Troops fired tear gas at thousands of Syrian protesters today as president Bashar Assad faced down the most serious unrest of his 11 years in power.

Mr Assad was expected to address the nation as early as tomorrow to try to ease the crisis by lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms.

Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, with security forces opening fire on demonstrators in at least six locations. Around 60 people have died.

In Daraa said up to 4,000 people were protesting, calling for more political freedoms when security forces fired tear gas at the crowd and live ammunition in the air to disperse them.

In the country's main port city of Latakia, armed groups appeared to be threatening an escalation in violence. Residents were taking up weapons and manning their own checkpoints to guard against what they say are unknown gunmen roaming the streets carrying sticks and hunting rifles.

The scenes in Latakia, a Mediterranean port once known as a summer tourist attraction, were a remarkable display of anarchy in what had been one of the Middle East's most tightly controlled countries.

The government has accused armed, foreign elements of working to sow sectarian strife and destabilise the country.

Syria, a predominantly Sunni country ruled by minority Alawites, has a history of suppressing dissent. Mr Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, crushed a Muslim fundamentalist uprising in the city of Hama 1982, killing thousands.

Latakia is home to a potentially volatile sectarian mix of Sunnis in the urban core and the Assads' Alawite branch of Shiite Islam in villages on its outskirts, along with small minorities of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.

The Latakia province has an Alawite majority.