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| Anti-regime protesters carry banners during a rally in Talbiseh, in the central province of Homs, Syria. (File Photo) |
The
European Union reached an agreement in principle Monday to ban oil imports from
Syria, tightening the noose on President Bashar al-Assad, who has refused to
heed international and regional calls for an end to his brutal crackdown on
peaceful protesters.
“There is a
political consensus on a European embargo of imports of Syrian petroleum
products,” a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The new
sanctions were backed by all representatives at a meeting of experts from the
27-nation bloc in Brussels, another diplomat said.
Individual
EU governments are expected to give their final approval by the end of the
week, the diplomat said.
The EU buys
95 percent of the oil Syria exports, representing nearly one-third of
government receipts, according to diplomats.
The latest
move by the European Union came as Syrian security forces in armored vehicles
besieged the town of Ruston, outside of Homs, on Monday in response to reports
that a military unit defected in the area, Local Coordination Committees of
Syria said.
At least 40
light tanks and armored vehicles, and 20 buses of troops and military
intelligence, deployed at 5:30 a.m. at the highway entrance to Ruston, 20 km
(12 miles) north of the city of Homs, and began firing heavy machine guns at
the town,
two
residents said, according to Reuters.
“The tanks
deployed at both banks of the highway, which remained open, and fired long
bursts from their machine guns at Ruston,” one of the residents, who gave his
name as Raed, told Reuters by phone.
He said
defections began in the town when it was stormed by tanks three months ago to
crush large street protests against Assad in an assault that killed dozens of
civilians.
Ruston,
situated near the main highway leading to Turkey, is traditionally a reservoir
of recruits for the mostly Sunni rank-and-file army dominated by officers from
Syria’s Alawite minority sect and effectively commanded by Assad's younger
brother Maher.
Mustafa
Tlas, who was Syria’s defense minister for three decades before retiring in
2006, hails from Ruston.
In
Damascus, dozens of soldiers also defected and fled into al-Ghouta, an area of
farmland, after pro-Assad forces fired at a large crowd of demonstrators near
the suburb of Harasta to prevent them from marching on the centre of the
capital, residents said.
“The army
has been firing heavy machine guns throughout the night at al-Ghouta and they
were being met with response from smaller rifles,” a resident of Harasta told
Reuters by phone.
A statement
published on the internet by the Free Officers, a group that says it represents
defectors, said “large defections” occurred in Harasta and that security forces
and shabbiha loyal to Assad were chasing the defectors.
It was the
first reported defection near the capital, where Assad’s core forces are based.
“The
younger conscripts who defect mainly go back to their town and villages and
hide. We have seen more experienced defectors fighting back in the south, in
Idlib, and around Damascus,” said an activist, who gave his name as Abu Khaled.
Meanwhile,
security forces broke up a sit-in by hundreds of people in front of the Badr
Mosque in Malki, near the presidential palace in the center of Damascus, overnight
on Monday.
In other
regions, military and security forces stormed the villages of Deir Ezzor and
Bokamal, killing one child and wounding dozens of residents, the coordination
committees said. The forces also shot at protesters in the Daraa’s cities of
Inkhel, Nawa and Daeel, in Damascus suburbs including Douma and Kesweh, and in
Deir Ezzor, Idlib and several neighborhoods in Homs.
The latest
demonstrations in Damascus were triggered in part by an attack on Saturday by
Assad's forces on a popular cleric, Osama al-Rifai. He was treated with several
stitches to his head after the forces stormed al-Rifai mosque complex in the
Kfar Sousa district of the capital, home to the secret police headquarters, to
prevent protesters from assembling.
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