Syrian army locks down Homs amid Damascus arrests

An image grab from a video on YouTube shows anti-government demonstrators in Hama The Syrian army Sunday took control of several neighbourhoods in Homs, the scene of deadly violence last week, while security forces conducted a spate of arrests in Damascus, activists said .
"The army and the Syrian security forces have been deployed heavily in Duar al-Fakhura and around the neighbourhood of Al-Nazihin" in Homs, said Abdel Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights.
"Military and security operations are increasing in the region," he noted, reached by telephone from Nicosia.
More than 50 people have been killed in the past week in Homs, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Damascus, either by army gunfire or in clashes between rival groups of demonstrators, rights activists have said.
They have accused the regime of sowing sectarian strife among the city's Christians, Sunni Muslims and Asad's Alawite minority community.
Residents of Homs observed a strike on Saturday while the army encircled the city, cutting off its supplies of water and electricity.
Elsewhere, hundreds of people were arrested in the Damascus neighbourhoods of Qabun and Rukneddin, which has a mostly Kurdish population, Rihawi said.
"Army units set up roadblocks on routes into Qabun, controlling all entry and exit," he said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said: "Soldiers armed with automatic rifles are deployed at the main routes into Qabun and in front of mosques."
"The security forces also searched homes looking for weapons, and made some arrests," he added.
According to the Syrian Observatory 1,483 civilians are now confirmed dead in the government's crackdown on dissent since mid-March.
In that time, at least 12,000 people have been arrested and thousands have fled to neighbouring Turkey and Lebanon. The violence has also claimed the lives of 365 troops and security forces.