Syrian troops swept into new villages in the northwest yesterday as the second city Aleppo saw anti-regime protests and as pro-democracy dissidents joined ranks at home and abroad, activists said.

Around 60 tanks and armoured personnel carriers entered two villages in the countryside of Idlib province, said Rami Abdel ­Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The operation was the latest in a campaign to quash dissent against the autocratic rule of President Bashar al-Assad as pro-democracy protests gathered steam and opposition figures joined hands to press for reform.

Abdel Rahman said troops leaving the village of Al-Bara split into two units, one heading towards the village of Kafr Nabl and the other to Kansafra.

Early yesterday soldiers stormed Al-Bara, a hamlet known for its Roman remains, Abdel Rahman said.

“Heavy gunfire rang out, probably to terrorise villagers to prevent them from leaving their homes,” he said.

After the operation villagers fled Al-Bara and the nearby villages of Al-Rami, Mar-Ayan and Kafr Haya, “heading south and west,” Abdel Rahman said.

On Wednesday, 10 civilians were shot dead by troops in a cluster of villages in Idlib’s Jabal al-Zawiyah district, Abdel Rahman said in Nicosia.

The crackdown comes in ­defiance of repeated global ­condemnation and warnings from Western powers to Syria to show restraint and despite new US sanctions against key regime pillars and Syria’s top ally Iran.

Dennis Kucinich, a US Democratic Representative under fire over a trip to Syria, said on Thursday Assad had promised him that he would “remove his forces from the cities.”

“I appealed to President Assad to remove his forces from the cities. He told me he would, and today we learned that he has begun to do just that,” Kucinich said in a statement released by his office in Washington.

The Observatory says 1,353 civilians have been killed since mid-March in the crackdown and that 343 security force personnel have also died. Thousands have been arrested.

However, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Vienna yesterday the alliance would not take action despite the crackdown.

“We have no plan to intervene in Syria,” he said.

“We operate in Libya on the basis of a UN mandate and the support of countries of the region,” he added, which was not the situation regarding Syria.

“Having said that I strongly condemn the behaviour of the security forces and the crackdown on the civil population,” Mr Rasmussen added.