Syrian army out in force in violence-hit port city

LATAKIA, Syria:

SYRIA'S ARMY was out in force Sunday in a port city scarred by unrest aimed at symbols of the government, which is struggling to put down an unprecedented nationwide outbreak of protest and dissent.

President Bashar Assad's regime has responded by both fatally shooting protesters, and promising reform, and a lawmaker told The Associated Press on Sunday that he expected Assad to soon announce that he was lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency. The timing remained unclear.

demonstrations

Syria has been rocked by more than a week of anti-government demonstrations that began in a drought-parched southern agricultural city and exploded nationwide on Friday, a once-unimaginable development for one of the Mideast's most repressive governments. Security forces have opened fire on demonstrators in at least six places, leading to dozens of deaths.

Member of Parliament Mohammed Habash told the AP that lawmakers expected to receive a memo from Assad laying out a plan to end the state of emergency, possibly during a parliament session Sunday evening. He did not provide details.

The state of emergency has been in force since Assad's Ba'ath party took power on March 8, 1963. It lets the government to detain suspects without trial and exercise strict control over the media.

It also allows civilians to be tried in military courts.

formal cancelation

Assad's decisions are effectively law, but the state of emergency would have to be formally cancelled by a presidential decree requiring approval of the cabinet. The decree would then be referred to a parliamentary committee for approval before actually going into effect.

The next scheduled cabinet meeting is Tuesday.

Some of the worst violence appears to have taken place in Latakia, a Mediterranean coastal city that is a mix of Sunnis in its urban core, members of Assad's Alawite branch of Shi'ite Islam living in villages on the outskirts, and small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.