Syria: Assad puts on show of strength

Syria's Cabinet resigned yesterday in an effort to help calm a wave of popular fury that erupted more than a week ago, threatening president Bashar Assad's 11-year rule in one of the Middle East's most authoritarian nations.

Mr Assad, whose family has controlled Syria for four decades, is trying to calm dissent with concessions. He is expected to address the nation to lift emergency laws in place since 1963 and move to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

Mass protests exploded on Friday, touched off by the arrest of teenagers who had scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in the southern city of Daraa. Security forces launched a swift crackdown, opening fire in at least six parts of the country - including the capital, Damascus, and the main port of Latakia.

More than 60 people have died since 18 March as security forces cracked down on protesters, Human Rights Watch said.

State TV said yesterday Mr Assad accepted the resignation of the 32-member cabinet headed by Naji al-Otari, who has been in place since September 2003. The cabinet will continue running the country's affairs until a new government is formed.

The resignations will not affect Mr Assad, who holds the lion's share of power in the authoritarian regime.

The announcement came hours after hundreds of thousands of supporters of Syria's hard-line regime poured into the streets in an orchestrated show of mass support.

"The people want Bashar Assad!" chanted protesters in a central Damascus square. Men, women and children gathered in front of a huge picture of Mr Assad freshly put up on the Central Bank building.

The anti-government protests and ensuing violence have brought sectarian tensions in Syria out in the open for the first time in decades, a taboo topic because the country has a Sunni majority ruled by minority Alawites, a branch of Shiite Islam. Mr Assad has placed fellow Alawites into most of the positions of power.

But he also has used increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes, while punishing dissenters with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.

Many of the pro-regime demonstrators emphasized national unity yesterday.

"Sectarianism was never an issue before, this is a conspiracy targeting Syria," said Jinane Adra, a 36-year-old Syrian who came from Saudi Arabia to express support for Mr Assad.

"The Syrian people are one, there is no place for religious divisions between us," she said, flanked by her children, ages three and five, carrying red roses and pictures of Mr Assad.

Mohammed Ali, 40, said Mr Assad was in touch with his people and aware of their need for reforms."This dirty conspiracy will be short-lived, we are all behind him," he said, cradling an Assad poster.

The unrest in the strategically important country could have implications beyond its borders given its role as Iran's top Arab ally and in the front line against Israel.