Thousands of Sunni Muslims fled a Syrian coastal town today, a day after reports circulated that dozens of people, including children, had been killed by pro-government gunmen in the area, activists said.

Six days of fighting in a Damascus suburb has killed more than a hundred people and possibly many more, activists said today, in what the government also acknowledged may be a dramatic spike in the rising death toll in Syria.

An Islamist faction of Syrian rebels captured an infantry base in the northern city of Aleppo, its fighters said, as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad advance on the country’s largest city.

Two large explosions shook Syria’s southern city of Daraa today, causing multiple casualties and heavy material damage, the country’s state-run news agency and activists said.

A senior security official is among at least eight people killed in a huge car bomb attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

A Syrian government official warned the United States today that military intervention in Syria could lead to regional turmoil as regime forces bombed a northern village and stormed a rebel-held Damascus suburb, killing dozens of people.

At least seven people were killed and 22 others injured in gun battles between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in northern Lebanon today, security officials said, as activists reported fresh shelling in a region in central Syria where a massacre last week left more than 100 people dead.

WESTERN powers would cause an “earthquake” in the Middle East if they intervened in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview published on Sunday, after protesters demanded outside protection from a crackdown that has killed 3,000 people.

SYRIAN gunboats firing heavy machine guns pounded impoverished districts of Latakia yesterday, killing at least 19 people in a renewed assault on the Mediterranean coastal city.

PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad extended a tank onslaught in Syria’s Sunni Muslim tribal heartland, residents said, in an escalating crackdown on protesters that prompted an extraordinary rebuke from the Saudi king warning the Syrian leader to adopt reforms or risk defeat.

SYRIAN security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious assault on defiant cities and towns yesterday, killing up to 140 people as the regime raced to crush dissent ahead of Ramadan.

About 30 people died in sectarian violence in Syria over the weekend after the mutilated bodies of three regime supporters were found in the central Syrian city of Homs, activists said.

Syrian tanks pushed toward more towns and villages near the Turkish and Iraqi borders today, expanding the government crackdown against rebels.