Syria | featured news

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Beset by civil unrest at home and lambasted by the West and his Arab neighbors for his violent crackdown on dissent, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad can count on one firm ally: Iran.

Five months into the country's uprising, a defiant Syrian regime continues its relentless assault on pro-reform protesters in the face of international rebuke and calls for restraint.

The Syrian military defied growing condemnation and sent tanks into Deir al-Zour, the fifth-largest city in the country.

Syria claimed Friday it was putting an end to the rebellion in the besieged city.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators take to the streets outside Damascus, in Homs and elsewhere in response to the lethal military assaults centered in the besieged city of Hama. The growing civilian toll intensifies international condemnation of the Syrian regime.

Security forces bombed the city for a second day on Monday as the government continued its campaign to crush a popular uprising against the Syrian regime.

Syrian forces shot dead at least 11 people during mass protests on Friday against President Bashar al-Assad, rights activists and witnesses said.

Syrian tanks rolled into a northwestern village and opened fire Monday, wounding at least six people in the latest military maneuver in a weekslong siege near the Turkish border that seeks to crush the country's pro-democracy uprising, activists said.

The hotbed of opposition to the regime of President Bashar Assad is surrounded by Syrian troops and tanks, apparently poised for an assault. Protests have risen dramatically in Hama, a city loaded with political symbolism.

Syrian tanks and helicopters opened fire and killed at least two civilians as the military advanced through a series of villages in northwestern Syria on Thursday, a push that sent residents running for the hills, several villagers said in phone calls with CNN.