'Quake' if West intervenes in Syria

DAMASCUS / UNITED NATIONS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned that any Western intervention would cause an "earthquake" inflaming the region.

In an interview with Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, he warned of "another Afghanistan" if foreign forces intervened in his country as they had with the Libyan uprising.

"Syria is the hub now in this region," the paper quoted Assad as saying.

"It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake - do you want to see another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans?

"Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region. If the plan is to divide Syria, that is to divide the whole region."

His warning came as 20 Syrian soldiers were killed on Saturday and 53 wounded in clashes with presumed army deserters in Homs, while 10 security agents and a deserter were killed in a bus ambush, activists said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday called for an immediate end to violence in Syria, which he said should answer "the calls of the Syrian people for change" with "far-reaching reforms".

Ban said he condemned the reported killing on Friday of dozens of civilian in Syria's Homs and Hama provinces, "adding to an alarming death toll of well over 3,000 people since the beginning of the protests seven months ago".

"The secretary-general believes the calls of the Syrian people for change must be answered with far-reaching reforms, not repression and violence," the statement said.

AFP-Xinhua