Amman: Tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets to press for the ouster of President Bashar Al Assad, whose use of force and offers of dialogue have failed to stop a four-month revolt.
At least 32 protesters were killed on Friday around the country, including about 20 in the capital, Damascus, Al Jazeera television said, citing activists it didn't identify.
Security forces killed one protester in the southern city of Daraa, where demonstrations against Assad's rule began in March, said Bahiya Mardini, head of the Arab Committee for Free Speech, a Syrian rights group based in Cairo. Syria's state-run television said security forces were fired upon and two were wounded.
The number of demonstrators totaled in the hundreds of thousands, according to the Associated Press, which called the protests the largest since the uprisings began.
"The momentum is rising," Mardini said in a telephone interview from Istanbul, where she was attending a meeting of Syrian opposition groups. "In the beginning we were worried about the future of the revolt. Not anymore."
The protests have posed the biggest threat to Assad since he inherited power from his father 11 years ago.
Condemned by Clinton
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Friday's violence.
"What we are seeing from the Assad regime in its barrage of words, false promises and accusations isn't being translated into any path forward," Clinton said in Istanbul. "We have said that Syria can't go back to the way it was before, that Assad has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of the Syrian people because of the brutality of that crackdown."
Thousands of protesters in the city of Hama chanted, "The people want to bring the regime down," according to footage aired by Al Jazeera television.
Assad has blamed the protests on a foreign conspiracy, while saying that the demands of demonstrators "have merit" and that changes are needed.
Syrian opposition cancels meeting
The killings prompted the opposition to cancel a "National Salvation" conference that was due in Qaboun neighbourhood of Damascus on Saturday after security forces killed 14 protesters in front of the wedding hall, where the conference was scheduled to take place, opposition leader Walid al-Bunni told Reuters.
