Assad Sacks Deir Ezzor Governor as Army Locks Down Homs

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has replaced the governor of Deir Ezzor, the state news agency SANA reported on Sunday two days after massive anti-regime protests in the eastern oil hub.

Assad issued a decree appointing Samir Othman al-Sheikh to replace Hussein Arnoos as governor, the agency said.

Arnoos was appointed the new governor of the Quneitra province near the border with Israel, the agency said.

On Friday more than 550,000 protesters swarmed the streets of Deir Ezzor to protest against a deadly government crackdown on the central flashpoint city of Homs, and against Assad's regime, activists said.

More than 1.2 million Syrians demonstrated in the city and in Hama in the north, the head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"More than 1.2 million people marched: in Deir Ezzor there were more than 550,000, and in Hama more than 650,000," he said.

Earlier in July, Assad replaced the governor of Hama after a record 500,000 protesters rallied in the opposition bastion calling for the fall of the regime.

Activists who reported that half a million people protested in Hama on July 1 said at the time it was the single largest demonstration of its kind since the pro-democracy movement erupted on March 15.

Hama is a city with a bloody past: estimated 20,000 people were killed there in 1982 when the army put down an Islamist revolt against the rule of Assad's late father, Hafez al-Assad.

Deir Ezzor has also been a rallying point for pro-democracy protests since mid-March, with massive demonstrations reportedly taking place on Friday after the weekly Muslim prayers.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army took control on Sunday of several neighborhoods in Homs, the scene of deadly violence last week, while security forces conducted a spate of arrests in Damascus, activists said.

"The army and the Syrian security forces have been deployed heavily in Duar al-Fakhoura and around the neighborhood of al-Nazihin" in Homs, said Abdul Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights.

"Military and security operations are increasing in the region," he noted, reached by telephone by AFP.

More than 50 people have been killed in the past week in Homs, 160 kilometers north of Damascus, either by army gunfire or in clashes between rival groups of demonstrators, rights activists have said.

They have accused the regime of sowing sectarian strife among the city's Christians, Sunni Muslims and Assad's Alawite minority community.

Residents of Homs observed a strike on Saturday while the army encircled the city, cutting off its supplies of water and electricity.

Elsewhere, hundreds of people were arrested in the Damascus neighborhoods of Qaboun and Rukneddine, which has a mostly Kurdish population, Rihawi said.

"Army units set up roadblocks on routes into Qaboun, controlling all entry and exit," he said.

Abdul Rahman, for his part, said: "Soldiers armed with automatic rifles are deployed at the main routes into Qaboun and in front of mosques."

"The security forces also searched homes looking for weapons, and made some arrests," he added.

According to the Syrian Observatory 1,483 civilians are now confirmed dead in the government's crackdown on dissent since mid-March.

In that time, at least 12,000 people have been arrested and thousands have fled to neighboring Turkey and Lebanon. The violence has also claimed the lives of 365 troops and security forces.