Syria regime loyalists pelt US envoy with tomatoes

 Supporters of President Bashar Assad stoned the convoy of the U.S. ambassador to Syria as he arrived for a meeting with a leading opposition figure on Thursday, then pelted him with eggs and tomatoes and tried to break into the building while he was inside, the opposition activist and a U.S. official said. The American envoy was trapped in the office for three hours by the angry mob outside.

Ambassador Robert Ford, an outspoken critic of Assad's crackdown on the 6-month-old anti-government uprising, was unharmed and eventually escorted out by Syrian security forces, who showed up more than an hour after the attack began. He was meeting with Hassan Abdul-Azim, who heads the outlawed Arab Socialist Democratic Union party.

University student Majd Mutlaq, 21, stood outside Abdul-Azim's office with a bag of eggs and tomatoes, saying he came after he heard the ambassador was inside the building. "We don't want him anywhere in Syria and if I ever see him, I will throw at him whatever I am carrying," he said.

 The attack on Ford came five days after government supporters threw eggs and stones at France's ambassador as he left a meeting in Damascus with a Greek Orthodox patriarch. Ambassador Eric Chevallier was unharmed.   

Tension between the West and Syria  Iran's closest Arab ally  have been rising for months.

Washington and the European Union have imposed sanctions on some Syrian officials, including Assad, because of Assad's crackdown that has left some 2,700 people, according to the United Nations.

A trip in July by the U.S. and French ambassadors to the central city of Hama to express support for protesters drew swift condemnation from the Syrian government, which said the unauthorized visits were proof that Washington was inciting violence in the Arab nation. Authorities then warned both ambassadors not to travel outside the capital without permission.

 A month later, the Obama administration brushed off a complaint by Syrian authorities that Ford violated their travel rules by leaving Damascus without permission. The Syrian foreign ministry registered concern over Ford's trip in August from Damascus to the southern village of Jassem, where he met opposition activists.

Last month, Ford and several other ambassadors expressed their condolences to the family of a rights advocate who was killed.

The U.S. has maintained diplomatic relations with Syria even while protesting Assad's efforts to crush the uprising.

-AP