Crackdown on Anti-Government Protests in Syria Intensify, Syrian Army Surrounds Mediterranean Port City

While the unrest and antigovernment demonstrations in North Africa, Bahrain and Yemen have been getting a good deal of attention in the media, it appears as though that the situation Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian Syria is escalating.

After clashes in the Northwestern port city of Banias killed four and wounded at least 17 on Sunday, units from the Syrian Army cut off electricity and ringed the city with troops and armor.

Map of protests and clashes in Syria over the last month- Wikimedia

Human rights groups have also alleged that Syrian troops fired live ammunition into a crowd of protesters at a funeral procession for 17 people killed during clashes in the southwestern city of Daraa over the weekend, reportedly killing another 28 opposition demonstrators. New York-based Human Rights Watch has also claimed that Syrian military and security officers were preventing medics from treating the wounded after clashes in Daraa and suburban Damascus over the weekend.

Syria has been officially under a state of emergency since 1963- even longer than Mubarak had been in power in Egypt. The state of emergency gives the Damascus government sweeping powers, including the ability to detain people for indefinite periods of time. The ruling Ba'ath party has held power in Syria since 1963 and the country has been governed by a member of the al-Assad family since 1971, with Bashar's father Hafez al-Assad ruling until his death in 2000.

Hafez al-Assad was also responsible for the 1982 Hama massacre, where the Syrian military bombarded and razed Hama's old city in retaliation for Muslim Brotherhood attacks on Syrian security forces and government workers. The lower estimates for the death toll in Hama at the time were in the neighborhood of 10,000- mostly civilians, although it was likely even higher thanks to the secretive nature of the al-Assad regime.