Thousands of Syrians fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape troops and tanks thrusting into the north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
In the tribal east, where Syria’s 380,000 barrels per day of oil is produced, tanks and armoured vehicles deployed in the city of Deir al-Zor and around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, a week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding an end to Assad’s autocratic rule.
“Cars are continuing to stream out of Maarat al-Numaan in all directions,” one witness told Reuters by phone. “People are loading them with everything, blankets, mattresses on roofs.”
Syrian forces pushed towards the town of 100,000 that straddles the main north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria’s second largest city Aleppo, after arresting hundreds of people in villages close to Jisr al-Shughour, near the border with Turkey, residents said.
The government said security had been restored in Jisr al-Shughour after fighting earlier this month in which it said 120 security personnel were killed, and urged residents who fled the military crackdown on the rebellious town to return. Witnesses said residents assisted by deserting security forces had attacked a police compound in Jisr al-Shughour 10 days ago after police killed 48 civilians. About 60 police, including 20 deserters, were killed.
A statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday also said Syria’s Red Crescent aid organisation would coordinate with Turkey “to facilitate the return of Syrian citizens”. More than 8,500 Syrians have sought sanctuary in Turkey, which has set up four refugee camps across the border from Jisr al-Shughour. A 36-year-old Syrian who gave his name as Ahmed fled with his wife and six children to Turkey after learning troops had arrived in Jisr al-Shughour, near a village where he resides. “We came here to protect our family. We’re not against them (security forces) but they fight us like we were infidels,” Ahmed, sunburnt and dressed in a dirty tracksuit, told Reuters in a narrow street in the Turkish border village of Guvecci.
A Turkish Red Crescent official, who requested anonymity, said more tent camps were being prepared at the eastern end of the 800 km border, near the Turkish city of Mardin, far from where the current influx of refugees is concentrated.
The state-run Anatolian news agency said an envoy from Assad, Hassan Turkmani, would visit Turkey on Wednesday for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. The Turkish leader had developed a close rapport with Assad but has grown increasingly critical of his military crackdown. In Damascus, thousands of Assad supporters lined one of the capital’s main thoroughfares and lifted a 2,300-metre-long tri-colour Syrian flag, while waving pictures of the president.
