DAMASCUS - Syrian security forces deployed overnight in Banias and Homs area, residents said on Sunday, a day after they opened fire on mourners in the southern city of Deraa following a mass funeral for pro-democracy protesters. Several tanks were seen in the northern district of the coastal city of Banias, home to one of Syria's two oil refineries. Heavy gunfire was heard but there were no confirmed reports of casualties. Telephone and mobile connections with Banias were cut, activists said. Protests against the 11-year-old rule of President Bashar Al Assad have intensified in the conservative city as he used increasing force to quell demonstrations in the south, where an uprising against Baathist rule erupted more than three weeks ago and protesters destroyed statues of Assad family members. In the Houla area in the central province of Homs north of Damascus, buses were also seen unloading security personnel. A decision by Assad several days ago to sack the governor of Homs has failed to appease protesters. Assad has used the secret police, special police units, irregular loyalist forces and loyalist army units to counter the unprecedented challenge. He has blended the use of force ��" activists and witnesses say his forces have fired at unarmed demonstrators, killing dozens ��" with gestures such as a pledge to replace an emergency law in force for five decades with an anti-terrorism law. Forty-five year old Assad has said the protests are serving a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife. On Saturday security forces used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse thousands of people chanting freedom slogans after assembling in Deraa, near the border with Jordan, witnesses said. A Syrian rights group said at least 37 people had been killed in protests across the country on Friday. “Syrian security committed (in Deraa) what could be called a crime against humanity,” the National Organisation for Human Rights said in a statement. “It fired indiscriminately on protesters and killed and wounded tens of them.” State television said armed groups had killed 19 policemen and wounded 75 in the city. The Interior Ministry warned it would not tolerate breaches of the law and would deal with “armed groups”, state news agency SANA said. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told Assad in a telephone call “he was greatly disturbed by the latest reports of violence against protesters,” a UN statement said. A witness in Deraa said he had seen at least four youths wounded by snipers being taken by protesters to a nearby clinic. Residents say people avoid taking many of the wounded to state-run hospitals for fear the injured will be arrested by plain clothes security personnel stationed in hospitals. In the early hours of Saturday, security forces used live ammunition to disperse hundreds of people in Latakia, causing scores of injuries and possible deaths, residents said. Ban, who urged “maximum restraint” in a call with Assad a week earlier, told him on Saturday violence by any side was deplorable and the government had a duty to protect civilians. There was no alternative to an immediate and inclusive debate on comprehensive reform, Ban said. A key demand of the protesters is the repeal of emergency laws imposed by the Baath party after it took power in a coup in 1963 and banned all opposition. Assad has ordered a committee to study replacing them with anti-terrorism legislation, but critics say it will probably grant the state many of the same powers.
