Crackdown Live Blog

The Syrian army on Thursday sent further troop reinforcements to the northwestern province of Idlib, where activists said they fear an assault similar to the one that devastated the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the troop build-up appeared to indicate a major military operation was imminent given reports in the official press of "armed terrorist groups" in the region.

Milad Fadl, a member of the opposition Syrian Revolution General Commission, said tanks and troops were deploying heavily around the Jabal al-Zawiya district of the province.

"Large numbers of residents from eight villages in that area have fled," Fadl told AFP, adding that residents of the city of Idlib itself were also leaving.

"The government troops have asked members of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) to surrender their weapons through messages on mosque loudspeakers or through local officials," Fadl said.

"I expect the army to first storm Idlib and then decide from there what to do."

Tanks and troop carriers are headed for Syria's embattled northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday, said the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group.

"The SNC has noted 42 tanks and 131 troop carriers leaving Latakia in the direction of the town of Saraqeb," in Idlib province, "as well as military columns heading for the town of Idlib," the group said in a statement.

In addition, "several martyrs were killed" in bombardment of Maaret al-Numan, another town in Idlib province, it added.

The SNC called on the international community, the Arab League and international NGOs to "act urgently and at all levels, to avoid a repeat of the massacre at Baba Amr, where hundreds of martyrs fell."

The EU is set to freeze the financial assets of up to 10 senior Syrian government officials on Monday as part of a rapid escalation to tighten the "diplomatic and economic stranglehold" aimed pressuring Damascus to halt its military crackdown on protesters, the UK's Independent newspaper reported on Sunday.

European foreign ministers will agree to a fresh array of sanctions, including travel bans on high-profile members Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's administration, sanctions on Syria's Central Bank, as well as restrictions on cargo flights and sales of gold and diamonds, it said.

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Al Jazeera's James Bays gets exclusive access to a secret clinic in northern Lebanon that is treating Syrians injured by the government's crackdown on dissent.