WarSclerotic

At least 30 Syrian troops were killed in recent clashes with rebel forces, a Syrian rights group said on Sunday, with another group indicating that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad killed over 300 civilians since the Arab League gave Damascus a deadline to enact a cease-fire.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a clash Saturday night in the restive central city of Homs between soldiers and gunmen believed to be army defectors left at least 20 soldiers dead and 53 wounded.

	Smoke rising from a building after being fired upon in Baba Amer in Homs in this still image taken from video uploaded October 29, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

It also said gunmen ambushed a bus carrying security officers late Saturday in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing at least 10 security agents. One attacker was also killed.

The Associated Press could not verify the activists’ accounts. Syria has banned most foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it impossible to get independent confirmation of the events on the ground. Syria’s state-run news agency SANA, said seven members of the military and police, who were killed in Homs and the suburbs of Damascus were buried Sunday.

More than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in the government’s clampdown, according to the United Nations.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said Sunday that 343 people, including 20 children, have been killed in Syria since Oct. 16, when the Cairo-based Arab League gave Damascus a 15-day deadline to enact a cease-fire.

A meeting was scheduled for later Sunday in Qatar between an Arab committee set up by the 22-member Arab League and a Syrian delegation expected to be headed by Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

The unrest in Syria could send unsettling ripples through the region, as Damascus’ web of alliances extends to Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, the militant Palestinian Hamas and Iran’s Shiite theocracy.

Unlike Gadhafi, Syrian President Bashar Assad enjoys a number of powerful allies that give him the means to push back against the outside pressure. A conflict in Syria risks touching off a wider Middle East conflict with arch foes Israel and Iran in the mix. Syria wouldn’t have to look far for prime targets to strike, sharing a border with U.S.-backed Israel and NATO-member Turkey.

The reported incident took place as Assad warned on Sunday that Western interference in his country could cause an “earthquake” that would “burn the whole region” and transform the country into “another Afghanistan.”

“Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake,” said Assad in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.
“Do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?”

His comments come after protesters took to the streets on Friday demanding the imposition of a no-fly zone in the country to protect civilians from government crackdowns.

Assad admitted to the newspaper that “many mistakes” had been made by his forces in the early part of the uprising, but insisted that only “terrorists” were now being targeted.

“We have very few police, only the army, who are trained to take on al-Qaida,” he said. “If you sent in your army to the streets, the same thing would happen. Now, we are only fighting terrorists. That’s why the fighting is becoming much less.”