Syrians Launch Civil Disobedience Campaign

Syrian activists on Thursday launched a campaign of civil disobedience to pile pressure on President Bashar Assad, after he drew a stinging rebuke from the U.S. for denying he ordered a deadly crackdown.

Local human rights groups said more than 100 people have been killed in Syria since the weekend, and the U.N. estimates at least 4,000 have died since March when anti-regime protests erupted.

But in a rare interview with Western media, President Assad questioned the U.N. toll and denied ordering the killing of protesters, saying only a "crazy person" would do so.

Washington said Assad's remarks showed he was disconnected from reality or himself "crazy," as he comes under mounting global pressure, with Arab nations and Turkey joining the West in pursuing sanctions against his regime.

Despite the rhetoric, the Local Coordination Committees activist network reported on Thursday that Assad's forces used bombs and "heavy and indiscriminate gunfire" in Damascus and northwestern Idlib province.

The LCC, which organizes anti-regime protests on the ground in Syria, appealed for citizens to mobilize for a "dignity strike ... which will lead to the sudden death of this tyrant regime."

The campaign would "snowball... and grow each day of the revolution to reach every home and anyone who wants to live delighted and dignified in his/her country," said an LCC statement received in Nicosia.

It urged citizens to begin the action on Sunday -- the first day of the working week in Syria -- starting with sit-ins at work, and the closure of shops and universities, before the shutdown of transportation networks and a general public sector strike.

"The Syrian revolution is... a renaissance against slavery; a scream at the face of humiliation started from the first day as demonstrators cried 'Syrians are not to be humiliated.'

"The echo of this scream will not vanish till it reaches all ears," said the English-language statement, adding the strike was "the first step in an overall civil disobedience" campaign which will overthrow the regime.

Reports that there was no let-up in the crackdown also came from another activist group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said that clashes between Syria's regular army and mutinous soldiers shook the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province, near the border with Turkey, on Wednesday.

Also in Idlib, "military forces raided houses and arrested three militants," in the vicinity of Saraqeb, while "some 50 armored vehicles, including tanks and troop carriers, came under attack in the village of al-Rami," it added.

The Observatory also said a 16-year-old girl was shot dead and 20 people were wounded near Saraqeb, and that two women died for lack of medication in the al-Houla region of central Homs province.

In his interview, Assad denied he ordered the killing of thousands of protesters and brushed aside charges that Syrian forces tortured to death a 13-year-old boy, whom rights groups say was shot, burned and castrated in April.

"Every 'brute reaction' was by an individual, not by an institution, that's what you have to know," Assad told U.S. television network ABC News.

"There is a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference."

Assad said he was not responsible for the nine months of bloodshed, declaring: "No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person."

"There was no command to kill or be brutal," Assad told ABC.

Assad said security forces belonged to "the government" and not him personally.

"I don't own them. I'm president. I don't own the country. So they are not my forces," he said.

Assad's family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for four decades. Assad's brother, Lieutenant Colonel Maher Assad, heads the army's Fourth Division, which oversees the capital as well as the elite Republican Guard.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner dared Assad to back up his assertions by letting in international observers and media, saying there was a "clear campaign against peaceful protesters."

"It either says that he's completely lost any power that he had within Syria, that he's simply a tool or that he's completely disconnected with reality," Toner told reporters Wednesday.

"It's either disconnection, disregard or, as he said, crazy. I don't know," Toner said.