More than 2,400 Syrians have fled to Turkey to escape a feared army crackdown, officials said on Thursday, in another sign that President Bashar al-Assad's struggle with protesters is disturbing Syria's neighbours. With international concern growing over Syria's repression of pro-democracy protests, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have asked the UN Security Council to condemn Assad.
However, veto-holding Russia has said it opposes any such council measure. World powers have shown no appetite for any Libya-style military intervention in Syria, which has so far shrugged off sanctions and verbal reprimands. Residents said about 40 tanks and troop carriers had deployed about 7 km (4 miles) from Jisr al-Shughour, a north-western town of 50,000 where authorities say "armed gangs" killed more than 120 security personnel earlier this week.
Other accounts described a mutiny among troops who refused to fire on civilians after a pro-democracy rally in the town on Friday. Loyalist military units then attacked the mutineers, according to the reports. Syria has barred most independent media from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of the violence.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the number of Syrian refugees crossing the border this week had reached 2,400. He told reporters at a summit in Abu Dhabi it was time for Syria to act "more decisively" on political reforms proposed by its leader Bashar al-Assad.
Assad, 45, has promised reforms, even while cracking down on unrest that has become the gravest threat to his 11-year rule. "Syria is committed to the missions of reform under the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad and affirms it does not permit any foreign intervention in this regard," the state news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying in response to critical statements by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.
Among the Syrians in Turkey was a 23-year-old with a bullet wound to the leg. Asking not to be named, he said he was shot by militiamen, known as shabbiha, from Assad's minority Alawite sect that has dominated the Sunni majority for four decades. "We were leaving the mosque after Friday prayers to start protesting and then the shabbiha ... attacked us," he said. Rights groups say more than 1,100 civilians have been killed since March in protests against 41 years of Assad family rule.
Syrian authorities say more than 200 security personnel have also been killed in the unrest. Troops patrolled the central city of Homs, a day after security forces shot dead a civilian in a crowd of 5,000 showing solidarity with Jisr al-Shughour, an activist group said.
In Hama, where 70 people were reported killed in protests on Friday, demonstrators carried banners reading "We will continue to respond to your bullets with flowers". In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, protesters angered by the killings burned two buildings used by Assad's Baath Party.
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