Syria hammers at protest center

BEIRUT – Electricity, phone lines and then the water supply were cut off in a restive area of Syria that is a new center for protests against President Bashar Assad, and activists said 15 people died in the sixth day of sustained government attacks Thursday.

What started as street demonstrations calling for reforms has evolved into demands for Assad’s ouster in the face of a violent crackdown, especially in Syria’s south and agricultural center, where the challenge to his family’s 40-year-rule is seen as strongest. In the city of Rastan on Thursday, a resident who fled said troops swept through making arrests.

“We have become refugees in our own country,” said the Rastan resident, who said he slept in the woods to avoid capture. He was reached by telephone and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “My family and sisters are still there, and I don’t know how they are doing.”

Syria’s opposition, fragmented by years of sectarian and ideological tensions, made tentative steps to organize and show an international face, calling on Assad to step down to allow for free elections at the end of a two-day conference in Turkey.

Within Syria, the government’s crackdown has been deadly and unrelenting, even if it has not stopped the daily protests that swell into the thousands on Fridays. Activists say more than 1,100 Syrians have died and more than 10,000 have been detained.

Assad’s government got a strong signal of support on Thursday from Russia, a close ally. In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to have Russia, China and some hesitant Arab countries in mind as she said nations slow to denounce the Syrian crackdown should get on what she called “the right side of history.” She lamented that international disunity was limiting U.S. options for a response.

Details coming out of Syria are sketchy because the government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts coming out of the country.

But the resident said troops pounded the area that has been largely cut off from outside contact for six days with artillery and gunfire, bombing the town’s water supply as well as a mosque and a sports complex.

Activists said 15 people were killed, including two brothers and a 4-year-old girl.

Thursday’s deaths bring the total killed in Rastan and nearby Talbiseh to 72 since the onslaught began.

The Syrian government on Wednesday and Thursday freed hundreds of political prisoners in an amnesty and the president set up a committee for national dialogue in an effort to end the 10-week uprising, but concessions that would have been unimaginable only months ago were flatly rejected by protesters.