Syrian troops have encircled the flashpoint coastal town of Banias, where weekend shootings left 13 dead and scores wounded, a human rights activist says.
"Seventeen tanks were deployed (to Banias)," the activist said, adding that the army had encircled the northwestern city and electricity had been cut off.
"The army is shooting sporadically to provoke people but not a single demonstrator has fired. There are calls from the minarets of the mosques asking the army to stop its fire," the activist said.
He added that three soldiers had tried to defect and join the demonstrators, after refusing to fire at them, but superior officers opened fire, wounding the soldiers.
Meanwhile, Syrian human rights organisations on Monday demanded an investigation into the bloody clashes in the city the previous day when at least four civilians and nine military were killed.
They called for the creation of a "neutral, transparent and independent investigative committee", in order to "sanction the perpetrators of the violence."
"We firmly denounce all forms of violence, regardless of its origin," said the rights watchdogs in a joint statement.
"Protecting the lives of citizens is the state's responsibility."
It also called for "an immediate end to this bloody violence".
Syrian government forces killed at least four people and wounded 17 when they strafed a residential area of the coastal town of Banias with gunfire for hours on Sunday, witnesses said.
Nine soldiers, including two officers, were later killed and several wounded when their patrol was ambushed near the northwestern coastal town, the official SANA news agency reported.
The organisations called for the immediate arrest of the perpetrators.
The civilian toll was at least four dead and 17 wounded from shooting by security forces in the neighbourhood of Ras al-Nabee,
where the Al-Rahman mosque has been a focal point of anti-regime demonstrations.
"The army and security forces and gunmen besieged the town from all sides and fired without interruption for several hours," a university professor contacted by phone said.
"(President) Bashar al-Assad is sending us a message: punish those who dare demand freedom with death," he said.
The statement signatories include the Syrian Organisation for Human Rights, the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, as well as three Kurdish human rights organisations.
