BICOM

At least 80 people were killed in attacks by the Syrian army in the cities of Deir al-Zour and Homs on Sunday, according to the opposition group Federation of the Local coordination Committees of the Syrian Revolution. Following the latest deaths over the weekend, the Syrian regime has come under mounting Arab pressure to halt its deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz announced yesterday that he would recall the kingdom’s ambassador from Syria for “consultations” and called on Damascus to implement swift and all-out reforms. “What is taking place in Syria is unacceptable,” the king said in a statement broadcasted on late-night state television.  The Arab League yesterday also urged Syrian authorities to “immediately” stop the violence, in the pan-Arab body’s first official statement on the unrest. Secretary-general Nabil Al Arabi “calls on the Syrian authorities to bring an end immediately to acts of violence and campaigns by the security forces against civilians,” the statement said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday renewed his call to President Bashar Assad to stop the violence against civilians. Ban, speaking to reporters in Japan, said that he had delivered a strong message to Assad in a phone conversation Saturday ahead of his report on Syria to the Security Council due on 10 August. The military assault on Deir al-Zour, about 400 kilometers north-east of Damascus, was launched a day after Ban’s conversation with the Syrian president. More than 1,650 people and 390 security personnel have been killed in the protests since they began in mid-March, Syrian human rights groups say.