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LATAKIA, Syria — Gangs of young men, some armed with swords and hunting rifles, roamed Sunday through the streets of a Syrian seaside city, closing alleys with barricades and roughly questioning passersby in streets scarred by days of anti-government unrest.
The scenes in Latakia, a Mediterranean port once known as a summmer tourist draw, were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been of the Mideast's most tightly controlled countries.
Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched southern agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, a once-unimaginable development for one of the Mideast's most repressive governments. Security forces have opened fire on demonstrators in at least six places, leading to dozens of deaths.
President Bashar Assad's regime has responded by both fatally shooting protesters, and promising reform, and a lawmaker told The Associated Press on Sunday that he expected Assad to soon announce that he was lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency. The timing remained unclear.
A Sunday evening session of parliament ended with no word of any announcement. State TV showed the session finishing with a moment of silence for those killed in recent days, and an address from the parliament speaker about the need for national unity.
A top adviser to Assad offered the first hint of such reforms in an announcement Thursday, saying the government had begun studying them, but that pledge did not stop protests from erupting in cities across Syria the following day.
Some of the worst violence appears to have taken place in Latakia, a coastal city that is a mix of Sunnis in its urban core, members of Assad's Alawite branch of Shiite Islam living in villages on the outskirts, and small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.
Witnesses told The Associated Press that large, religiously mixed crowds took to the steets of Latakia on Friday to express sympathy with protesters in the southern city of Daraa and demand greater civil liberties and political freedoms and an end to official corruption.
According to the witnesses and footage posted on social networking sites, shooting erupted that protesters blame on security forces, and unrest erupted that continued until Saturday. Syrian officials said the government moved the army into Latakia in heavy numbers by early Sunday.
Syrian officials said 12 people had died in Latakia, and blamed the deaths on unidentified gunmen firing from rooftops.
An Associated Press photographer saw traces of what appeared to have been a serious battle in Latakia's main Sheik Daher square. Two police cars had been smashed and rocks and telephone cables torn from overhead poles were strewn across the streets and sidewalks.
The offices housing SyriaTel, the mobile phone company owned in large part by a cousin of President Bashar Assad, had been burned.
At one of the city's two hospitals, officials said they had treated 90 wounded people on Friday. The photographer saw many suffering from gunshot wounds to the hands or feet. Others were in critical condition.
Few cars or people were on the streets and shops were closed. Soldiers patrolled in heavy numbers, stopping virtually anyone seen carrying a bag. They pulled drivers to the side of the road to ask for identification papers and search their vehicles.
Just before sundown, gangs of young men began roaming the streets, some armed with sticks, swords and knives. Some of the gangs could be seen closing streets and alleys with metal barricades and tires.
Their allegiances could not be immediately determined, but pro-government groups of men in civilian clothes and armed with hunting rifles and other firearms also could be seen pulling over drivers, asking them for identification and the reason for their presence in Latakia.
The Reuters news agency reported that two of its staffers had been missing in Syria since Saturday night, saying Beirut-based producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji had been expected to cross into Lebanon by road and be picked up by a taxi.
Reuters said it had asked for Syrian officials' help in securing the journalists' safe return.
Syria's state of emergency has been in force since Assad's Baath party took power on March 8, 1963. It lets the government detain suspects without trial and exercise strict control over the media.
It also allows civilians to be tried in military courts.
Assad's decisions are effectively law but the state of emergency would have to be formally canceled by a presidential decree requiring approval of the cabinet. The decree would then be referred to a parliamentary committee for approval before actually going into effect.
The next scheduled cabinet meeting is Tuesday.
Member of Parliament Mohammed Habash told the AP before the parliament session Sunday that it might vote on a section of the constitution that mandates Baath party leadership of the nation. The amendment of the constitution's section 8 would open the way for the formation of parties besides the Baath and 11 other closely associated parties known as the National Progressive Front.
There was no immediate word of such a vote after the session.
The scenes in Latakia, a Mediterranean port once known as a summmer tourist draw, were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been of the Mideast's most tightly controlled countries.
Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched southern agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, a once-unimaginable development for one of the Mideast's most repressive governments. Security forces have opened fire on demonstrators in at least six places, leading to dozens of deaths.
President Bashar Assad's regime has responded by both fatally shooting protesters, and promising reform, and a lawmaker told The Associated Press on Sunday that he expected Assad to soon announce that he was lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency. The timing remained unclear.
A Sunday evening session of parliament ended with no word of any announcement. State TV showed the session finishing with a moment of silence for those killed in recent days, and an address from the parliament speaker about the need for national unity.
A top adviser to Assad offered the first hint of such reforms in an announcement Thursday, saying the government had begun studying them, but that pledge did not stop protests from erupting in cities across Syria the following day.
Some of the worst violence appears to have taken place in Latakia, a coastal city that is a mix of Sunnis in its urban core, members of Assad's Alawite branch of Shiite Islam living in villages on the outskirts, and small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.
Witnesses told The Associated Press that large, religiously mixed crowds took to the steets of Latakia on Friday to express sympathy with protesters in the southern city of Daraa and demand greater civil liberties and political freedoms and an end to official corruption.
According to the witnesses and footage posted on social networking sites, shooting erupted that protesters blame on security forces, and unrest erupted that continued until Saturday. Syrian officials said the government moved the army into Latakia in heavy numbers by early Sunday.
Syrian officials said 12 people had died in Latakia, and blamed the deaths on unidentified gunmen firing from rooftops.
An Associated Press photographer saw traces of what appeared to have been a serious battle in Latakia's main Sheik Daher square. Two police cars had been smashed and rocks and telephone cables torn from overhead poles were strewn across the streets and sidewalks.
The offices housing SyriaTel, the mobile phone company owned in large part by a cousin of President Bashar Assad, had been burned.
At one of the city's two hospitals, officials said they had treated 90 wounded people on Friday. The photographer saw many suffering from gunshot wounds to the hands or feet. Others were in critical condition.
Few cars or people were on the streets and shops were closed. Soldiers patrolled in heavy numbers, stopping virtually anyone seen carrying a bag. They pulled drivers to the side of the road to ask for identification papers and search their vehicles.
Just before sundown, gangs of young men began roaming the streets, some armed with sticks, swords and knives. Some of the gangs could be seen closing streets and alleys with metal barricades and tires.
Their allegiances could not be immediately determined, but pro-government groups of men in civilian clothes and armed with hunting rifles and other firearms also could be seen pulling over drivers, asking them for identification and the reason for their presence in Latakia.
The Reuters news agency reported that two of its staffers had been missing in Syria since Saturday night, saying Beirut-based producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji had been expected to cross into Lebanon by road and be picked up by a taxi.
Reuters said it had asked for Syrian officials' help in securing the journalists' safe return.
Syria's state of emergency has been in force since Assad's Baath party took power on March 8, 1963. It lets the government detain suspects without trial and exercise strict control over the media.
It also allows civilians to be tried in military courts.
Assad's decisions are effectively law but the state of emergency would have to be formally canceled by a presidential decree requiring approval of the cabinet. The decree would then be referred to a parliamentary committee for approval before actually going into effect.
The next scheduled cabinet meeting is Tuesday.
Member of Parliament Mohammed Habash told the AP before the parliament session Sunday that it might vote on a section of the constitution that mandates Baath party leadership of the nation. The amendment of the constitution's section 8 would open the way for the formation of parties besides the Baath and 11 other closely associated parties known as the National Progressive Front.
There was no immediate word of such a vote after the session.
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