ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) — A sharp rise in fuel prices over the weekend has sparked protests across Syria, in the country’s most widespread demonstrations since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad almost two years ago.

Demonstrators burned tires and blocked key roads, including the highway linking the capital Damascus to the industrial hub of Aleppo, after Syria’s government on Saturday raised diesel prices by 40 percent to 175 Syrian pounds ($1.32) a liter.

The price increases piled further pressure on Syrians facing years of economic crisis. The United Nations Development Program estimates that 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, compared with about a third before the Syrian civil war began in 2011.

In the steepest of several price hikes announced since the Iran war began, the government also raised household and industrial gas prices by about 9%, 95-octane gasoline by 28% to 195 pounds and 90-octane gasoline by 26% to 185 pounds.

Protesters also blocked convoys of crude tankers traveling toward refineries in central Syria, with some demanding the dismissal of the energy and economy ministers and the head of the Syrian Petroleum Company.

“We don’t want higher wages. All we want is lower diesel and other fuel prices,” Yasser Salim told Reuters in Aleppo.

Bassam al-Ali,........

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