By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces on Monday launched their biggest sweep against popular unrest in Syria's northwest near Turkey since June, killing a civilian in raids meant to stop protesters escaping across the border, residents said.
Adelsalam Hassoun, 24, a blacksmith, was killed by army snipers on Monday just after he had crossed into Turkey from the village of Ain al-Baida on the Syrian side, his cousin told Reuters by telephone from Syria.
"Abdelsalam was hit in the head. He was among a group of family members and other refugees who dashed across the plain to Turkey when six armoured personnel carrier deployed outside Ain al-Baida and started firing their machineguns into the village at random this morning," Mohammad Hassoun said
Thousands of families fled their homes in the northern border region in June when troops assaulted town and villages that had seen big protests against President Bashar al-Assad.
Faced with a heavy security presence in central neighbourhoods of Damascus and Aleppo, and military assaults against a swathe of cities from Latakia on the coast to Deir al-Zor in the East, street rallies calling for political freedoms and an end to 41 years of Assad family rule have intensified in towns and villages across the country of 20 million.
Demonstrators have been encouraged by the fall of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and growing international pressure on Assad. The European Union has imposed an embargo on Syrian oil exports, jeopardising a major source of revenue for Assad, who inherited power from his father, the late Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, who once backed Assad, said ordinary people in Syria has made it clear it will not back down despite daily killings.
"It's clear now after the protests that have taken place in Syria...(that) the killing is almost daily. It's clear that the people will not abandon their demands, the question is how to get out of this internal deadlock in Syria," he said.
Tiny Qatar, which has significant regional clout, was the first Arab country to criticise Assad's bloody crackdown, closing its embassy in Damascus two months ago after the building was attacked by pro-Assad militiamen.
PROTESTS, RAIDS ESCALATE ALIKE
Assad has repeatedly said he is fighting agents of what he calls a foreign plot to divide Syria.
Syrian authorities, who have expelled most foreign media, blame "armed terrorist groups" for the bloodshed and say that 500 army and police have been killed by such gangs.
Daily protests have increased in northwestern regions that include the cities of Homs, Hama, Idlib and the main port city of Latakia, prompting an escalation of military raids that killed hundreds of Syrians in the last month, rights groups say.
Thousands more people have also been arrested, according to residents and human rights campaigners.
Another witness said Syrian forces backed by armour entered on Monday the town of al-Janoudiya northwest of Ain al-Baida after security police fought pitched gunbattles with a small group of army deserters attempting to flee to Turkey.
"They are trying to prevent every one, civilians and deserters, from reaching Turkey. We have seen over the last week more refugees trying to make the border after the attacks on Latakia and Hama and Homs provinces," said Bashar, a resident of Janoudiya.
Most army conscripts are from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority and many come from rural areas targeted in military efforts to crush six months of protests against Assad.
Army commanders and security chiefs are mostly from Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Last week, Adnan Bakkour, attorney general of the province of Hama, announced his defection to the opposition side on YouTube. Security forces have been combing the region and adjacent Idlib to find him, activists and residents say.
State authorities said Bakkour had been kidnapped by gunmen, but he said he resigned because security forces had killed 72 jailed protesters and activists at Hama's central prison on the eve of a military assault on the city on July 31.
Bakkour said at least another 420 people were killed in the operation and were buried in public parks.
"There are rumours that Bakkour has already managed to make it outside Syria, but no one really knows. The authorities are trying feverishly to find him because it will be a huge embarrassment if he makes it to a free country unscathed," said an activist in Damascus, who declined to be identified.
In Homs, the home region of Assad's wife Asma, activists said security forces and pro-Assad militiamen from Alawite villages entered the Sunni town of Tel Kalakh near the border with Lebanon, firing into several districts.
The town, where an understanding between smugglers and the security apparatus once prevailed, was among the first to see protests in the uprising, prompting several military incursions and an intermittent refugee flow into Lebanon.
(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Habbous in Dubai; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
