Syrian tanks shelled the city of Hama after nightly Ramadan prayers on Tuesday, residents said, on the third day of an armored assault to crush some of the largest street protests against President Bashar al-Assad in a five-month uprising.
The shelling concentrated on the eastern Rubaii and al-Hamidiya neighborhoods, the Aleppo road in the north and the eastern Baath district, two residents said. A crowd that tried to rally in the central Alamein neighborhood after prayers marking the end of the daytime fast came under rifle fire by Assad's forces.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. Rights campaigners earlier said five civilians were killed on Tuesday as tanks thrust further into the central Syrian city of 700,000.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with U.S.-based Syrian democracy activists as the Obama administration weighed new sanctions on Syria. Congressional calls also mounted for action against Assad's regime, as the death toll from two days of military assaults on civilians Sunday and Monday neared 100.
Italy recalled its ambassador to Syria "in the face of the horrible repression against the civil population" by the government, which launched a new push against protesters as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began Monday. It was the first European Union country to pull its ambassador, and the measure came a day after the EU tightened sanctions on Syria.
The mounting international outcry has had no apparent effect so far in Syria, an autocratic country that relies on Iran as a main ally in the region.
Human rights campaigners said assaults by Assad's forces across Syria overnight and on Monday had killed 10 people in Hama, where troops and tanks began a violent operation to regain control on Sunday.
That brought the total to about 134 dead throughout Syria in three days, 90 of them in Hama, according to witnesses, residents and rights campaigners.
The top U.S. military officer said Washington wants to pressure the Syrian regime politically and diplomatically. But when asked about the prospect of U.S. involvement in Syria, Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said "there's no indication whatsoever that the Americans, that we would get involved directly with respect to this."
Also on Tuesday, the EU formally added five more Syrian officials to an existing list of 29 individuals headed by Assad, whom the 27-nation bloc has targeted with asset freezes and travel bans.
The five include Defense Minister Ali Habib, the head of internal security and the intelligence chief in Hama, which the EU says was the scene of a civilian "massacre" over the weekend.
"Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
"Unless there is meaningful change in Syria and an end to the crackdown, President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria," Hague said in a statement.
Ramadan crackdown The current crackdown appears aimed at preventing protests from swelling during Ramadan, when Muslims throng mosques for the special nightly prayers after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast. The gatherings could then turn into large protests throughout the country.
About 1,700 civilians have been killed since the largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad's regime began in mid-March, according to tallies by activists.
There were minor discrepancies in Monday's death tolls cited by activists, ranging from 19 to 25. The difference could not immediately be reconciled.
The regime disputes the toll and blames a foreign conspiracy for the unrest, saying gangs and religious extremists — not true reform-seekers — are behind it. State-run TV aired video footage Tuesday purportedly filmed in Hama showing men carrying rifles in the streets of the city — an attempt to bolster their claims that thugs are driving the violence.
Syria has banned independent media coverage and has prevented most foreign journalists from entering the country, making it difficult to verify events on the ground.
Hama-based activist Omar Hamawi told The Associated Press that troops advanced about 700 yards from the western entrance of the city overnight, taking up positions near homes and buildings in an area known as Kazo Square.
He said the force consisted of eight tanks and several armored personnel carriers.
Hamawi, who spoke to the AP over the telephone, added that troops were also reinforced on the eastern side of the city around the Hama Central Prison, an overcrowded jail.
He said residents there saw smoke billowing from the prison overnight and heard sporadic gunfire from inside the premises, leading some to believe that the inmates were rioting. He added that it was impossible to know what was exactly going on in the prison or whether there were casualties inside the tightly controlled facility.
The activist also said that parts of Hama were hit Tuesday morning with heavy machine gun fire after sporadic shelling overnight. He said a shell hit a compound known as the Palace of Justice in the city center, causing a huge fire that burned much of the building, which is home to several courts.
The Syrian Observatory said on Tuesday that Monday's death toll included 10 people in Hama, six in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen and three in the central province of Homs. Two were killed in the eastern town of al-Boukamal, two the coastal city of Latakia and one in Maadamiyah near Damascus, the group said.
Hama has a history of defiance to the Assad family's 40-year dynasty in Syria.
In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement. The city was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.
The real number may never be known. Then, as now, reporters were not allowed to reach the area.
