Turkey said yesterday it might set up a border "buffer zone" to protect growing numbers of Syrian refugees fleeing a violent uprising against President Bashar al Assad.

With the bloody revolt entering its second year, Government forces battled protesters in at least three suburbs of the capital Damascus, opposition activists said. They also reported flare-ups in other towns and cities.

The United Nations-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan briefed the UN Security Council later in the day on his efforts to end the violence, but there was no sign of a breakthrough.

Mr Assad faced growing international isolation as more Arab states announced they were shutting their embassies and the Turkish Foreign Ministry said it "strongly urged" its citizens to leave the country because of growing security concerns.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, once a firm ally of Mr Assad, said he was considering setting up a buffer zone along the border with Syria. Ankara might then withdraw its ambassador once its nationals had returned home.

"A buffer zone, a security zone, are things being studied," he said, but added other ideas were also under consideration. "It would be wrong to look at it from only one perspective."

Some 1250 refugees have fled into Turkey from northern Syria in the past 48 hours, escaping an army onslaught in the frontier Idlib province.

Some 45 civilians had been killed in the region in the past day, including 23 whose bodies were found with their hands tied behind their back, as well as five army deserters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.