Syrian activists say at least 31 killed on Sunday

At least 31 people were killed across Syria on Sunday in a series of shootings, including fighting between gunmen believed to be Army deserters and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian activist group said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about half the deaths were in the city of Homs, where it said seven civilians were shot dead and another eight people were later killed in clashes between Syrian troops and suspected deserters.

On Sunday, Syria threatened to retaliate against any country that formally recognises a recently established opposition National Council which is seeking international support for the six-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The formation of the council has been welcomed by Assad's Western critics, including the United States and France, however they have not embraced it diplomatically as they did the Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

"We will take tough measures against any state which recognises this illegitimate council," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told a news conference in Damascus.

Speaking alongside a group of Latin American ministers who visited Syria to show support for Assad, Moualem also dismissed Turkish criticism of Assad's crackdown and said no one should think the West would launch military action against Syria.

"The West will not attack Syria because no one will pay the bill," he said. "The West chose economic sanctions to starve our people, under the pretext of protecting human rights."

The United Nations says 2,900 people have been killed in Assad's crackdown on mainly peaceful protests. The Syrian leadership blames armed groups backed by foreign powers for the violence, saying 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed since the unrest broke out in March.

Syrian regime detains 3,000 in 3 days: Activists

Syrian troops going house to house have detained more than 3,000 people in the past three days in the rebellious town of Rastan, which saw some of the worst fighting of the 6-month-old uprising recently, activists said Monday.

Over the past week, the military fought hundreds of army defectors who sided with anti-regime protesters in Rastan. The fighting demonstrated the increasingly militarized nature of the uprising and heightened fears that Syria may be sliding toward civil war.

The activist group Local Coordination Committees said fighting in the town has now stopped after the military operation that left dozens dead. The group and a Rastan-based activist confirmed about 3,000 in the town of 70,000 had been detained. The activist told The Associated Press by telephone that the detainees are being held at a cement factory, as well as some schools and the Sports Club, a massive, four-story compound.

"Ten of my relatives have been detained," said the activist, who asked that he be identified only by his first name Hassan for fear of retaliation. He said he was speaking from hiding in Rastan.

Syria's opposition movement has until now focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently there have been reports of protesters taking up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops, particularly in Rastan, the town just north of Homs that government forces retook on Saturday.

The fears of civil war, possibly along sectarian lines, were also heightened by the assassination Sunday of the 21-year-old son of Syria's top Sunni Muslim cleric — the latest in a string of targeted killings.

The state-appointed cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a loyal supporter of President Bashar Assad's regime, heading a host of regime-backed Sunni clergymen who have been a base of support for the president's ruling Alawite sect.

Hassoun, who has echoed regime claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy, accused the opposition of creating the climate for his son's killing and blamed rival, anti-Assad Sunni clerics for allegedly issuing fatwas, or religious edicts, inciting against him.

"My brothers who were misguided and carried arms, you should have assassinated me because some clerics issued such fatwas. Why did you kill a young man who did nothing and harmed no one?" Hassoun, holding back tears, said in a sermon at his son's funeral in the northeastern city of Aleppo, aired on Syrian TV stations.

The killing was the latest in a series of targeted executions of prominent people including a nuclear engineer, university professors and physicians. The men, a mixture of Alawites, Christians and Shiites, were all killed in a hail of bullets in the past week, most of them in central Homs province — one of the hotbeds of anti-government protests.

The regime has accused "terrorist gunmen" of the killings, while the opposition in turn accused the regime of trying to foment sectarian strife to maintain its grip on power.

Syria's volatile sectarian divide means that an armed conflict could rapidly escalate in scale and brutality. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim. Alawite dominance has bred resentments, which Assad has worked to tamp down by pushing a strictly secular identity for the state.

He has exploited fears of a civil war fears by portraying himself as the only power who can keep the peace.

Syria defiant as diplomatic pressure grows

Bashar Jaafari, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations, says the country's sovereignty "is a red line that must not be crossed".

He said after sessions at the United Nations Security Council in New York, "We know our commitments, our obligations but at the same time we know what are our rights. And our rights do not stem from any political pressure. They stem from our own political will."

Jaafari, back in New York from meetings with Assad government officials in Damascus, sparked diplomatic fury by comparing the deadly unrest to the riots in Britain, adding that anti-government groups had killed 500 Syrian security forces.

He criticised Western nations for accepting the British government's denunciation of rioters as members of gangs, while denouncing Syria for its crackdown on anti-government elements.

"They don't allow us to use the same term for the armed groups and the terrorist groups in my country. This is hypocrisy, this is arrogance."

At least 1,700 civilians have been killed since the uprising against Assad's rule erupted in March, rights groups say.

Britain's UN representative dismissed as "ludicrous" Jaafari's comparison between the handling of the worst British riots in a generation and the killing of protesters on the streets of Syrian cities.

"In the United Kingdom, you have a situation where the government is taking measured, proportionate, legal, transparent steps to ensure the rule of law for its citizens," he said.

"In Syria, you have a situation where thousands of unarmed civilians are being attacked and many of them killed. That comparison made by the Syrian ambassador is ludicrous."

"The kingdom of Morocco, which has traditionally refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, expresses today its strong worries and deep concern over the sad events rocking Syria," the foreign ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said at least one woman was killed and 13 people injured on Wednesday when 12 tanks and armoured vehicles, entered the towns of Taftanaz and Sermin, around 30km from the border with Turkey.

 witnesses told Al Jazeera that Syrian army forces moved back into the town after Onhon's visit.

Syrian troops also seized control of the eastern flashpoint city of Deir ez-Zor on Wednesday following intense shelling and gunfire, an activist said. The city has been under attack by Assad's forces for four days.

In the town of Albukamal, located in the province of Deir ez-Zor, the security forces and members of the Shabiha armed group carried out a campaign of mass arrests early Wednesday morning, detaining at least 35 people, Avaaz, an international human rights organisation, said.

Syrian troops also launched another operation in three suburbs of the capital Damascus, the London-based sohr said