Syria blames 'saboteurs'

Syria's embattled president said Monday that a parliamentary election would be held in August and a package of reforms would be completed by September.

In only his third public address since the country's uprising began in March, President Bashar Assad pledged there would be a "new law which will give citizens the ability to elect their representatives directly," according to a translation by BBC World.

But he also took a hard line, saying that "saboteurs" and "blasphemous intellectuals" were trying to exploit legitimate demands for reform in the country.

He said the saboteurs were "a small faction" but they were causing a lot of damage and had infiltrated peaceful protests.

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"We have to distinguish between them [protesters, and others who have legitimate demands] and saboteurs. The saboteurs are a small group that tried to exploit the kind majority of the Syrian people to carry out their many schemes," he said.

Video: Violence grows as Syrian troops take border town (on this page)

The opposition estimates more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained as Assad's forces try to crush the protest movement that began in mid-March, inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

Nearly 11,000 people have fled into neighboring Turkey in an embarrassing spectacle for one of the most tightly controlled countries in the Middle East.

Protesters insist they will accept nothing less than the downfall of a regime that has held power for more than 40 years.

'Havoc in the name of freedom'
Assad also said 64,000 people were wanted by the authorities and some had handed themselves in.

He said gunmen had carried out massacres in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour — where authorities say armed groups killed 120 security personnel two weeks ago — with sophisticated weapons and communications.

According to a translation by The Guardian newspaper, Assad attacked "radical and blasphemous intellectuals" who were "wreaking havoc in the name of freedom."

He also claimed some people were being paid to demonstrate and others were being paid to film them.

Some people "have smeared the image of the country abroad and called for international intervention," he said, according to The Guardian, and had expressed "ugly thoughts far from our religion."

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He spoke of people who had "perpetrated these heinous massacres we have seen on television."

However, Assad also said that the regime should distinguish between those people and others with legitimate demands for reform, according to the paper's translation.

"We should listen and lend a helping hand to them," he said of the latter group.

Issander el Amrani, writing in the Arabist blog, said that in previous speeches Assad, 45, who inherited power in 2000 after his father's death, had appeared "cocky and confident, arrogant even."

"In this one he seemed uncomfortable and nervous, gone was the joking and swagger of a month ago. He even appeared to have lost some weight," he said.

"Assad offered a bunch of technocratic reforms: a new electoral law, a commitment to root out corruption, media reform, reform of municipal government, and the launch of a national dialogue for reform that will include 100 personalities," he added. "It was a technocrat's speech, not a leader or politician's speech, and he appeared rambling and perhaps even weak. Its contents were vague, and simply did not address the very serious crisis between the Syrian people and their state."

Amrani said the speech made it less clear where the country was headed, "with Assad making a half-hearted conciliatory gesture that simply does not convince."

Houses burned
Meanwhile, Assad's forces were said to be continuing to sweep through the northwestern border region with Turkey in an attempt to block refugees leaving Syria.

"The Syrian army has spread around the border area to prevent frightened residents from fleeing across the border to Turkey," Syrian human rights campaigner Ammar al-Qurabi told Reuters.

Al-Qurabi also accused pro-government forces of attacking people trying to aid the refugees as they fled.

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Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to Assad seized the town of Bdama , only 1.2 miles from Turkey Saturday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said.

"There are roadblocks everywhere in Bdama to prevent people from fleeing but villagers are finding other routes through valleys to escape to the Turkish border," said Omar, a farmer from Bdama who managed to reach the border area.

"We received no bread today. There was one bakery operating in Bdama but it has been forced to shut. The 'shabbiha' (Assad's gunmen) are shooting randomly," one refugee, a carpenter who gave his name as Hammoud, told Reuters by telephone.

"One man in Bdama was injured today and we managed to smuggle him to hospital in Turkey. But many fear getting shot if they attempt to cross the border," the refugee added.

On Monday, the government tried to back up its claim that the unrest is being driven by criminals, not true reform-seekers, by taking journalists and foreign diplomats on a trip to Jisr al-Shughour.

Pursuit
The trip to Jisr al-Shughour in the restive Idlib province near the border with Turkey was organized jointly by the Syrian foreign ministry and the military. It included 70 Western and Arab diplomats, including U.S. ambassador Robert Ford.

Maj. Gen. Riad Haddad, head of the Syrian military's political department, told journalists on the trip that the military will continue to pursue gunmen "in every village where they are found, even near the Turkish border."

Video: Despair deepens as Syrian crackdown continues (on this page)

In addition to the refugees in Turkey, some 5,000 people who fled their homes are camped out on the Syrian side of the border and face dwindling resources.

International pressure on the regime has been mounting steadily. Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday said Syria's leader must reform or go. Hague also said he hoped Turkey would play an influential role.

"I hope our Turkish colleagues will bring every possible pressure to bear on the Assad regime with a very clear message that they are losing legitimacy and that Assad should reform or step aside," Hague said as he arrived in Luxembourg for a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.

They were expected to discuss expanding sanctions on Syria.

However, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev practically ruled out supporting a U.N. resolution condemning Syria's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

In an interview published in the Financial Times Monday, Medvedev criticized the way Western countries had interpreted U.N. resolution 1973 on Libya which he said turned it into "a scrap of paper to cover up a pointless military operation."

"I would not like a Syrian resolution to be pulled off in a similar manner," he added.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.