Nicosia: Syrian security forces opened fire on Friday on anti-regime rallies killing at least 15 protesters, three of them in the capital Damascus, human rights activists said. Two were children.
The Local Coordination Committees, a main activists' group, said it had the names of 14 civilians killed in the merchant city of Homs, the impoverished town of Kiswa south of Damascus and in the residential district of Barzeh in the capital.
The committees said the deaths included a 12-year-old boy, Rateb Al Orabi, killed when security forces fired on protesters in the Shammas neighbourhood in Homs, and a 13-year old boy in Al Kasweh. The reports could not be independently verified.
YouTube
"Our revolution is strong! Assad has lost legitimacy!" protesters chanted in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani, according to video posted on YouTube.
Another showed protesters chanting: "Oh Bashar, you coward, pack your bags and go to Iran."
In northern Syria, activists said at least 15,000 people held a protest on the highway linking the country's two main cities, Damascus and Aleppo. Thousands marched in Amouda and Qamishli in the northeast and in other provinces, Osso said.
Dissidents reported a strong security presence in many locations. In Homs, all roads leading to the city center were reportedly blocked.
An eyewitness in Homs said protests took place in every city district Friday. He said hundreds of security personnel had been brought in by bus since early morning and encircled the city's centre.
Pro-Government thugs
The witness said security forces fired smoke grenades in the Jouret Al Shiyeh district to disperse protesters. He said pro-government thugs converged on Homs neighbourhoods from neighbouring villages and were "provoking" protesters, who began blocking roads with rocks to keep them back. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In the central city of Hama, activists said a massive protest took place in the city's main Assi square. Online footage showed huge numbers of people gathered, many waving Syrian flags and crying for the regime's downfall. A large purple banner was unfurled over a building, reading: "Long live free Syria, down with Bashar Assad."
Tear gas
"Security forces tried to break up a rally calling for the fall of the regime with tear gas before opening fire" killing three people and injuring 25 others, an activist in the Damascus neighbourhood of Barzeh said, reached by telephone.
They also opened fire on demonstrators in the town of Kiswah south of Damascus, killing at least five people, another activist told AFP.
"Demonstrators left the mosque after Friday prayers and marched for a few minutes until security forces opened fire to disperse them, killing five people and wounding six others," rights activist Mohammad Enad Sulaiman said.
Three people were also killed in the central city of Homs and 20 others wounded when security forces opened fire on the crowd of protesters, an activist at the scene told AFP.
'Armed men'
Syria's state television blamed the civilians deaths in Barzeh on "armed men" who it said also opened fire on security forces, wounding several of them including an officer.
The state broadcaster added that a police officer was also killed by gunfire in the Damascus suburb of Kadam.
"Demonstrators left the mosque after Friday prayers and marched for a few minutes until security forces opened fire to disperse them, killing five people and wounding six others," rights activist Mohammad Enad Sulaiman said.
The violence came as thousands of protesters took to the streets across Syria after the weekly Muslim prayers calling for the fall of the autocratic regime of President Bashar Al Assad.
The demonstrations were in response to a call by the Facebook group Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the motors of the protests, under the banner, "Fall of legitimacy".
US urges Syrian troops to withdraw from Turkish border
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Syria to withdraw troops now massing near its border with Turkey, saying their presence is worsening an already bad situation for refugees and risks sparking border clashes with the Turks.
Clinton told reporters at the State Department on Thursday that the US saw the situation as volatile and "very worrisome" and that the Syria military should immediately end attacks and provocations in the region.
She said the buildup of soldiers several hundred metres from the Turkish border was another sign of the Syrian government's intent to repress its own people.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Syria on Friday to denounce attacks by the military designed to crush a 13-week pro-democracy uprising that has demanded the president's departure, witnesses and activists said.
'Bashar without legitimacy'
"Tell the world Bashar is without legitimacy," shouted several thousand protesters in the Damascus suburb of Irbin, an eyewitness said, the chants echoing over the phone.
In the central cities of Homs and Hama protesters shouted "the people want the downfall of the regime," while in Deraa, the cradle of the uprising, protesters carried banners rejecting a vague promise of dialogue made by Assad in a speech this week.
Similar protests erupted on the coast, and in the eastern provinces of Qamishli and Deir Al Zor, on the border with Iraq's Sunni heartland.
