Amman: A convoy of 30 Republican Guard tanks and up to 70 trucks filled with soldiers were seen on the circular highway surrounding Damascus on Wednesday, a witness told Reuters.
"Each truck had 20 to 30 soldiers. The convoy was either heading north in the direction of Homs or south in the direction of Deraa," said the witness, a former member of the Syrian army who did not want to be further identified.
Residents said tanks and armoured personnel carriers had been deploying at the northern edge of the restive town of Rastan, north of the city of Homs, and 15 km away from its southern entrance since Wednesday morning.
The deployment followed the failure of an overnight meeting between residents and a ruling Baath Party official during which the official demanded the handover of several hundred men in the town.
The meeting followed pro-democracy protests on Friday during which security forces killed at least 17 demonstrators, the residents, who included a lawyer in the town, said.
Escalation in arrests
Facing international condemnation for its bloody crackdown on protesters, the Syrian regime is expanding an intimidation campaign to keep people off the streets, according to human rights activists.
'People being plucked from their homes'
They report a sharp escalation in arbitrary arrests and unexplained disappearances - including people being plucked from their homes and offices in the middle of the day.
One prominent activist in an upscale Damascus neighbourhood was reportedly bundled into a car after being beaten by security officers.
"Syrian cities have witnessed in the past few days an insane escalation by authorities who are arresting anyone with the potential to stage protests and demonstrations," Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
'More than 1,000 detained since Saturday'
"The arrests have transformed Syria into a large prison," he said, estimating that more than 1,000 people had been detained since Saturday in raids on houses.
Syrian forces have badly treated many detainees, Amnesty International said.
'Stripped, beaten, and forced to lick his own blood off the floor'
One was forced to lick his own blood off the floor after he was stripped and beaten, the group said.
Earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hundreds of ordinary Syrians had been charged with "degrading the prestige of the state," in President Bashar Al Assad's drive to crush protests against his autocratic rule.
The charge, which carries a 3-year prison sentence, was lodged on Tuesday against hundreds of people detained in the last few days, particularly in the run-up to Friday prayers, which have seen increasingly large pro-democracy demonstrations.
"Mass arrests are continuing across Syria in another violation of human rights and international conventions," said Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman.
Thousands of political prisoners
Other rights organisations said many male detainees had been beated severely in a campaign of arrests that included women, teenagers and the elderly but has failed to deter protesters' appetite for reforms.
Syria already has thousands of political prisoners.
The campaign intensified after a tank-backed army unit, headed by Assad's feared brother Maher, last week shelled and machinegunned into submission the old quarter of Daraa, cradle of the six-week-old uprising.
he demonstrations began with demands for political freedom and an end to corruption and now seek the overthrow of Assad, a member of the minority Alawite Shi'ite sect whose family has ruled majority Sunni Muslim Syria for 41 years.
Security forces have killed at least 560 civilians in attacks on demonstrators since the protests erupted in Daraa on March 18, according to human rights groups
Collective punishment of civilians
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Tuesday the use of tanks, arbitrary arrests and cuts in power in Daraa was "...quite barbaric and amounts to the collective punishment of innocent civilians".
Residents of Damascus suburbs, where many were arrested, said roadblocks and arrests had intensified this week in areas around the capital. One resident said she saw plainclothes security forces putting up sandbags and a machinegun on a road near the town of Kfar Batna on Tuesday.
Friday, another test
An Arab official said the security campaign appeared designed to prevent protests after Friday prayers, the only time Syrians are allowed to assemble en mass - though security forces prevented thousands from reaching mosques last Friday.
"They are putting up roadblocks everywhere to prevent movement. Friday will be another test. Al Assad has decided to use violence. He has not learnt from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions," the official told Reuters.
At least six people were arrested after security forces swept into the coastal city of Banias on Tuesday, taking control of another urban centre from demonstrators challenging Al Assad.
"They moved into the main market area. The army has sealed the northern entrance and security forces (sealed) the south," protest leader Anas Al Shughri told Reuters.
"They armed Alawite villages in the hills overlooking Baniyas and we are now facing militias from the east," he said.
But around 1,000 protesters marched in the Sunni district of Baniyas, just south of the main market, carrying loaves of bread to symbolise solidarity with the people of Daraa, a rights campaigner who provided photos of the demonstration said.
Daraa resident Abu Mohammad said: "They are still dragging anyone who is less than 40 years of age to the Daraa stadium where they have held hundreds, including several women, in the last week without shelter".
Student demonstration erupts
A small student demonstration erupted in the University of Aleppo to the north on Tuesday and thousands marched in the eastern, mostly Kurdish, city of Qamishli, carrying candles and chanting freedom slogans.
International condemnation of the violent repression has intensified since the Daraa assault, which revived memories of the 1982 repression of an armed Islamist uprising in the city of Hama by Al Assad's father, President Hafez Al Assad.
Germany and Britain said they were seeking the imposition of European Union sanctions against Syrian leaders - after a US announcement of sanctions last week - and France said Al Assad should be among the targets of sanctions.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told A-TV, a Turkish news channel, that Al Assad had failed to act on his advice to carry out democratic reforms and release political prisoners.
Reforms doubted
"He says he will do it, but honestly I am having doubts..." said Erdogan, who has telephoned Al Assad several times.
In a sign that the violence has damaged economic activity, the chairman of the Union of Arab Banks told Reuters on Tuesday that up to eight per cent of Syrian pound deposits in Syria had been converted to dollars since the unrest began.
