An increasingly isolated Syria imposed retaliatory sanctions on former friend Turkey, but said today it might agree "soon" to an Arab peace plan to avert penalties from Arab states over its eight-month crackdown on popular unrest. In a display of muscle that could be intended to deter any idea of foreign military intervention in a crisis which has killed at least 4,000 people, the army staged a big exercise with missiles, rockets, tanks and helicopters.
Top generals watched the war games and state television made it their headline news story, as the death toll mounted. Five civilians were killed by security forces in Homs, the countrys third largest city, according to the activist website Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Four died when troops fired on a funeral procession and one man was shot at a hospital. A youth died of gunshot wounds sustained at the weekend.
In southern Deraa province, three members of the security forces were shot dead by army defectors in front of the Dael courthouse, the website reported. The corpse of Ismail Aqla al-Amri, 35, was handed to back relatives in Deraa, a victim of state torture, it said.