The Syrian army consolidated its grip on the hotbed city of Homs yesterday, activists said, as embattled President Bashar al-Assad sacked the governor of a flashpoint province 48 hours after massive anti-regime protests.

Security forces also rounded up hundreds of civilians in Damascus and made a spate of arrests in the town of Sarakeb in the northwestern province of Idlib near the Turkish border, activists said.

In Homs, troops backed by tanks “deployed heavily in Duar al-Fakhura and around the neighbourhood of Al-Nazihin,” said Abdel Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights.

He said the operation was apparently aimed at “preparing to carry out a military and security operation in the region.”

More than 50 people have been killed in the past week in Homs, 160 kilometres north of Damascus, either by army gunfire or in clashes between rival demonstrators, rights activists have said.

They have accused the regime of sowing sectarian strife among the city’s Christians, Sunni Muslims and Assad’s Alawite minority community.

Residents of Homs observed a strike on Saturday while the army encircled the city, cutting off its water and electricity.

Syria’s third-largest city, Homs has spearheaded demonstrations against Assad and his regime since protests erupted on March 15.

The army had already entered the city in May in a bid to stop rallies calling for the fall of the regime, and launched a new operation backed by security forces earlier this week.

The crackdown on dissent prompted condemnations on Friday from France and Britain as UN officials spoke of the possibility of crimes against humanity being committed in Syria since mid-March.

In Damascus, security forces arrested hundreds of people in an operation targeting the neighbourhoods of Qabun and Rukneddin, which has a mostly Kurdish population, Mr Rihawi said in Nicosia by phone.

“Army units set up roadblocks on routes into Qabun, controlling all entry and exit,” he said, adding that they had lists of wanted people.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said: “Soldiers armed with automatic rifles are deployed at the main routes into Qabun and in front of mosques.

“The security forces also searched homes looking for weapons, and made some arrests,” he said, adding that they ransacked homes but emerged empty-handed.