British nationals have been urged to leave Syria immediately due to the ongoing civil unrest as troops backed by tanks mass at a town near the Turkish border.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said Britons should use commercial flights to leave while they are still available as it would be "highly unlikely" that its embassy in Damascus would be able to help if the situation were to deteriorate further. Evacuation options would also "be limited", it added.
Violence between protesters opposed to Syria's leadership and the security forces has flared across the country, particularly near the border with Turkey, where thousands of refugees have fled.
In the latest assault, Syrian troops backed by tanks and firing heavy machine guns swept into the village of Bdama, about 12 miles from the border, as the army intensified operations in the north-west of the country, which has seen the fiercest clashes.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a group that documents anti-government protests, said troops backed by six tanks and several armoured personnel carriers entered Bdama on Saturday morning.
On Friday, Syrian forces swept into Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway linking Damascus, the capital, with Syria's largest city, Aleppo. Saturday's assault on Bdama was about 25 miles (40km) to the west.
The LCC raised the death toll in Friday's anti-government protests to 19.
The three-month uprising has proved extremely resilient despite a relentless crackdown by the military, pervasive security forces and pro-regime gunmen. Human rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained as President Bashar Assad tries to maintain his grip on power.
Bdama is next to Jisr al-Shughour, a town that was spinning out of government control before the military recaptured it last Sunday. Activists had reported fighting in Jisr al-Shughour between loyalist troops and defectors who refused to take part in a continuing crackdown on protesters seeking Assad's ouster.
The fighting in the area, which started nearly two weeks ago, displaced thousands of people including some 9,600 who are sheltered in Turkish refugee camps. On Friday, UN envoy Angelina Jolie travelled to Turkey's border with Syria to meet some of the thousands of Syrian refugees.
The uprising has proven to be the boldest challenge to the Assad family's 40-year dynasty in Syria. Assad, now 45, inherited power in 2000, raising hopes that the lanky, soft-spoken young leader might transform his late father's stagnant and brutal dictatorship into a modern state.
But over the past 11 years, hopes that Assad was a reformist dimmed as it became apparent that he was a hardliner determined to keep power at all costs.
On Friday, 12 people were killed in the central city of Homs, two in the eastern town of Deir el-Zour and two in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, one in the northern city of Aleppo. Two protesters, one a boy believed to be 16 years old, died in the southern village of Dael, the LCC said.
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