SIRIA: PROTESTAS CRECIENTES Y RESPUESTAS IMPLACABLES

Top of the Agenda: Gunfire Disperses Protests in Syria Syrian security forces used gunfire and tear gas to scatter anti-government protestors in the city of Homs (al-Jazeera), following a day in which activists say at least twenty-five people were killed there. Armed forces locked the city down with several rings of checkpoints, giving protestors until 2:30 a.m. to clear the town's central Clock Square. Thousands of demonstrators had gathered in the city center on Monday after mass funerals for protestors killed by Bashar al-Assad's regime over the weekend. Tuesday's crackdown (BBC) followed an announcement by the interior ministry that the civil unrest in Homs and in the northern city of Baniyas amounted to an "armed insurrection" by ultraconservative Salafist groups. Analysts say the demonstrations signify a rejection of the concessions (NYT) outlined by Assad on Saturday, including a pledge to end emergency rule by the end of the week. Some fear recent statements by the regime against the protestors indicate the government is preparing a "showdown." The Assad regime has leveraged of fears of sectarian warfare (WSJ) in its efforts to crush popular support for the uprising. Human right groups claim that at least two hundred people have been killed in political violence over the past month. Analysis: Syria's Ba'athist regime has responded to widening pro-reform protests by tightening itscrackdown, but this approach is unlikely to quiet restive Syrians like it has in the past, writes CFR's Mohamad Bazzi. On his CFR blog From the Potomac to the Euphrates, Steven A. Cook discusses the political conversation in Washington on the events in Syria, and the U.S. efforts at democracy promotion through the Middle East Partnership Initiative. In Foreign Affairs, Itamar Rabinovich writes that Assad may blame Israel for his problems, but the Israelis are more ambivalent about their sometime antagonist. Yet with little ability to affect the outcome of the uprisings, Jerusalem can only watch nervously as events unfold.