DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces killed three people on Monday in raids in the northwest and around the capital, as tanks rumbled into a village bordering Lebanon further south, rights groups said.
Two people were killed and 20 were wounded when troops and security forces opened fire during search operations in the Sarmin district in the northwest province of Idlib, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said "dozens" of people were also rounded up in Sarmin.
A third person was killed when security forces raided his home at dawn in the town of Qara outside Damascus during an arrest operation, the Local Coordination Committees reported.
Around 10 trucks and armoured vehicles entered Qara, said the group which organises anti-regime protests and has militants on the ground across Syria. It said some 40 people whose names were on a "wanted list" were detained.
Meanwhile, troops backed by tanks and personnel carriers early on Monday stormed the village of Hit, two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the border with Lebanon, south of the central city of Homs, Abdel Rahman said.
"There has been high intensity gunfire since 9:00 am (0600 GMT)," he told AFP, adding that at least five people were wounded and 13 were arrested.
"The homes of activists wanted by the authorities were torched," he added.
Activists reported six people killed by security forces on Sunday.
Earlier this month, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told him in a telephone conversation that he had halted military operations against protesters.
But the UN chief a week ago said Assad had failed to keep his promise.
"It is troubling that he has not kept his word," Ban told reporters.
"This is what he clearly told me when I had telephone talks with him," Ban said.
"Many world leaders have been speaking to him to halt immediately military operations, killing his own people. He should do that."
More than 2,200 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's crackdown on pro-democracy protests since mid-March, according to the United Nations.
World powers have piled pressure on Assad to halt the crackdown on protesters.
The Syrian regime insists it is confronting "armed terrorist gangs."
At the weekend the Arab League formulated a peace bid and Russia said an envoy would visit Damascus on Monday.
Early on Sunday the Arab League announced plans in a statement to send its chief Nabil al-Arabi to Syria with a peace initiative to help solve the crisis -- a decision that angered Damascus.
In a diplomatic note seen by AFP, Syria said the declaration was issued "despite the meeting having closed with an agreement that no statement would be published or statement made to the press," it said.
Damascus would act as if it had never been published and considered that the Arab League statement contained "unacceptable and biased language."
The 22-member organisation's foreign ministers at a meeting on Saturday night called for an "end to the spilling of blood and (for Syria) to follow the way of reason before it is too late."
The foreign ministers also called for respecting "the right of the Syrian people to live in security and of their legitimate aspirations for political and social reforms."
Arabi said on Sunday he was awaiting a Syrian invitation to travel to Damascus.
Meanwhile Turkey's President Abdullah Gul, quoted by Anatolia news agency on Sunday, said "we lost our confidence" in the Syrian regime. "Today in the world there is no place for authoritarian administrations."
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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