SYRIAN ARMY TANKS shelled the old quarter of a city at the heart of the country’s six-week-old uprising on Sunday and rolled in more reinforcements to the area, which has been under siege for nearly a week, according to an eyewitness.

Residents have remained defiant: Unable to leave their homes, they have chanted “God is Great!” to each other from their windows in the evenings, infuriating security forces and raising each other’s spirits.

Daraa has been without water, fuel or electricity since Monday, when the regime sent in troops backed by tanks and snipers to crush protests seeking an end to President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian rule.

Tanks and armored personal vehicles have cut off neighborhoods, and snipers nesting on rooftops throughout the city have kept residents pinned in their homes.

Other areas of the country also have come under military control, but Daraa has faced the most serious stranglehold.

The death toll has soared to 545 nationwide from government forces firing on demonstrators — action that has drawn international condemnation and U.S. financial penalties on top figures in his regime.

Tanks fired shells into the heart of Daraa’s ancient Roman quarter on Sunday, said a resident who lives on the outskirts of the city.

Men were forbidden to leave their homes but women were allowed out in the early morning to search for bread, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear that Syrian forces would identify him.

The witness’ accounts could not be independently verified as Syria has has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots.

In addition to the military siege, security forces continued their arrest campaign of activists and suspected demonstrators, said Damascus-based activist Razan Zaitouneh, who is in hiding with her husband.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also independently reported widescale arrests. He said they had also revised their death toll upward to 545 after violent events on Saturday.

On Saturday, Syrian troops killed four people while storming a mosque that became a focal point for protesters in Daraa, and security forces in Damascus kept dozens of women from marching on parliament to urge Assad to end his crackdown on the uprising.

Another six people were killed in separate incidents on Saturday, said Abdul-Rahman.

The military raid on the Omari mosque in Daraa came a day after 65 people were killed — most of them in Daraa, a southern city near the border with Jordan.

Friday was the second deadliest day since the uprising began in mid-March in Daraa, kicked off by the arrest of a group of teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall.

The protest movement quickly spread nationwide and is now posing the gravest threat to the 40-year ruling dynasty of the Assad family.

The unrest in Syria — one of the most repressive and tightly controlled countries in the Middle East — has repercussions far beyond its borders because of the country’s alliances with militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and with Shiite powerhouse Iran.

- AP