Syria Steps Up Its Crackdown While Promising Reform

Protesters in the Syrian town of Banias on Tuesday, in an image from a cellphone. Demonstrations were reported in several cities.

By ANTHONY SHADID
NYT

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government tried to placate protesters with declarations of sweeping reform on Tuesday while also issuing harsh threats of reprisals if demonstrations did not come to an end, as one of the Arab world’s most repressive countries struggled to blunt the most serious challenge to the 40-year rule of the Assad family.

The mix of concession and coercion came hours after the police, army and the other forces of an authoritarian state were marshaled to crush one of the biggest gatherings yet by protesters bent on staging an Egyptian-style sit-in in Homs, Syria’s third largest city. At least two people died, protesters said, as the government cleared the square by dawn on Tuesday.

The events punctuated a tumultuous day in a monthlong uprising that, like Egypt’s, has the potential to rework the arithmetic of a Middle East shaken with dissent. While Syria lacks Egypt’s population or even Libya’s wealth, its influence has long been strong in the region, given its location, its alliance with Iran and its status as kingmaker in Lebanon.

The complexity of its standing means that the government of President Bashar al-Assad finds advocates in the most divergent of places — from the Shiite Muslim movement of Hezbollah in Lebanon to some quarters in Israel.

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