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Pro-Assad supporters gathered in Damascus today. AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman
Syria
Syria's cabinet resgins amid continuing unrest
President Bashar Assad sits tight, but accepts his cabinet’s resignation.
SYRIA’S PRESIDENT BASHAR ASSAD has accepted the resignation of his entire cabinet in the latest attempts to appease protesters calling for political reform.
A government official told the AFP that a new cabinet was expected to be formed within 24 hours of the government’s resignation.
A wave of increasingly violent protests has seen more than 60 people killed in the past ten days in the southern city of Daraa, where security forces had opened fire on protesters last week.
The BBC reports that Assad is now expected to make a public address announcing the removal of emergency law and easing restrictions on civil liberty. A state of emergency has been in place since the ruling Baath party took control in 1963, according to Al Jazeera.
Today, thousands of people poured into the capital Damascus chanting and waving flags in support of Assad.
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