About 52 people were killed Sunday in separate operations carried out by government troops in Syria's central and northern regions, a human rights activist said.

Abdul-Karim al-Rihawi, head of the Syrian League for Human Rights, told Xinhua by phone that 42 people were killed in the northeastern province of Deir al-Zour and hundreds of others injured, as Syrian army troops in tanks stormed pre-dawn Sunday the province after laying it on siege for four days.

In the central town of Houleh in Homs province, at least 10 people were killed by government forces, al-Rihawi said.

Meanwhile, the Local Coordination Committee, which tracks protests in Syria, said 70 people were killed during the military' s operations in Deir al-Zour and other cities.

The report, however, could not be independently verified as there was no official information of civilian casualties.

The Syrian authorities repeatedly said that there are armed men in Deir al-Zour and central cities of Homs and Hama, who are terrorizing people and sabotaging public and private properties.

Earlier in the day, the official SANA news agency said that army troops in Hama had exhumed mutilated bodies of 13 police personnel from the city's Orontes River.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stressed that his country is moving on steadily with the process of reforms and will simultaneously handle the outlaws to preserve the country's security.

Dealing with outlaws, who are cutting off roads, blocking the cities and terrorizing residents, "is the duty of the state to protect the life and security of its nationals," al-Assad was quoted by SANA as saying.

Meanwhile, a foreign ministry source expressed Sunday dismay over the statement issued a day earlier by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council calling for an immediate end to the violence and for a prompt implementation of reforms in Syria.

In a statement faxed to Xinhua, the foreign ministry said the GCC statement has "entirely disregarded facts presented by Syria, both in terms of slaughter and sabotage acts perpetrated by armed groups that target Syria's security and sovereignty, or in terms of the package of significant reforms announced by Syrian President Bashar Assad" in a speech he made on June 20.

Syria's unrest and recent reports about military operations against civilians in Deir al-Zour and the central province of Hama has drawn an escalated international outcry.

The chief of the pan-Arab body called on "Syrian authorities to immediately end all acts of violence and security operations", the Qatar News Agency cited Nabil Elaraby as saying in a statement.

Nabil Elaraby expressed "growing concern over deteriorating security situations due to escalating violence and military operations."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that Turkey's patience was running out because of the Syrian leadership 's shelling of civilians. Turkey announced that it would send its foreign minister on Tuesday to visit Syria with a "firm" message from the Turkish leadership.

The Syrian authorities, however, repeatedly brushed off the international pressures as "interference in the country's affairs" and blamed the violent acts on armed thugs and ultraconservative Muslims who want to establish Islamic emirates nationwide and pledged that there would be no letup in its crackdown on those gunmen until stability and security are restored to the country.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet