Damascus: Four protesters were shot dead in Syria on Friday and an army officer was killed on the second day of a nationwide ceasefire meant to open a path to peaceful political dialogue after 13 months of extreme violence.
The fatal shootings occurred as demonstrators rallied against President Bashar Al Assad, who has accepted the terms of the United Nations-brokered ceasefire which took effect on Thursday and calls on the army and rebels to stop shooting.
More than 10,000 killed
While the hard-won truce to end a 13-month crackdown on dissent that has cost an estimated more than 10,000 lives appeared to be holding, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he did not expect it to last.
He questioned President Bashar Al Assad's sincerity and appealed for observers to monitor his compliance. UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan, who brokered the ceasefire, urged Syria to open humanitarian corridors to deliver aid.
"Mr Annan is aware that we don't have a perfect situation in the country at the moment," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. "There are detainees that need to be released, humanitarian corridors need to be opened."
Protesters rallied in the Qadam and Assali districts of Damascus, while other demonstrations took place in Irbin and Bibla outside the capital, according to videos posted on the Internet.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said demonstrations were organised in the northern province of Aleppo, while protesters took to the streets after the the main weekly Muslim prayers in several neighbourhoods of Deir Ezzor in the east.
The Britain-based watchdog said demonstrators hurled stones at security forces in the Tariq Al Sadd district of the southern city of Daraa, cradle of the protest movement that erupted in March last year.
Sporadic clashes
Sporadic clashes broke out between troops and rebels at Khirbet Al Joz on the northern border with Turkey, it said. Violence on Thursday killed at least 10 people, including seven civilians, and wounded dozens more.
Among the dead were two soldiers killed by rebels after forces loyal to Assad attempted to break up a demonstration in the central province of Hama.
Even so, the toll is markedly lower than in recent weeks, when there have often been scores of people killed on a daily basis.
On Friday, security forces killed one man when they opened fire at a group joining a demonstration in Assi Square, in Hama, the Observatory said.
Another demonstrator was shot dead in the village of Nawa in Daraa province, as he left a mosque to join a demonstration, the Observatory said.
Regime forces also killed a man in the town of Salqin, in Idlib province, the centre added.
'Ceasefire' at dawn Thursday
After the ceasefire came into force at dawn on Thursday, Annan declared he was "encouraged by reports that the situation in Syria is relatively calm and that the cessation of hostilities appears to be holding."
But as Al Assad's government and the rebels traded accusations of trying to wreck the ceasefire, Annan insisted "all parties have obligations to implement fully the six-point plan."
The plan, to which Damascus has committed itself, calls for the withdrawal of forces from urban areas, the release of arbitrarily detained people, freedom of movement for journalists and the right to demonstrate.
Despite the regime's commitment, the spokeswoman for the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), Basma Qoudmani, said "we have concrete proof that heavy weapons are still in population centres."
The SNC, the most widely recognised opposition group in exile, and Internet-based activists called for peaceful demonstrations to test the government's readiness to accept public shows of dissent.
"We call on the people to demonstrate and express themselves... The right to demonstrate is a principal point of the plan," SNC head Burhan Ghalioun told AFP. Qoudmani said: "The real test (of the ceasefire) will be if there is shooting or not when people demonstrate."
The Syrian Revolution 2011 activist group called on Facebook for protests on Friday — the Muslim day of rest when the demonstrations have been the largest after noon prayers — under the rallying cry: "A revolution for all Syrians".
Permits
But the interior ministry insisted people wanting to demonstrate must have permits. "The right to demonstrate peacefully is guaranteed by law. We call on citizens to apply the law by requesting a permit before demonstrating," it said.
On Friday, the UN Security Council could vote on a resolution authorising the deployment of observers to monitor both sides in a conflict the Observatory says has cost more than 10,000 lives.
An advanced mission of 20-30 observers could be in place early next week, diplomats said, with the full mission reaching at least 200.
Sceptical
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said: "The world is watching however with sceptical eyes," adding that previous promises made by the regime "have not been kept."
In a statement after two days of talks in Washington, foreign ministers from the Group of Eight major economies, which include Western powers and Syria's main supporter, Russia, urged "immediate" action to send in observers.
Syria's government urged tens of thousands of people who fled the violence both inside and outside the country to return home and offered an amnesty to opposition gunmen without "blood on their hands."
Turkey
In Turkey, which is hosting around 25,000 Syrian refugees, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said international aid has begun to arrive. "We will start getting international aid, and in fact we have already started," he told reporters in Istanbul.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week sent 1,500 tents and 1,500 blankets to Turkey, diplomatic sources told AFP. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the international community to help Turkey house Syrian refugees.
