Protesters call for international buffer zones in Syria

International pressure continues to mount on Syria A series of large protests were reported to be taking place across Syria on Friday, as demonstrators called for the intenational community to establish buffer zones to protect civilians. Protests were reported in Homs, Idlib, Daeel, Deraa, Horan and Andan, near Aleppo.
 Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), has called on the international community to help protect civilians. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal he said if the SNC came to power it would sever Syria\'s ties with Iran and Hezbollah and he confirmed the renegade Free Syrian Army had agreed to focus on protecting civilians instead of attacking the regular army.
Navi Pillay, the UN\'s high commissioner for human rights, called for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its brutal crackdown. Speaking at an emergency UN meeting in Geneva she said Syria was heading for civil war. The UN estimate that 307 children were among the more than 4,000 people killed since the uprising began.
Activists have pegged the Friday death toll at between four and seven. The Syrian Revolution General Commission said seven people have been killed so far today, according to al-Arabiya.
Another group, the Local Co-ordination Committees put the death toll at four - three in Homs and one in Busra in Deraa.
Russia is reported to have delivered anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria despite international pressure on embattled President Bashar Al-Assad\'s regime as part of a previous defence deal. The missiles are part of the Russian-made Bastion coastal defence system, the Interfax news agency reported. The deal for two Bastions \"equipped with 36 cruise missiles each\" was signed in 2007, and is worth a reported $300m.
Israeli press sources have also claimed that the US and Russia are negotiating to develop an acceptable agreement to end the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad in the way of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
According to the \'Yediot Ahronot\' Hebrew newspaper, political analyst Alex Fishman on Thursday wrote the US-Russian plan aimed at re-stabilising Syria and and stopping Assad\'s massacre. The deal is supposed to resonate with the Gulf-brokered power transfer deal to Saleh, in which he transferred power to one of his associates and keep his family members in control of the country\'s security forces, granting him political asylum in Washington in return.
The newspaper wrote: \"A team of Russian foreign ministers is negotiating for weeks with their US counterparts in Washington DC to develop a formula similar to that that ended the rule of Saleh in Yemen.\"
The US-Russian plan aims at Assad accepting to leave the country and transfer power to some party in Damascus that wouldl be acceptable to the US and grant him political asylum in Moscow in return.
The UN\'s human rights chief said that Syria is now in a state of civil war with more than 4,000 dead and increasing numbers of defecting soldiers taking up arms against the government of President Assad,  as the US placed economic sanctions on a senior Syrian general and a financier uncle of Assad.
“We are placing the figure at 4,000, but really the reliable information coming to us is that it is much more than that,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told a news conference.
“I have said that as soon as there were more and more defectors threatening to take up arms, I said this in August before the Security Council, there was going to be a civil war. At the moment that\'s how I am characterising this,” she said, according to Reuters.
Syrian activists told Al Arabiya that as many as 27 people have been killed on Thursday by the gunfire of security forces, mostly in Hama.
Washington, meanwhile, placed economic sanctions on Mohammed Makhluf, a senior Syrian general and a financier uncle of Assad, adding new pressure on the regime over its bloody political crackdown.
The Treasury Department added Makhluf, Assad’s maternal uncle and the father of already-sanctioned telecoms magnate Rami Makhluf, and 4th armored division General Aus Aslan, to its growing list of Syrian figures and organisations that Americans are banned from doing business with.
Also listed in the new sanctions were a defence ministry business -- the Military Housing Establishment, and the government-controlled Real Estate Bank, the country’s second largest bank.
The Military Housing Establishment “provides funding to the regime,” the Treasury said, while the bank is “responsible for administering the Government of Syria’s borrowings.”
The move came as both the European Union and Arab League nations also stepped up sanctions pressure on the Assad regime for its brutal eight-month crackdown on political protestors.
“It has never been more critical to escalate pressure on the Syrian government to immediately cease all violence against its own people and isolate the regime from the international financial system,” said Treasury undersecretary David Cohen in a statement.
The Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell stated it was pulling out of Syria following the latest round of EU sanctions, according to the Financial Times. An official told the paper its main priority was the safety of its employees.Syria, in retaliation for European sanctions, suspended its participation in the Mediterranean Union, state media said Thursday.
In the meantime, leading figures of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, headed by Ammar Al-Hakim, have accused Saudi Arabia of supporting Salafi rebels to usurp governmental power in Syria. They also warned against a future war between Iraq and what Hakim described as \"newcomers in the neighbouring country\".
A leader in the Islamic Supreme Council told ‘Arabstoday’ that the Council has evidence proving Saudi Arabia’s support for extremists, of which some are Salafis, to topple the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria and power a Salafi current in Syria capable of putting an end to the tide of growing Shiite influence in Iraq and Lebanon.
The leader, who requested anonymity, added that this support could lead to a future war between Syria and Iraq, if Salafis are in charge, causing the whole region to enter \"a state of chaos that would be difficult to control.\"
Syria in retaliation for the sanctions decided to resign from the Mediterranean Union, created by France.
“Syria is suspending its membership in the Mediterranean Union in response to European measures taken against it,” said a statement carried on the official SANA news agency.
The Mediterranean Union, an initiative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was inaugurated in 2008 to bolster cooperation between Europe, the Middle East and north Africa.
President Assad’s repression of pro-democracy protests in recent months has earned Damascus a barrage of international condemnation and intensifying economic sanctions that are slowly crippling the country\'s economy.