Syrian tanks push towards Turkey And Iraq

President Bashar al Assad appears to have abandoned all pretence of offering reform, sending tanks, helicopter gunships and only his most loyal forces into population centres to crush dissent.

The latest action sees an expansion of force against the 12-week uprising in the north and east of Syria .

Anti-government activists reported tanks in the northern market town of Maaret al Numan and in smaller villages near Jisr al Shughour, a town stormed on Sunday by Syrian elite forces backed by helicopters.

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso said tanks were also moving in the large eastern province of Deir el-Zour, which borders Iraq.

The Syrian government claimed to have thwarted cross-border weapons smuggling in that area.

The growing military campaign has sent some 8,000 Syrians fleeing to neighbouring Turkey, where they offer a grim picture of what they left behind.

Troops "damage homes and buildings, kill even animals, set trees and farmlands on fire," said Mohammad Hesnawi, 26, who fled Jisr al Shughour.

He accused pro-government militias known as "shabiha" of atrocities there.

Turkish authorities were giving priority to women and children fleeing the border village of al Hasaniya, where people "are eating fruit out of the trees, including apples and cherries," since there's not enough food for all, Hesnawi said.

Only sketchy reports are emerging from the embattled northern area, since foreign journalists have been expelled from Syria.

Some analysts have said Assad is trying to keep the opposition from establishing a base, as happened in Libya, where the rebels trying to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi took over the coastal city of Benghazi.

Assad initially had promised mild reforms, but his gestures have been rejected by the thousands who have staged protests across Syria, who say they won't stop until he leaves power, ending his family's 40-year ruling dynasty.

It's a scenario that also played out in Tunisia and Egypt, where popular demands increased almost daily until people accepted nothing less than the regime's end.

In the past week, as the government appeared to be on the verge of losing control of major swathes of the country, it abandoned most pretences at reform.

The brutal crackdown on the uprising, the most serious threat to the Assad family's power, has altered a view held by many in Syria and abroad of Assad as a reformer at heart.

Instead, it is now seen as constrained by members of his late father's old guard who were fighting change, especially privileged members of the Assads' minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam - and backed by Iran.

Activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have died and some 10,000 have been detained in the government crackdown since the popular uprising began in mid-March.