Security forces killed four civilians as anti-regime demonstrations were staged across Syria on Sunday, the first day of the Muslim feast marking the end of the Haj, a human rights group said. Three of the civilians were killed in Homs, the flashpoint central city where protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad were held in most districts despite a weeks-long military crackdown. In Homs, “a civilian was killed by security forces gunfire in Bab Dreibi district, another died in shelling in Baba Amro… and a third was killed by snipers,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia. Security forces also shot dead another civilian in the city of Hama, which lies further to the north. And in Talbi, a town near Homs, “four protesters were wounded, one seriously, when the security forces fired on a demonstration,” said the Britain-based Observatory.The latest reported crackdown on protests came as Syrian state radio reported President Assad attended Al-Nur mosque in the northern town of Raqqa for prayers on Sunday morning to mark Eidul Azha.
