PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Syria's government has showed off TV and still images of burned buildings and empty rubble-strewn streets in Hama, the epicentre of anti-regime protests, claiming it was putting an end to the rebellion in the besieged city.
Under the suffocating clampdown, residents of the city warned that medical supplies were running out and food was rotting after six days without electricity.
Across the country, tens of thousands of protesters marched, chanting their solidarity with Hama and demanding the ouster of President Bashar Assad. They were met by security forces who opened fire, killing at least 13 people, activists said.
On on Friday the US State Department urged Americans to leave the country immediately.
Government forces began their ferocious assault on Hama on Sunday, cutting off electricity, phone services and internet and blocking supplies into the city of 800,000 as they shelled neighbourhoods and sent in tanks and ground raids.
It appeared to be an all-out attempt to take back the city - which has a history of dissent - after residents all but took it over since June, barricading it against the regime. Rights group say at least 100 people have been killed, while some estimates put the number as high as 250. The tolls could not be verified because of the difficulty reaching residents and hospital officials in the city, where journalists are barred as they are throughout Syria.
Tanks shelled residential districts of Hama starting around 4am on Friday, just as people were beginning their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - mirroring a bombardment the evening before at sunset, when people were breaking the fast.
Syrian state media on Saturday proclaimed army units were "working to restore security, stability and normal life to Hama", which it said had been taken over by "terrorists". The message mirrored the regime's claim that armed extremists seeking to destabilize the country are behind the unrest, as opposed to true reform-seekers.
There were no reports of protests in the city during the day on Friday - a contrast to previous weeks when hundreds of thousands participated in the biggest marches in the country.
A citizen journalist from Hama working with an online global activist group Avaaz, said people were now too afraid to go to the mosques, which were being targeted by the military. The man, who identified himself as Sami, described the humanitarian situation as "catastrophic". Everything was closed, including bakeries and pharmacies, he said.