Timeline: Crackdown on protests in Syria

REUTERS - Following is a timeline of events in Syria since protests began:

March 16, 2011 - Security forces break up gathering of 150 protesters in Damascus holding pictures of imprisoned relatives.

April 19 - Government passes bill lifting 48 years of emergency rule.

April 22 - Security forces and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad kill at least 100 protesters, rights group says.

May 23 - EU imposes sanctions on Assad and nine other senior government officials.

July 31 - Syrian tanks storm Hama after a month-long siege, killing at least 80 people, residents say.

September 2 - EU imposes ban on purchases of Syrian oil.

November 12 - Arab League suspends Syria.

November 27 - Arab states vote to impose economic sanctions.

November 30 - Turkey says it has suspended all financial credit dealings with Syria and frozen Syrian government assets.

December 7 - Assad denies ordering his troops to kill peaceful demonstrators, telling U.S. television channel ABC that only a "crazy" leader kills his own people.

December 13 - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights puts death toll at more than 5,000.

December 19 - Syria signs Arab League peace plan, agrees to let monitors into the country.

December 27 - Monitors say they saw "nothing frightening" during initial visit to Homs, as 20,000 people hold protest there.

January 10, 2012 - Assad says he will not stand down, vows to restore order by "hitting terrorists with an iron fist".

January 11 - Gilles Jacquier, a journalist at France 2 television, is killed in mortar attack in Homs.

-- One monitor leaves the mission, calls it a "farce".

January 22 - Arab League urges Assad to step down and hand over power to a deputy, a call Syria rejects a day later.

-- Saudi Arabia quits monitoring mission, saying Syria has done nothing to implement Arab peace plan.

January 24 - The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council says it is withdrawing its 55 monitors from the 165-strong monitoring mission. Syria agrees to extend mission for a month.

January 25 - The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent is shot dead on highway in clearly marked vehicle, ICRC says.

January 26 - Residents and activists say militiamen from Assad's Alawite sect kill 14 members of Sunni Muslim family in Homs, one of Syria's worst sectarian attacks.

January 27 - UNICEF says at least 384 children have been killed during the uprising.

January 28 - Arab League suspends its monitoring mission in Syria in worsening violence, Damascus criticises this as an attempt to encourage foreign intervention.

January 31 - Government forces reassert control over capital's eastern suburbs after Free Syrian Army withdraws, capping three days of fighting that activists say killed at least 100 people.

-- U.N. Security Council starts discussion of draft resolution on Syria, backed by Arab League, calling on Assad to step down.

February 4 - Russia and China veto the draft resolution. Moscow says the draft would have put too little pressure on armed opponents of Assad and his government.

-- Syrian forces' shelling kills at least 217 people in Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights says.

February 6 - The United States announces it is closing its embassy in Syria because of worsening security situation.

February 7 - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visits Damascus, says Assad assured him he is committed to seeking an end to violence by all sides but did not say the government would halt its offensive unilaterally.

-- Lavrov says "Syria is informing the Arab League it is interested in the League's mission continuing its work and being increased in terms of quantity," Interfax reports.

-- France recalls its ambassador from Syria in protest at the violent crackdown.

February 9 - Arab foreign ministers will discuss on February 12 a proposal to send a joint U.N.-Arab mission to Syria, a senior Arab League official says.

-- Libya says it has given Syria's charge d'affaires and his staff in Tripoli 72 hours to leave the country.

February 10 - Twin bomb blasts hit military and security buildings in northern city of Aleppo, Syria's main commercial city, killing at least 25 and wounding 175.

-- Syrian tanks mass outside opposition neighbourhoods in Homs, Assad's forces continue to bombard the city. (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;