DAMASCUS (AFP) - The Syrian authorities have arrested author and opposition figure Habib Saleh for the third time since 2001, the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria (NOHRS) said on Saturday.

Saleh, who has been under police surveillance since his release from jail in September 2007, was detained in the northwest town of Tartus, the watchdog said, calling for his immediate release.

"The security services... arrested Habib Saleh as he was walking in Tartus market on Wednesday and took him to an unidentified location. Since then we have had no news of him," NOHRS chief Ammar Qorabi said.

Saleh was arrested for the first time in 2001 along with nine other opposition figures and released after three years in jail.

He was arrested for a second time in May 2005 on charges of "publishing false information" about the 1967 Arab-Israeli war on the Internet, and freed in September two years later.

Syria has detained more than a dozen dissidents in recent months in a mounting crackdown that has drawn strong criticism from the West.

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