Assad vows to crush 'militants'

Syria’s President Bashar Assad has vowed to continue with a security crackdown to crush ’militants’ who he says are massacring Syrians on a daily basis.

Assad said Syria will not bow and will continue to resist the pressures being imposed on it.

The embattled president told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper published today that he feels “pain and sorrow” for the bloodshed in Syria but added the solution was to eliminate the militants he blames for much of the violence.

He said 800 Syrian officers and members of the security forces have been killed since the start of the revolt eight months ago.

The UN says some 3,500 have been killed in the unrest and the crackdown in Syria since mid-March.

Earlier residents in the Syrian capital woke up to two loud explosions amid activist reports that a major building belonging to the ruling Baath party in the capital Damascus had been by hit several rocket-propelled grenades.

There was no immediate confirmation of the report, which would mark the first significant attack on a government building in relatively quiet central Damascus.

The Local Co-ordination Committees activist network and several residents reported several explosions in the district of Mazraa in the heart of the Syrian capital.

The LCC said in a statement that the building had been hit at daybreak by several rocket propelled grenades and that two fire brigades headed toward the area amid heavy security presence.

But eyewitnesses said the building looked intact and reported no significant security deployment around it.

Residents in the Syrian capital said they heard two loud explosions but could not confirm whether the building had been hit.

Syria’s uprising against Assad has grown more violent and militarised in recent weeks, as frustrated protesters see the limits of peaceful action.

Army dissidents who sided with the protests have also grown more bold, fighting back against regime forces and even assaulting military bases.

The so called Free Syrian Army group of dissident soldiers this week staged their boldest operation yet, attacking a military intelligence building in a Damascus suburb.