Angry Syrian mob hurls eggs and tomatoes at US ambassador

A pro-regime mob pelted the American ambassador to Damascus with eggs on Thursday as President Bashar al-Assad's followers stepped up a campaign of intimidation against Western envoys.

As anti-government protests raged across Syria, Damascus accused ambassadors from a handful of a countries - including the US, Britain and France - of orchestrating the opposition's rise.

Robert Ford, the US ambassador, has courted the regime's anger by travelling to villages under attack and attending meetings of the opposition. Loyalists accused Mr Ford of being a CIA agent intent on undermining the regime.

Mr Ford was trapped for three hours in a Damascus office block where he was meeting Hassan Abdul-Azim, a lawyer who leads a banned opposition party and one of the foremost figures to speak out against the regime who has remained in Syria.

The mob gathered outside chanted slogans denouncing the ambassador and attempted to storm the building. A series of phone calls were made in which the US expressed urgent concerns for his safety. Security forces were later sent to escort the ambassador from the tower block but as he left the crowd threw stones, eggs and tomatoes at the departing convoy containing the ambassador.

It was the second such attack on an ambassador in a week. Government supporters threw tomatoes, eggs and stones at Eric Chevallier, France's ambassador, as he left a meeting in Damascus with the Greek Orthodox patriarch.

Mr Ford and Mr Chevalier had been accused of acting as "human shields" for protesters in the town of Hama earlier this year. "The US is involved in encouraging armed groups to practise violence," said a regime spokesman.

Diplomatic sources said ambassadors had been instructed to defy government restrictions and intimidation to engage in a wide range of activities in Syria.

Simon Collis, the British ambassador launched a blog this week that criticised the sham reforms announced by Mr Assad in response to the protests.

Alistair Burt, the Foreign Office's middle east minister, called this week for Mr Assad to step aside in favour of a leader who was capable of delivering the "genuine" reform that Syria's demonstrators demanded.

One Whitehall official said that, in addition to promoting tighter sanctions against the regime, diplomatic efforts were focusing on strengthening the opposition against Mr Assad into a coherent umbrella group.

"We have to be realistic and say the Syrian opposition is still coming together and that meetings are no substitute for coherence," he said. "They are quite different and there is a role to be played as they become more unified to encourage them to become more effective."

Mr Assad has fended off all demands for compromise with protesters. Details of a Turkish mediation proposal on Thursday exposed international efforts to force Mr Assad to accept members of the underground Muslim Brotherhood as part of his government. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist Turkish prime, was enraged when Mr Assad dismissed his scheme as an attack on the secular nature of the Syrian state.

Mr Assad's father and predecessor, Hafez, used brute force to crush a Muslim Brotherhood revolt in the 1980s, including the 1982 massacre of 20,000 residents of Hama. It remains a "criminal offence punishable by death" to be affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

The current crackdown in Syria has cost up to 3,600 lives. The government has suffered army revolts and schisms in its ranks as units have been ordered to attack residential districts and city centres with heavy armour.

The Foreign Office believes it will secure a UN Security Council resolution by the end of the week that condemns the attacks on civilians and raises the prospect of more sanctions against its trading relations with the outside world.