Hundreds of families flee Syria's Hama fearing crackdown

Syrian authorities have positioned tanks around the city following major protests Around a hundred families have fled Syria's central city of Hama fearing a military crackdown on massive protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a rights group said Thursday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that in the past few hours about 1,000 people in total had left Hama, where it said Syrian troops had killed 23 civilians since Tuesday.
The crowds were headed for Salamiyah, a town some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Hama which itself lies around 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of the capital Damascus.
Syrian authorities have been trying to quell protests in Hama, traditionally a centre of opposition to central government, and had positioned tanks on the main entrances to the city except that in the north.
Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organisation for Human Rights, said on Wednesday there had been a worsening of the security situation with the "pursuit of search operations, assassinations and arrests in this city."
Hama has been a symbolic city of opposition since the 1982 crackdown on a revolt by the banned Muslim Brotherhood against then-president Hafez al-Assad, father of the present leader. Some 20,000 people were killed in the revolt.
The newspaper Al-Watan, close to the regime, said on Thursday that the situation in Hama was calm and the barricades erected in the streets by protesters had been dismantled.
The newspaper reported that the authorities had told demonstrators to avoid any confrontations and clear the streets so residents could go to work and to avoid what it called a "last resort" military operation.
According to Al-Watan, the protesters were calling for the former governor to be reinstated, for detained demonstrators to be freed, for a pledge that the security forces would not intervene, and for a guarantee of freedom to demonstrate.
Last Friday, an anti-regime rally had brought out half a million people in Hama, according to pro-democracy activists. The security services had not intervened and the city's governor was fired the next day by presidential decree.
Human rights activists said on Thursday that anti-regime demonstrations took place overnight in several towns in response to a number of pro-regime rallies held on Wednesday.
The activists said 1,000 demonstrated in the northwest town of Idleb, at Harasta in the southwest and near to the southern town of Deraa, while about 100 protesters rallied in Saqba, a suburb of Damascus.