Syria denied the existence of any mass grave near Daraa, saying such reports were part of “campaign of incitement” against authorities tackling a two-month wave of protests against President Bashar Assad.
But state television quoted an Interior Ministry source saying that five bodies had been found near Daraa, the city where unrest first erupted in March and which troops and tanks stormed last month. It said officials were investigating.
Four residents told Reuters that villagers had contacted the local civil defense after finding two mounds of earth in wheatfields just outside Daraa’s old city district. Under the mounds were 22 to 26 decomposed corpses, they said.
Their reports could not be verified because authorities have barred most international media from operating in Syria.
Since Assad sent tanks into Daraa three weeks ago to crush dissent, the army has moved into several other protest centers in the south of the country, around the capital Damascus and on the Mediterranean coast.
Syrian rights groups say at least 700 civilians have been killed by security forces and the United States has condemned the crackdown as “barbaric.”
Washington and the European Union have imposed sanctions on senior Syrian officials, though they have yet to target Assad.
State news agency SANA said security forces clashed with “wanted armed terrorist members” in Tel Kelakh on Monday, killing several and capturing others, and seizing weapons, ammunition and military uniform. Fifteen members of the security forces were wounded, it quoted sources as saying.
Human rights campaigners said scores of people had been arrested since Monday and that Assad’s forces were firing at several neighborhoods in the city of 30,000 people.
Citing witnesses, the Local Coordination Committees, a main activists’ protest group, said several people were killed in Tuesday’s offensive, adding to 12 civilians already killed by army shelling, shooting and sniper fire in the last three days.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were also mass arrests in the cities of Homs, Deir Al-Zor and Latakia, which security forces had “robbed of normality.”
Assad, who trained as an ophthalmologist, has tried a mixture of reform and repression to stem the protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.
Authorities said he intends to launch national dialogue talks, a gesture rejected by opposition leaders and the main activists’ protest group who say first security forces must stop shooting protesters and political prisoners must be freed.
SANA news agency said Assad met a delegation from Daraa on Monday and discussed implementing reforms.
The Facebook page Syria Revolution 2011 called for a general strike across Syria on Wednesday.
“Let us turn this Wednesday into a Friday,” it said, referring to the day when most demonstrations take place after weekly Muslim prayers.
It called for “mass protests ...no schools (open), no universities, no shops or restaurants, not even taxis.”
