Four Killed as Syria Cuts Off City

The army had sealed off the city as hundreds of protesters gathered, undaunted by the government’s use of force to quell more than three weeks of unrest, witnesses said. State television reported that nine soldiers were killed in an ambush near the city.

Details were sketchy because telephone lines, electricity and Internet access were apparently cut to most parts of Banias. Army tanks and soldiers circled the city, preventing people from entering.

But one witness, reached by telephone, said hundreds of protesters had assembled near al-Rahman Mosque when security forces and armed men in civilian clothes opened fire. The names of the dead were read out on the mosque’s loudspeakers.

Dozens of people were wounded, the witness said, but most of them asked to be treated at a small clinic instead of the city’s main hospital, which was under the control of the security forces.

Like most people who were interviewed, the witness requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from the government. Several human rights activists, also citing witnesses, reported the shootings on Sunday in Banias, which is 185 miles northwest of Damascus, the capital.

“There are demonstrations throughout the city, and people are chanting against the regime,” said Haitham al-Maleh, 80, a lawyer and human rights activist who spent years as a political prisoner in Syria.

The accounts could not be independently confirmed. The government has placed severe restrictions on news coverage and many journalists, including from The Associated Press, have been ordered to leave the country.

Protests erupted in Syria more than three weeks ago and have been growing steadily, with tens of thousands of people calling for sweeping reforms in President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian government.

More than 170 people have been killed, according to human rights groups.

The government blames armed gangs for the violence and has vowed to crush any additional unrest. On Sunday, state television reported thugs were behind the killing of nine soldiers in an ambush near Banias.

The television report said gunmen hiding among trees along a road shot at the soldiers, and it broadcast images of an ambulance and other civilian vehicles coming under fire along the road.

Mr. Assad said Sunday that the country was “moving ahead on the road of comprehensive reforms,” the state-run news agency, Sana, reported. In recent weeks, Mr. Assad has answered the protesters with both force and limited concessions that have failed to appease them.