Syrian troops opened fired on democracy activists on Friday who took to the streets across the country demanding regime change, monitors said, as armed rebels vowed to protect peaceful protests.
Several protesters were wounded gunfire in the town of Houla, in Homs province, where demonstrations also took place in the city itself despite shelling by the army, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The army bombarded Homs’s Jobar neighbourhood on Friday morning, according to a video posted online, in which strong explosions are heard and a plume of smoke rises into the sky.
Demonstrations were held after Friday’s weekly Muslim prayers in various parts of southern Daraa province, birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, with several protesters wounded in Inkhel as they emerged from mosques, the Observatory said.
Protests also took place in several districts of Aleppo, where security forces fired on protesters in the Salaheddin neighbourhood in a bid to disperse them, the Observatory said.
In Idlib province, clashes broke out between regime forces and rebel militias, the Britain-based rights watchdog added, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.
In Damascus, protesters gathered at dawn in numerous residential districts in support of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), and calling for Assad’s downfall, with loyalist forces firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators marching in the Midane district. The Observatory said six civilians were killed on Friday. Among them were four people, including three teenagers, who were gunned down in the early morning by regime forces as they guarded their farm in Chizar village, Hama province.
Violence across the country on Thursday, including the shelling of the rebel stronghold of Rastan left at least 34 people dead, including 24 civilians.
The outgoing leader of Syria’s largest opposition group charged on Thursday that the deeply divided opposition had failed its people. Burhan Ghalioun, speaking to AFP after the main opposition Syrian National Council accepted his resignation, said the chasm in its ranks between Islamist and secularists had let down the Syrian people and played into Assad’s hands.
