US issues call for boycott of Syrian oil as protests go on

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday led calls for an international boycott of Syrian oil and gas products as the wave of protests and killings continued across the country yesterday.

Syria currently gets about 28 per cent of its annual revenue from the oil trade. Mrs Clinton told reporters to "stay tuned" when asked what progress the US had made in persuading Europe, India, or China to curtail their energy ties with the country and president Bashar al-Assad.

At a news conference in Geneva with Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store, she said: "We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil and gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history.

"President Assad has lost the legitimacy to lead and it is clear that Syria would be better off without him."

The Dutch foreign ministry said yesterday the European Union may decide in the next week or two to broaden its sanctions against the Syrian regime. Foreign minister Uri Rosenthal has been lobbying colleagues to expand the EU travel ban on Syrian officials - which now covers 35 people, including Mr Assad - and to target Syria's telecommunications, banking and energy sectors.

Turkey's president Abdullah Gul has also bluntly warned Mr Assad to lead reform or risk being swept away by the "winds of change", it emerged yesterday.

In a letter to the Syrian leader, he wrote: "I don't want to see you looking back one day and regretting that what you have done was too little and too late.

"Leading the change instead of being carried away by the winds of change will place (you] in a historical position."

Human rights groups say about 1,700 civilians have been killed in Syrian protests since mid-March, though with foreign journalists banned from the country the true figures are hard to verify.

Syrian security forces yesterday detained Abdul-Karim Rihawi, the Damascus-based head of the Syrian Human Rights League, a long-time rights activist who had been tracking government violations and documenting deaths in Syria.

France condemned the arrest of Mr Rihawi and a journalist interviewing him."By its brutal and symbolic character, the arrest constitutes a new unacceptable decision by the authorities of Damascus," a French foreign ministry statement said.

Up to 11 protesters were reported killed yesterday as snipers and soldiers sought to control protests tied to Friday prayers.

There were clashes and casualties reported outside the capital, in the central cities of Homs and Hama, in the major northern city Aleppo and in Deir el-Zour in the east, where troops reportedly opened fire on thousands of people.

Protesters were described shouting for Mr Assad's death yesterday, in a stark sign of how much the protest movement has changed since it erupted in March seeking minor reforms but making no calls for regime change. "The people want to execute the president!" protesters chanted.

Dozens of soldiers were deployed in Hama's Assi Square, which had been the main converging point for hundreds of thousands of protesters in previous weeks, activists said.

Snipers were stationed on rooftops and troops surrounded mosques. In Homs, hundreds of soldiers, security agents and plain clothes policemen were deployed in the city centre.