What appeared to be an imminent assault in the town of Jisr al-Shughour would sharply escalate the upheaval that threatens the 40-year regime led by President Bashar Assad, whose authoritarian government has acknowledged losing "intermittent" control of the area.
Dozens of Syrians were crossing into Turkey by the hour from the province of Idlib, some on motorbikes and pickup trucks, some on foot. The number of Syrians who have crossed the border with Turkey continues to increase with every hour. According to the latest account by the semi-official Anatolia news agency, 1,877 Syrians have taken refuge in a tent city in Yayladağı, a district of the border province of Hatay, as of Thursday afternoon.
"I don´t want to die. I want Bashar Assad to go," said one Syrian teenager, who identified himself only by his first name, Ahmad, fearing reprisals from the Syrian government. Activists say more than 10,000 people have been detained since the uprising began in mid-March.
Syrian tanks were also deployed in the streets of Aleppo, the province that is home to Syria´s second-largest city of the same name, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told CNN-Turk television late Wednesday.
"There are tanks in the streets," Erdoğan said. "They seem to have lost control there."
Aleppo has historic ties with Turkey and Erdoğan said his government was taking measures to protect families there. Erdoğan has said Turkey would accept all Syrians who flee, but he also has urged Syria´s government to adopt reforms aimed at ending the unrest.
In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the UN´s High Commissioner for Human Rights, accused Syria of trying to "bludgeon its population into submission" by attacking anti-government protesters with snipers, tanks and artillery.
The uprising has led to weekly protests throughout Syria, and the violent crackdown appears only to galvanize them. Activists have made prolific use of Facebook and YouTube videos to bolster their claims that the government is attacking innocent Syrians.
A new video circulating among Syrians shows a 15-year-old boy, identified as Tamer Mohammed al-Sharei who was said to have been tortured by security forces. The dark skinned body was placed in a wooden coffin, with a piece of paper marked "12" placed on his chest. "He is my son," a woman screams.
The boy had been missing since April 29 when he was last seen in the village of Saida in the southern province of Daraa on the same day and location where Hamza al-Khatib, 13, went missing. The younger boy became a symbol of Syria´s uprising after his body was returned to his family late last month with marks of torture, bullet wounds and a severed penis.
The struggle over Jisr al-Shughour and Idlib is a critical test for the Assad family´s government, which said "armed groups" had killed 120 security forces in the area but has not commented on reports of a mutiny by some military units opposing the crackdown.
Ahmad and a few other teenagers from the town of Jisr al-Shughour spoke to an Associated Press reporter in Güveççi, where they came to collect food and blankets for their families still on the other side of the frontier. One villager said they came before dawn and would return at night to avoid detection by Turkish soldiers.
Muhammad, a 19-year-old, said hundreds of Syrians were camping just across the frontier "undecided whether to cross into Turkey or not."
Muhammad accused the Syrian police and intelligence forces loyal to Assad and said: "The military units are not doing anything wrong." He would not elaborate on reports that some troops had mutinied and joined forces with residents fighting back against the crackdown.
An elite Syrian military unit believed to be led by Assad´s younger brother, Maher, had all but surrounded Jisr al-Shughour, leaving open just one route to the border 12 miles (20 kilometers) away, according to activist Mustafa Osso.
"The reinforcements are complete and the army could storm the city at any moment," Osso, who lives in Syria, told The Associated Press by telephone after talking to contacts in the area.
Al-Watan, a pro-government newspaper, reported Thursday that the army was mobilizing for a confrontation that would last for days in Idlib. It said troops faced an estimated 2,000 gunmen backed by young extremist villagers.
There was no way to independently verify the report. The Syrian government, which sharply restricts local media and expelled foreign journalists from Syria, has blamed recent violence on gunmen and religious militants.
Al-Watan also reported that people in Idlib were leaving home "to give the Syrian army a chance to enter all areas and confront the gunmen."
The refugees in Turkey, mostly women and children, were seen resting in the shadow of pine trees within a fenced camp, where dozens of white conical tents are set up by the Turkish Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross.
Turkish ambulances were on standby at a border crossing in Yayladagi to rush any wounded refugees to hospitals. About 30 Syrians who have crossed the border were being treated for injuries suffered during clashes in Syria.
The Turkish province of Hatay has a sizable Arabic-speaking population. It gained independence from Syria in 1938 and joined Turkey in a plebiscite a year later. Families in some villages were split when the borders were finalized in 1948.
"We will keep our doors open to all Syrians seeking refuge in our country. It would be out of the question for us to close our doors at a time when deaths have intensified and our brothers are seeking the possibility of refuge," Erdoğan said Thursday.
The two countries share a 520-mile (850 kilometer) border, which includes several Syrian provinces, among them Aleppo.
Osso and a resident of the city of Aleppo, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals, said tanks have been deployed in at least two towns in the province that have seen protests.
