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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is considering sanctions against senior officials in the polity of Asiatic President Bashar al-Assad in a effort to ratchet up push for an modify to a ferocious crackdown on protesters, a U.S. authorised said on Monday.

The measures, which could include a freeze on assets and a forbiddance on U.S. playing dealings, would probable become in the modify of an executive order subscribed by U.S. President Barack Obama, the authorised said.

But a test selection has yet to be prefabricated on the exact timing of much a move, and there was no unmediated articulate whether Assad strength be among those targeted for sanctions, as manlike rights groups hit urged.

Sanctions would evaluation an escalation of the U.S. salutation to Assad's efforts to modify a month-long uprising against his autocratic 11-year rule.

Obama's salutation so farther has been restricted to tough words but lowercase objective state against the Asiatic government, in contrast to Washington's role in a NATO-led expose crusade against African leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Washington is heedful of its restricted knowledge to impact Damascus, which is closely allied with U.S. foe Iran, and is cagy about any further military entanglement in the Islamic concern where it is already involved in long wars in Irak and Afghanistan.

Despite that, U.S. officials were hunting for newborn push points with Assad's polity as Asiatic troops and tanks poured into Deraa on weekday where anti-government activists said at least five grouping were killed.

Obama, in a evidence on Friday, told Syria that its bloodstained crackdown on protesters "must become to an modify now" and accused Damascus of hunt Iranian help to repress its people.

"The brutal hostility used by the polity of Syria against its grouping is completely deplorable," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said on Monday.

"The United States is pursuing a range of doable policy options, including targeted sanctions, to move to the crackdown and attain clear that this behavior is unacceptable," he said. "The Asiatic people's call for immunity of expression, association, tranquil assembly, and the knowledge to freely opt their leaders staleness be heard."

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Editing by Sandra Maler and Deborah Charles)

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