DAMASCUS, Syria | Syrian security forces fired tear gas on thousands of protesters Monday in a restive southern city as President Bashar Assad faced down the most serious threat to his family’s four decades of authoritarian rule.
Mr. Assad was expected to address the nation as early as Tuesday to try to ease the crisis by lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.
Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, with security forces opening fire on demonstrators in at least six locations.
The death toll reached at least 61 since March 18, according to Human Rights Watch.
The unrest in Syria, a country of 23.5 million, is a new and highly unpredictable element in the wave of unrest that has swept through the Arab world. Syria has built a close relationship with Iran, allowing the Shiite powerhouse to extend its influence into neighboring Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, where it provides money and weapons to militants.
Instability here also throws into disarray the U.S. push for engagement in Syria, part of Washington’s plan to peel Damascus away from its allegiance to Hamas and Hezbollah.
On Monday, an eyewitness in Daraa said up to 4,000 people were protesting there, calling for more political freedoms. He said security forces fired tear gas at the crowd and live ammunition in the air to disperse them.
The witness spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Syrian TV denied troops had fired on the demonstrators.
The eyewitness and another Daraa resident said security forces who had scaled back their presence in the past few days were back in full force, with tanks and army vehicles were surrounding the city.
Monday’s protest was near the judicial palace just over a mile away from the old city center, where up to 1,200 people are still holding a sit-in the al-Omari mosque - the epicenter of the protests in Daraa.
Elsewhere in Syria, armed groups appeared to be facing off and threatening an escalation in violence in the country’s main port city of Latakia.
Residents were taking up weapons and manning their own checkpoints to guard against what they say are unknown gunmen roaming the streets carrying sticks and hunting rifles, witnesses said Monday.
It was not clear whether the gunmen were working for the government.
The scenes in Latakia, a Mediterranean port once known as a summer tourist draw, were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been one of the Mideast’s most tightly controlled countries.
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