Timeline: Crackdown still on as Syria deadline nears

(Reuters) - Following is a timeline of events in Syria since protests began.

For an Interactive look at Syria click on http://link.reuters.com/pyt37s

March 15, 2011 - About 40 people join a protest in Hameediyeh market in Old Damascus, chanting political slogans in a brief first challenge to the Baath Party before dispersing into side streets.

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

July 31 - Syrian tanks storm Hama after a month-long siege.

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

January 22, 2012 - Arab League urges Assad to step down and hand over power to a deputy, a call Syria rejects a day later.

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. Four days later the Arab League suspends the monitoring mission.

February 4 - Russia and China veto resolution in U.N. Security Council, backed by Arab League, calling for Assad to step down.

February 16 - The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution endorsing the Arab League plan calling for Assad to step aside.

February 23 - Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is appointed U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria.

February 24 - Foreign ministers from more than 50 countries meet in Tunis for the inaugural "Friends of Syria" meeting. Russia and China, allies of Syria, decide not to attend.

Feb 28 - Assad decrees that a new constitution is in force after officials say nearly 90 percent of voters endorsed it in a February 26 referendum. Opponents and the West dismiss the reforms and the referendum as a sham.

March 1 - Syrian rebels pull out of the besieged Baba Amr district of Homs after more than three weeks of bombardment.

March 11 - Kofi Annan ends talks with Assad and leaves Syria with little sign of progress. Assad tells Annan that opposition "terrorists" are blocking any political solution.

March 13 - Assad sets parliamentary elections under his country's new constitution for May 7.

March 15 - Activists say they are sickened by emails which appear to show Assad and his wife shopping for luxury items while the country descends into bloodshed, a day after Britain's Guardian newspaper said it obtained some 3,000 emails from Assad and his wife, Asma.

March 21 - Russia and China join the rest of the U.N. Security Council in throwing its weight behind Annan to end the conflict.

March 27 - Syria has accepted the U.N.-sponsored peace plan, Annan says.

-- Assad visits the Baba Amr former rebel stronghold in Homs, apparently to make the point that he can now tour the streets of the once bitterly fought-over district.

-- U.N. raises toll to more than 9,000 civilians killed.

March 29 - Ban Ki-moon joins Arab leaders at an Arab League summit in Baghdad and urges Assad to implement a U.N.-backed peace plan to end the violence. Damascus had said it will reject any initiative taken at the summit.

March 31 - Syria says the revolt is over, but the army shells opposition areas and rebels say they will not cease fire until tanks, artillery and heavy weapons are withdrawn.

April 1 - At a second "Friends of Syria" meeting, western and Arab nations warn Assad not to delay adopting the peace plan and call on Annan to set a timetable for action.

April 2 - Annan tells the Security Council that Syria has accepted an April 10 deadline for ending military operations, with the opposition under pressure to cease fighting within 48 hours of that.

April 8 - Syria demands written guarantees insurgents will stop fighting before it pulls back troops under the terms of a U.N. peace plan.

-- Annan says an "unacceptable" escalation in violence in Syria violates guarantees made to him.

April 9 - Stray bullets from clashes between Syrian soldiers and rebel fighters along the Turkish border wound at least five people, including two Turkish officials, in a refugee camp in Turkey, officials say.

-- China urges Syria and opposition groups to abide by promises to cease fire.

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

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