take place against the country. It could put the country into a severe security stalemate. The entire region will be affected security-wise,” said General Ali Mohsen.
Washington and Riyadh have failed to pressure Saleh into signing a Gulf Arab initiative for a power transfer, which he has backed out of three times at the last minute.
Saleh’s opponents have accused him of letting his forces ease up on Islamist militants in the south, where violence is rising, to stoke fears in the international community that only he stands in the way of a militant takeover.
The head of a Shiite opposition party in Yemen, Hassan Zaid, said that authorities briefly arrested him at Sanaa airport on Tuesday.
“Today they were going to kill me at the airport,” Zaid told AFP after his release. “Security forces returned me and my companion from the airport with machine guns pointed at our backs.”
“They called us traitors, collaborators and agents of Iran,” said Zaid, accusing them of “threatening to kill us.”

“They said I had been summoned to come before the prosecution but did not,” he said, adding however that he had been unaware of such a request.
A security official said that an arrest warrant was issued against the leader of Al-Haq, insisting the decision to arrest Zaid had nothing to do with any military or security officials.
Mohammed Hassan Zaid told AFP earlier Tuesday that his father was detained at Sanaa airport as he was heading to the Saudi city of Jeddah.
“He was travelling to Jeddah when he was detained and not allowed to leave,” said Mohammed, adding that “everybody knows the reason is political.”
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, recovering from an assassination attempt in Riyadh, is in “generally good health”, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was speaking at a joint news conference with the British foreign minister in the Saudi city of Jeddah, broadcast on Al Arabiya television.
Saleh suffered severe burn wounds in a bomb blast at his compound last month. Some diplomats in Sanaa have said there is a slim chance Saleh could return soon to Yemen, facing a severe political impasse after months of protests demanding his ouster.

Egypt
Hundreds of Egyptians attacked a courtroom in Cairo on Monday, scuffled with security guards, and blocked a major highway for hours after the court ordered the release of 10 policemen charged with killing protesters during the country’s uprising.
The unrest added to tensions already running high in Egypt over the ruling military council’s failure to hold accountable security forces involved in killing protesters during the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Nearly five months later, only one policeman has been convicted in the deaths of more than 846 people killed in a government crackdown on protesters. He was tried in absentia.
In Monday’s court proceedings, guards had to separate between the relatives of the victims and the families of the defendants even before the decision was read. In his initial statement, the judge seemed to suggest he would impose harsh sentences, saying that “the blood of those killed will not be spilled in vain,” according to the Egyptian news agency MENA.
An Egyptian former minister was sentenced in absentia to five years in jail and three others acquitted on Tuesday in corruption trials, a judicial official told AFP.

Shortly after the verdicts, public prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmud said the general prosecution would file an appeal against the acquittals.
Rashid Mohammed Rashid, minister of foreign trade and industry under the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, was sentenced in absentia to five years for squandering public funds.
Rashid, who is the subject of an international arrest notice, has already been sentenced to five years for embezzlement.
In a separate case, the court acquitted former information minister Anas al-Fiqqi and former finance minister Yussef Boutros Ghali, after they were accused of misuse of public funds during last year’s election.
An Egyptian court on Tuesday cleared the chairman of real estate developer Palm Hills and the former housing minister Ahmed el-Maghrabi of corruption charges in a state land sale.
Palm Hills, Egypt’s second-biggest listed developer, has been hamstrung by the country’s political upheaval, which froze sales and increased the number of new home cancellations. Chairman Yasseen Mansour was among several businessman facing corruption charges.
Although Mansour was cleared of criminal charges, the company is awaiting a verdict by another court on whether the contract for the land parcel will be scrapped. That court is due to hear the case on Oct 4.

Libya
At least 11 Libyan rebels were killed on Tuesday when forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi shelled rebel positions near the city of Misrata, according to a local hospital source.
At least 42 rebels were wounded in the shelling, the source at al-Hekma hospital told Reuters, adding that there could be more wounded in other hospitals.
Muammar Gaddafi is sounding out the possibility of handing over power, a Russian newspaper said on Tuesday, but the Libyan government denied it was in talks about the veteran leader stepping down.
Five months into a conflict that has embroiled NATO and become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings, there has been a flurry of reports about talks on Gaddafi ending his 41 years in power in exchange for security guarantees.

Russia’s respected Kommersant newspaper based its story on a high-level source in Moscow. But the report was denied in Tripoli and Italy said it believed talk of a deal was a ruse by Gaddafi’s administration.
“Information about negotiations about Gaddafi stepping down or seeking a safe refuge inside or outside the country is simply untrue,” Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told Reuters.
“Gaddafi is not negotiable, this is our position of principle, and the future of Libya will be decided by Libyans. Gaddafi is an historical symbol, and Libyans will die to defend him,” said Ibrahim.
Health care and food supplies are deteriorating in Libya, but the Gaddafi government has managed to keep paying wages and food subsidies in areas under its control, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday.
The independent aid agency voiced concern that the humanitarian situation could deteriorate if fighting breaks out in the capital Tripoli.
“Frankly today we are in a situation where the ICRC is very alarmed by the situation, which is very dynamic and could become even more violent than today,” Paul Castella, head of the ICRC delegation in Tripoli, told a news briefing.

“It is very difficult to give an opinion of the future, we ourselves are preparing to respond to urgent needs if combat erupts because we see the frontlines keep moving and fighting is ongoing,” he said.
The ICRC is helping hospitals treat wounded from the frontlines in the Nafusa mountains areas southwest of Tripoli and has delivered surgical and other medical supplies to Misrata, it said in a statement.
Libyan rebels will hold meetings with NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen and European Union president Herman Van Rompuy in Brussels next week, NATO and EU diplomats told AFP on Tuesday.
Rasmussen has invited the rebel representatives for a meeting at alliance headquarters for the first time on July 13, a NATO diplomat said. The gathering was agreed by ambassadors of the 28-nation alliance.
“NATO countries agreed to invite the rebels because there is no NATO representation in Benghazi yet,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity, referring to the rebel bastion in eastern Libya.
Separately, a European diplomat said a member of the National Transitional Council (NTC) will meet Van Rompuy next week. The TNC official may also meet European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso in the middle of next week.

Bahrain
Bahrain on Tuesday held the first session of its national dialogue, which is aimed at forwarding reforms after authorities crushed a protest movement in March, official BNA news said.
“The first session of the national dialogue called by King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa was launched this evening,” BNA said.
There were about sixty participants each in simultaneous sessions on politics, the economy, human rights and social issues — the “four axes” on which the dialogue is to focus.
Sessions are to be held three times a week — on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, BNA said.
The dialogue comes after Bahraini security forces carried out a bloody mid-March crackdown on Shiite-led protesters who had been demonstrating for reforms in the Sunni-ruled, Shiite-majority kingdom since Feb 14.

Authorities said 24 people, most of them demonstrators, were killed in the unrest.
The national dialogue was officially launched on Saturday, with over 300 people invited to attend, including representatives of the main Shiite opposition bloc, the Islamic National Accord Association (Al-Wefaq).
Al-Wefaq, which made an 11th-hour decision to participate, only has five representatives at the dialogue, despite winning 18 out of 40 seats in the lower house of parliament in the last elections.
Its deputies withdrew from parliament to protest violence against demonstrators.
While Al-Wefaq is participating for now, one of its former MPs, Khalil al-Marzooq, told AFP that all options “are open,” including pulling out of the dialogue if it fails to address “the will of the people.”
“The dialogue, as we see it, does not fulfill the demands of the Bahraini people in achieving a political solution, nor those of the international community,” Marzooq said.
He pointed to the broad range of topics on the table as potentially detrimental to efforts on the political front.

“The dialogue will discuss all the problems of the Bahraini people including education, jobs, as well as increasing wages and the financial crisis in addition to the political issues.”
“The political issues will be lost amidst all those other matters,” he said.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a seat at Bahrain’s crisis talks, but it carries a critical voice in everything from the tone of debate to the eventual offers on the table.
After four months of Shiite-led protests and harsh crackdowns, Saudi Arabia has become the protector, patron and political gatekeeper for Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy in the Gulf leadership’s front-line fight against the Arab Spring.
How Bahrain’s rulers approach the talks — whose first official session is scheduled for Tuesday — largely depends on how far Saudi Arabia is willing to allow concessions on its tiny Gulf neighbor. For the powerful Saudi royal family and its Gulf partners, Bahrain represents a line that cannot be crossed.
Any setbacks by Bahrain’s 200-year-old ruling Al Khalifa dynasty is considered a threat to all monarchs and sheiks in the Gulf — and a possible opening for Shiite power Iran to make headway among the pro-Western Gulf states anchored by Saudi Arabia.

“Bahrain is crucial to Saudi national interest and Riyadh will provide it with all they have to show they are committed to preserving the rule of the Khalifas,” said Ayham Kamel, a Middle East analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington.
Bahrain’s Shiites account for about 70 percent of the kingdom’s population, but claim they are the target of systematic discrimination including being effectively blocked from top military and political posts. Their protests in February — inspired by wider Arab uprisings — have been by far the biggest challenge to any Gulf ruler in decades.
Saudi King Abdullah deployed about 1,000 troops to lead a Gulf military force to reinforce Bahrain’s monarchy, which launched widespread arrests and martial law-style rule to smother the protests for greater rights. At least 32 people have been killed in the unrest in the strategic nation, which is home of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The Saudi king also sent millions of dollars to pull the tiny neighbor’s royals from the brink of bankruptcy and even married off one of his sons to a daughter of the Bahraini monarch.
“It’s a powerful act, the royal wedding,” said Rima Sabban, a Dubai-based sociologist. “It has nothing to do with love or passion. A marriage like that is strictly political.”
Iran has relentlessly assailed Bahrain’s rulers for crackdowns against the country’s Shiite majority and called the Saudi-led Gulf force an “occupation” army.