US envoy pelted with eggs and tomatoes

Beirut: Supporters of President Bashar Al Assad pelted the US ambassador to Syria with eggs and tomatoes yesterday as he was to meet with a leading opposition figure.

They then tried to storm the building in Damascus where the two were meeting.

Ambassador Robert Ford, a critic of Al Assad's crackdown on the six-month-old uprising, was trapped inside for about three hours until Syrian security forces escorted him out.

Ford met with Hassan Abdul Azim, who heads the outlawed Arab Socialist Democratic Union.