LONDON, Aug 1, (Agencies): Britain’s foreign secretary says there is no prospect of international military intervention in Syria, despite an assault by the regime on protest strongholds that left scores of people dead. William Hague says there should be tougher sanctions against President Bashar Assad’s government, but military action is “not a remote possibility.” Hague told the BBC on Monday that sanctions had to come not just from Western nations but also from Arab countries and regional powers such as Turkey. Syrian troops and tanks attacked several towns and cities Sunday. Estimates of the death toll, which were impossible to verify, ranged from around 75 people to nearly 140 Hague said the attacks were “all the more shocking” on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a French newspaper the lack of a UN mandate and regional support meant the conditions were not met for a Libya-style operation. “In Libya, we’re carrying out an operation based on a clear UN mandate. We have the support of countries in the region. These two conditions are not met in Syria,” Rasmussen said. A UN meeting could reopen bitter divisions within the Security Council, which has been unable to agree even on a statement on Assad’s crackdown. Assad praised his troops on Monday as the army pressed on with a deadly crackdown on anti-regime dissent, even as international condemnation swelled ahead of a UN meeting on the crisis. The Security Council was to hold closed consultations from 2100 GMT, a spokesman for the council presidency said, following demands from European powers to condemn Assad’s deadly crackdown on opposition protests.

Syrian forces on Sunday killed around 140 people across the country, including more than 100 in the flashpoint city of Hama, scene of an Islamist revolt in 1982 that was crushed at the cost of an estimated 20,000 lives. Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, called Sunday “one of the deadliest days” since the pro-democracy protests broke out in mid-March. But the interior ministry said only eight people were killed in Hama and blamed the bloodshed on “armed terrorist groups.” On Monday, at least four more civilians were killed in Hama during search operations, the Observatory said, while a 13-year-old boy and another person were also shot dead in the eastern town of Al-Bukamal. Sunday’s crackdown on Hama came on the eve of the start of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. At least 1,583 civilians and 369 members of the army and security forces have been killed since mid-March in Syria, according to the Observatory. The group said tanks rumbled Monday into Al-Bukamal, on the border with Iraq, some two weeks after troops surrounded the town which the official media said was used as a passage point to smuggle in weapons and money.

Reinforcements were also dispatched further north to Deir Ezzor, another rallying point of anti-regime protests where troops deployed on Saturday. “More than 80 tanks are heading there, in what appears to be the prelude to a vast military operation,” said Abdel Rahman, quoting residents in Deir Ezzor, Syria’s oil hub. Troops backed by tanks also stormed the town of Al-Hulla, northwest of Syria’s third city Homs, where residents reported heavy gunfire and said 15 people were wounded and 18 arrested, according to the Observatory. In a speech marking Army Day, Assad showered his troops with praise, saying the army had “proved its loyalty to its people, country and creed,” state news agency SANA reported.
“Its efforts and sacrifices will be admired. These sacrifices succeeded in foiling the enemies of the country and ending sedition, preserving Syria,” said Assad, blaming “conspirators” for seeking to cause sedition.
The deadly crackdown triggered a torrent of Western condemnation, with criticism coming even from traditional allies like Russia, while the European Union said it would impose fresh sanctions on Damascus.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged the Security Council to take a “clear stand” and confirmed that a new set of sanctions would be imposed from Tuesday on five Syrians “involved in or associated with the violence.”

“There is outrage over the new deaths, even Russia’s foreign ministry has condemned it, but I am not sure it is going to be enough to change the council dynamics,” said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and the United States have pressed for weeks for condemnation of the violence but Russia and China — angered by the NATO bombing campaign in Libya — have threatened to veto any formal resolution against Assad.
However, Moscow on Monday urged Damascus to immediately stop using force and repression against civilian protesters, in its strongest criticism yet of the Syrian crackdown.
“The use of force against both peaceful civilians and representatives of state structures is unacceptable and should be stopped immediately,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.
To back up the point, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov later made clear Moscow’s anxiety in telephone talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, calling for dialogue to solve the crisis.
Meanwhile Amnesty International urged the Security Council to take decisive action and refer “the situation to the International Criminal Court.”
So far Syria has only faced sanctions from the European Union and the United States, with individuals targeted, including Assad.

Libya
Rebels said they arrested dozens of militiamen loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in their eastern bastion but suffered a blow Monday in Libya’s west, losing a village at the foot of a key mountain range.
At least 63 people were rounded up by the insurgents in an ongoing bid to tighten security in the eastern city of Benghazi, following an hours-long battle with Gaddafi loyalists in the opposition stronghold.
But in the west, pro-Gaddafi forces were again in control on Monday of the village of Josh at the foot of the strategic Nafusa mountains, AFP journalists at the scene said.
Josh had been emptied of its residents, the rebels said.
The rebels had on Sunday taken the village, but said they were forced to retreat to the east, half way along the road to the town of Shakshuka, after several hours of fighting.
The Nafusa region has seen heavy fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi since the insurgents launched a major offensive this month in a drive on the capital Tripoli.
In Benghazi, opposition forces patrolled the streets in a bid to track down more members of the pro-Gaddafi group, a rebel spokesman said, as shoppers stocked up ahead of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
“We caught about 38 and later today more than 25,” the spokesman, Mustafa al-Sagazly, told AFP late on Sunday.
“Some of them ran away and we are trying to catch them all over the city,” he said. “We are arresting them.”

The arrests came hot on the heels of a five-hour raid by the rebel-backed February 17 brigade on a Benghazi factory, leaving four rebels and five Gaddafi loyalists dead.
The fierce shootout erupted at around dawn on Sunday during a raid on the cell holed up inside a licence plate-making factory.
Rebel spokesman Mahmud Shammam said the group had been rounded up for its role in organising a prison break in Benghazi earlier in the week.
The pro-Gaddafi cell “had plans to plant car bombs in Benghazi,” according to Mustafa al-Sagazly, deputy chief of the February 17 brigade.
He added the “very same group” — the Katiba Yussef Shakir — was suspected in the assassination of General Abdel Fatah Yunis, a right-hand man to Gaddafi before his defection to the rebel ranks.
Ismail al-Salabi, who heads military operations for February 17, called the operation “100 percent successful” and added the rebels seized TNT explosives and several pickup trucks equipped with machine guns.
Meanwhile British Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the murder of Yunis, attributed by the British press to Al-Qaeda elements within the rebel movement, remained a mystery and that militant influence within Libya was inevitable.

“It’s not yet clear who actually carried out the killing,” Fox said told BBC radio.
“Of course there are going to be militants in Libya — there are militants right across the whole of the Middle East — it would be a great surprise if there weren’t some in Libya itself,” he added.
Britain last week recognised the Benghazi-based opposition National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libya’s legitimate government, and Fox vowed Britain would continue to back the group despite the assassination.
While the rebels have been trying to quash rumours about the mysterious death of their army chief, the Gaddafi regime said it was in contact with members of the NTC.
South of Benghazi, rebels reported an attack by pro-Gaddafi forces on the southern oasis town of Jalo, but said it had been repulsed.
Rebels also promised a “surprise” in the strategic oil hub Brega.
“We are in the suburbs of Brega and I can see its lights sparkling in the short distance. Expect a surprise,” said Salabi.

On the western front in the five-month-old armed revolt, rebels on Sunday took the village of Josh at the foot of the Nafusa mountain range, but loyalists seized it back on Monday, AFP journalists at the scene said.
The Nafusa region has seen heavy fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi since the insurgents launched a major offensive this month in a drive on Tripoli.
NATO said its warplanes carried out 49 strike sorties on Sunday, with hits concentrated in and around Zliten and Bir al-Ghanam. Strikes were also conducted in Tripoli, Brega and Waddan.
France said on Sunday it was committed to striking Gaddafi’s military assets for as long as needed for him to quit power, and called on Libyans in Tripoli to rise up against him.
“We say to Gaddafi that we will not ease our pressure and to his opponents that we will not abandon them,” French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet was quoted as saying by the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“Things have to move more in Tripoli... the population must rise up,” he added.

Filipino
A visiting Libyan official urged Filipino workers Monday to return to Libya, saying its capital was peaceful and violence was confined to rebel-controlled areas.
Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said the Philippines is maintaining its policy not to deploy workers there.
Nato airstrikes have hit Tripoli and other targets in the five-month operation to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians, but there is a semblance of normalcy in the capital as shops remain open and residents go about normal daily routines.
Abdulhadi Lahweej, Libya’s undersecretary for expatriates, immigrants and refugee affairs, met with Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario during which he assured him of the safety of Filipinos in Libya.
About 14,000 Filipinos were evacuated from the country in March, shortly after the rebellion began in mid-February. Those who remain are mostly medical workers.
The United States and about a dozen other countries recognize the rebels as Libya’s legitimate government. The Philippines is among nations that still recognize the longstanding regime of Gaddafi.
“We continue to recognize the Libyan government as manifested by the presence of our embassy in Tripoli, which continues to serve over 2,000 of our overseas Filipino workers who remain in Libya,” del Rosario said.

About 10 percent of the Philippines’ population of 94 million people work abroad. They send home billions of dollars that boost the economy, and the government holds their welfare as a top priority.
Lahweej told a news conference his government is taking care of Filipinos who have remained there “and we are now calling those who left to get back to Libya.”
Norway on Monday withdrew as planned its final four F-16 fighter jets that have been taking part in the Nato-led mission over Libya, the Norwegian military said.
The Norwegian planes, which landed at their bases in Bodoe in the north of Norway and in Oerland in the central west of the country, carried out 583 missions, out of a total of 6,493 flown by Nato since March 31, and dropped 569 bombs, military spokesman Petter Lindqvist told AFP.
On June 10, the centre-left government, split over Norway’s prolonged participation in the bombing, announced it would gradually withdraw its six F-16 fighter jets stationed at the Souda base on the Greek island of Crete.
The government explained that its small air force could not sustain a large air contribution for a long period of time.
Only eight of Nato’s 28 member states have flown bombing missions since the alliance took command of the operation on March 31: Norway, Britain, France, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Italy and the United States.

Egypt
The Egyptian army moved into Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday and cleared away a few hundred protesters who remained camped there after the main groups suspended a three-week demonstration held to advance demands for faster democratic reforms.
There was little sign of violence, though witnesses said some shots were fired in the air, as army vehicles and troops acted to end the public show of displeasure with the military high command handling a transition towards free elections.
The protest group April 6 said it objected to emptying the square by using force against protesters. The group shelved its sit-in on Sunday for the duration of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Monday.

Witnesses said some in the square were detained by military police, a move the cabinet described on its Facebook page as coming amid “cheers of support from citizens” who criticised those arrested as “thugs”. The number of arrests was not known.
The army acted two days before the start of former president Hosni Mubarak’s trial over his role in killing protesters during the uprising centred on Tahrir Square that toppled him on Feb. 11. Demonstrators had been calling for a swift trial.
Mubarak, 83, who has been hospitalised in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in April, signed a court summons to acknowledge the request for him to attend the trial in Cairo on Wednesday, the state broadcaster’s website reported.
The health minister said Mubarak’s condition “was partially stable and there was no problem moving him” to Cairo, and the ministry was ready to provide medical support to that end.
State media showed pictures of preparations in the Cairo Police Academy where the trial will be held, including a cage where defendants usually stand in Egyptian criminal trials.

Some passers-by clapped as cars and buses drove through Tahrir once again. The square is a major thoroughfare and had been blocked off by demonstrators, angering some Egyptians who have grown tired of the protracted street protests that have disrupted their lives and damaged the nation’s economy.
“Thanks to the army for clearing the square. Please take down those banners!” shouted one passer-by.
“It is good they ended the protest. This was unbelievable,” said Ahmed Soliman, a textile shop worker in Tahrir. “We are unable to get our products in or out.”
A list of 26 groups said in a statement on Sunday that they would end their protest during Ramadan, but reaffirmed their demand for more changes from the army generals now in power.
But a few hundred people had said they would stay in the square during Ramadan, when Muslims do not drink or eat in daylight hours.
Protesters have occupied Tahrir since July 8 to press demands that included a deeper purge of officials who served Mubarak and faster trials in corruption cases.
Egypt’s prosecutor general on Sunday formally summoned Mubarak to appear at his trial, giving the clearest indication that the ousted president will be brought to the Cairo courtroom this week despite questions about his health.

If he does appear at Wednesday’s opening session in a makeshift courtroom at the national police academy, Mubarak will face an audience of 600 people, including relatives of some of the 850 protesters killed in the crackdown on the 18-day uprising that forced him from power in February.
Activists believe Mubarak’s health is being used as a ruse to postpone the proceedings and they accuse Egypt’s ruling military council, whose head was Mubarak’s longtime defense minister, of dragging its feet on the prosecution of the ex-president and other key members of his regime.
Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud asked the security chief to arrange for Mubarak’s appearance in court to face charges he ordered the killing of protesters.
Interior Minister Mansour el-Issawi “received a request from the prosecutor general asking for former president Hosni Mubarak to appear in court on Aug 3,” said a statement carried by the official news agency Sunday.

Yemen
At least two tribesmen were killed and three wounded in fierce clashes with the Yemeni army on Monday near the strife-torn country second city of Taez, witnesses said.
They said the army also suffered casualties who were evacuated by helicopter but could give no figures.
The fighting broke out early on Monday in a suburb north of Taez that links the city of four million residents to the tribal areas around it, said the witnesses.
The tribesmen destroyed an army tank and took control of another as fighter jets overflew the area, they said.
Last week, a brief ceasefire between pro-opposition armed tribesmen and security forces had collapsed on Thursday when clashes resumed, leaving one policeman dead.
Tribesmen, who say their aim is to safeguard protesters who demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh stand down, have battled loyalist security forces for the past two months.
Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, has been receiving treatment in Saudi Arabia since early June for wounds sustained in a bomb blast at his palace.

Protesters have since January been calling for Saleh to quit office.
In a statement on Sunday, Saleh reiterated his appeal for dialogue in a statement for Yemenis on the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
“There is no alternative to dialogue. This is the only way civilised people follow to achieve change and reform,” he said in the message carried by state news agency Saba.
He urged all political forces in Yemen to abandon violence in the hope that Ramadan will return peace and stability to the country.
Saleh’s opponents have been calling for him to be prevented from returning to power.
On Saturday, influential Yemeni tribal leaders announced the creation of what they have named the “Alliance of Yemeni Tribes,” a coalition to bolster six months of anti-Saleh protests.