Beirut — Syria on Wednesday promised to end its military operation in the southern city of Deraa, where the anti-government protest movement began in March before spreading across the country.
President Bashar Assad, whose army deployed tanks and snipers more than a week ago to crush dissent in Deraa, said in published remarks that the operation would end "very soon."
The announcement came as security forces made sweeping arrests across the country to blunt the protest movement's momentum.
Deraa, near the Jordanian border, has been under siege since April 25 when Assad sent in the military. Since then, the military has cut off electricity and telephone service, and snipers have fired at residents who ventured outdoors. Residents said security forces also shot holes in rooftop water tanks — a vital supply of water in the bone-dry region.
Over the past 10 days, about 50 people have been reported killed in Deraa.
"The mission of the army units that entered Deraa on the 25th of last month will end very soon," Assad said, according to the private Al-Watan newspaper. The paper did not give further details about the plans.
The uprising in Deraa was sparked by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall. Protests spread quickly across the nation of some 23 million people.
Assad is determined to crush the six-week revolt, the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year dynasty. Assad inherited power from his father in 2000, and has maintained close ties with Iran and Islamic militant groups such as Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Wednesday that 553 civilians have been killed since the uprising began. Dozens of soldiers have been killed as well, according to Abdul-Rahman and Syria's state-run media.
Syria blames the unrest on a foreign conspiracy and "terrorist groups" that it says have taken advantage of protests.
Assad has acknowledged the need for reforms, and he has offered an amnesty to Syrians who turn themselves in before 15 May for carrying weapons or allegedly undermining national security.
But his overtures have been coupled with a brutal crackdown and sweeping arrests. In the past week, authorities intensified their campaign to quell the unrest, deploying troops and tanks to trouble spots.
On Wednesday, a coalition of local committees helping to organize the protests said prisons were overflowing with detainees, forcing security forces to release people — "but only after those detainees have been subjected to the worst and most violent forms of torture."
The Syrian Coordinating Committees said that at least 500 people were being arrested daily.
"We must continue our peaceful revolution throughout Syria until we achieve the freedom we demand," that statement said.
Protests were continuing despite the campaign of intimidation.
In Damascus, about 150 students gathered outside Damascus University's School of Economics carrying banners that reads: "Lift the siege on Deraa," activists said. Security forces attacked the demonstrators with batons to disperse them and detained two students, they said.
Activists also said security forces fired tear gas late Tuesday in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, to disperse hundreds of students calling for an end to Deraa's siege.
The Obama administration has imposed sanctions on three top Syrian officials as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. The White House has accused Iran's hard-line regime of aiding Syria in the crackdown.
Syria is already under US sanctions because it has been designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department. The new ones extend the penalties to individuals.
European nations summoned Syrian ambassadors last week in a coordinated demand that Assad stop gunning down his people, and Germany said sanctions were possible.
Late Tuesday, France's Foreign Ministry advised French citizens who don't have essential or imperative reasons to be in Syria to leave the country.
