Syria withdraws secret police from flashpoint city (UPDATES) (VIDEO)

Syria began releasing jailed pro-democracy protesters and withdrew secret police from the restive southern city of Banias in bid to defuse tensions that have flared into violence in recent days that led to deaths of four people.

Meanwhile, a delegation from Deraa, the southern province where mass protests against the regime began last month, reportedly met Thursday with President Bashar al-Assad.

The moves come after the U.S., France, Britain and other nations urged Assad, 45, to refrain from violence in dealing with protests.

The U.S., meanwhile, suspects that Iran is providing Syria with crowd dispersal gear and is helping Syrian security forces block and track Internet and cellphone use among protesters, according The Wall Street Journal.

Iran's involvement could challenge U.S. and Saudi influence in the region, destabilize U.S. allies, and heighten sectarian tensions, the Journal reported.

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Syrian forces sealed off the city of Banias and surrounded it with tanks after a protest against Assad's 11-year rule on Friday, a day on which 37 were killed nationwide, most of them in Deraa.

The protest, at which demonstrators protesters shouted "the people want the overthrow of the regime," echoing the rallying cries of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, was part of a wave of unrest that has swept Syria in which one rights group said 200 people have died, Reuters reports.

Students have in recent days staged protests in the capital, Damascus, and in Syria's second-biggest city of Aleppo.

Assad has repeatedly blamed "armed groups" and "infiltrators" for any violence during anti-government protests. But a rights campaigner told Reuters that irregular loyalists to Assad, known as "al-shabbiha" killed four people in Banias on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Damascus has reportedly ordered the army into Banias to keep order, but activists said the government appeared to be holding to its word.

"Banias residents arrested over the past several weeks are already being released," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reportedly said. "The army will go in but there is also a pledge to pull out the secret police … and improve living conditions."

A Syrian official said Thursday's meeting between Assad and the Deraa delegation showed there were efforts to calm the situation in the impoverished province, the Associated Press reports.

Syria's leading pro-democracy group, the Damascus Declaration, says more than 200 people have been killed during the unrest.

— Freya Petersen