Assad vows to continue crackdown

Syrian President Bashar Assad was quoted on Saturday as saying he would press on with a crackdown against anti-government unrest in his country despite increased pressure from the Arab League to end it. He told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper"The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue..However, I assure you that Syria will not bow down and that it will continue to resist the pressure being imposed on it. Residents said that at least two rocket-propelled grenades hit a main ruling Baath Party building in Damascus early Sunday,in the first insurgent attack reported inside the Syrian capital since an eight-month uprising began. Assad said there would be elections in February or March when Syrians would vote for a parliament to create a new constitution and that would include provision for a presidential ballot.The Arab League, a powerful political group of Arab states, set a deadline of Saturday for Syria to comply with a peace plan, involving a military pullout from around restive areas, and threatened sanctions if Assad failed to halt the violence.However, activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 civilians were killed in raids by government forces on Saturday while two army defectors died when they clashed with the army in Homs, which has become a center of armed revolt against more than 40 years of Assad family rule. The United Nations says 3,500 people have been killed during the crackdown on the protests which began in March, but Assad disputed this and put the number killed at 619.