Syrian army presses scorched earth campaign in north

Syrian internally displaced people cross a stream at a makeshift camp in Syria near the Turkish border The Syrian army killed six civilians Tuesday as it swept through villages around the flashpoint northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughur, a rights activist said. The latest deaths in the crackdown  on pro-democracy protests came a day after the military deployed tanks in eastern Syria, close to the border with Iraq, the activist said on condition of anonymity.
Elsewhere, protests broke out on Monday night in the eastern town of Deir Ezzor, 430 kilometres (270 miles) from the Syrian capital, the activist added.
"The armed forces are continuing their operations and the sweep of the villages near Jisr al-Shughur," which the army took by force Sunday, the activist said.
"Six civilians perished in the past few hours in Ariha," east of Jisr al-Shughur, he said, without providing further details.
"Some 10 tanks and 15-20 troop carriers were deployed around the town of Abu Kamal," 500 kilometres east of Damascus, the activist added.
Phone lines in Ariha have been cut since Monday morning.
The United States stepped up its condemnation of Syria's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters Tuesday, which rights activists say has left at least 1,200 people dead since mid-March, and again called on its president to allow for a political transition or step aside.
"We have called on President Bashar al-Assad to cease the violence. We strongly condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the violence being perpetrated in Syria," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
"President Assad needs to engage in political dialogue. A transition needs to take place. If President Assad does not lead that transition then he should step aside," Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Refugees fleeing across the border into Turkey on Monday said that troops were burning crops and slaughtering livestock in villages near the town of Jisr al-Shughur, main focus of a crackdown which began at the weekend.
Syrian troops pursued a scorched earth campaign in the northern mountains, but refugees who had fled to Turkey said some soldiers had revolted in a bid to defend civilians. State media said two top officials were being investigated
for their role in a previous crackdown, as international leaders continued to denounce the government campaign against protesters.
Some of the thousands of refugees to have fled into neighbouring Turkey said troops were burning crops and slaughtering livestock in villages near the border.
State television said the army was pursuing "armed gangs" into the woods and mountains around Jisr al-Shughur after storming the town, which had been a centre of protest, over the weekend.
Human rights activists reported heavy gunfire and explosions in the town throughout Sunday as troops backed by helicopter gunships and around 200 tanks launched a two-pronged dawn assault.
And on Monday, they reported intermittent gunfire as troops launched search operations in the village of Uram al-Joz, east of Jisr al-Shughur and in the Jebel al-Zawiya mountains further south.
But most of the town's 50,000 residents were long gone, having fled during the week-long build-up to the crackdown.
Some of those who had fled to Turkey described how the Syrian army had embarked on a scorched earth policy in Jisr al-Shughur and other villages in Idlib province, long a hotbed of hostility towards the government.
But fighting had also broken out among the troops on Sunday as soldiers bent on destroying the area were confronted by others trying to defend the townsfolk, the refugees added.
Elements from one tank division had even taken up positions by bridges leading into the town in a bid to defend it, they said.
"The troops are divided," said 35-year-old Abdullah, who fled Jisr al-Shughur on Sunday and sneaked over the border into Turkey to find food.
"Four tanks defected and they began to fire on one another," he added.
Ali, another Syrian refugee who made it to Turkey, told a similar story.
"There is now a split within the army and you have a group who are trying to protect the civilians," the 27-year-old told AFP.
Abdullah, who like many refugees would give only his first name, said troops had now reached Ziayni, a town just six kilometres (four miles) from the Turkish border.
"They torched all the crops, they slaughtered the goats, the cows," he said.
"In the town itself, all the bakeries and the supermarkets have been pillaged, there is nothing left. The doors have been smashed in."
He also said that there was a sectarian bias to the army's crackdown.
Troops had focused on villages of the Sunni Muslim majority, leaving those of the president's minority Allawite community untouched.
"The soldiers did not approach the Allawi villages. They only attacked Sunni villages, and destroyed them," Abdullah said.
More than 6,800 of Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the town, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported. Another 5,000 have fled into Lebanon, the United Nations said.
In Washington meanwhile, officials called on President Bashar al-Assad to either lead a transition or stand down, amid mounting frustration among Western powers at the failure of the UN Security Council to unite in condemning Syria.
France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud protested that two weeks of diplomatic wrangling over a draft resolution condemning the crackdown was costing lives.
"In that time 400 people, including women and children, have died, sometimes under torture," he said.
The United States backs the European draft, but veto-wielding Security Council permanent members Russia and China have so far blocked it. On Monday, they even boycotted talks on the draft resolution.
Several non-permanent Security Council members have also expressed reservations.
Syrian state media said two senior officials had been barred from travel abroad by an official inquiry into an earlier crackdown on protests in the Daraa region south of Damascus.
The bans affect Ateb Najib, a cousin of the president, who headed security in Daraa, and Faisal Kulthum, the town's former governor.
Protests erupted in Daraa and then spread around the country after 15 students were arrested on suspicion of writing anti-government graffiti around the town.
The students were tortured and their fingernails extracted, Daraa residents said.