Thousands of Syrians demanded the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and promised to support the city of Dera, where tanks and troops tried to crush the resistance against authoritarian government, activists said. "The people want to overthrow the regime!" Shouted the protesters in the suburb of Saqba in Damascus, according to a witness, challenging the violent reaction of the Government, which left 500 dead since the protests began in Dera month past.
Protesters took to the streets in the cities of Homs, Hama, Banias, on the Mediterranean coast, Qamishly, east, and Harashta, a suburb of the capital. In the coastal city of Latakia and gunfire was heard in Damascus two small protests broke out, witnesses said, a leader of the opposition and human rights group.
In Dera, Syrian soldiers fired into the air to prevent people from attending Friday prayers or manifest, a resident said. Another said that groups of people were heading to nearby towns of Dera intended to congregate. "The snipers on the roofs of the buildings are shooting anything that moves.
They want to keep people off the streets," said Abu Mohammad Al Jazeera television. Witnesses reported that the routes leading to Damascus were closed to prevent people go away from rural areas into the city. Wissam Tarif, director of the Insan human rights group, said that snipers could be seen in several suburbs of the capital, as Harasta, Daray and Douma, where demonstrators tried to march toward the center over the past two weeks, to be attacked by the bullets of the Government.
One witness reported that the Republican Guard trucks mounted with machine guns patrolled the ring road around Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood in exile in Syria, which until now have stayed away from the protest, called on Syrians to go to the streets on Friday to support Dera, where a human rights group said that civilian deaths from the attack of Army rose to 50.
It was the first time the brothers, strongly repressed along with other secular leftist movements under President Hafez al-Assad, the late father of current president, called directly to the demonstrations. The group said the allegations of the Syrian authorities that Islamist militants were behind the riots were wrong and sought to foment a civil war and undermine the demands for greater political freedoms and an end to corruption.
On Friday, the day of rest and prayer for Muslims, has been the opportunity for opponents to congregate, defying repeated warnings from the authorities. Security forces killed at least 120 demonstrators last Friday, said the Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah, in the biggest protests in the country since the uprising began on March 18 in Dera.
But residents said the attack Dera Army will not break the city of 120 000 inhabitants. "Nevertheless, people have gone after prayers yesterday morning and shouted" God is Great "from the rooftops. We want to resist, even if only with our voices," he said by phone a man who identified himself as Abu Zaid. 
Protesters took to the streets in the cities of Homs, Hama, Banias, on the Mediterranean coast, Qamishly, east, and Harashta, a suburb of the capital. In the coastal city of Latakia and gunfire was heard in Damascus two small protests broke out, witnesses said, a leader of the opposition and human rights group.
In Dera, Syrian soldiers fired into the air to prevent people from attending Friday prayers or manifest, a resident said. Another said that groups of people were heading to nearby towns of Dera intended to congregate. "The snipers on the roofs of the buildings are shooting anything that moves.
They want to keep people off the streets," said Abu Mohammad Al Jazeera television. Witnesses reported that the routes leading to Damascus were closed to prevent people go away from rural areas into the city. Wissam Tarif, director of the Insan human rights group, said that snipers could be seen in several suburbs of the capital, as Harasta, Daray and Douma, where demonstrators tried to march toward the center over the past two weeks, to be attacked by the bullets of the Government.
One witness reported that the Republican Guard trucks mounted with machine guns patrolled the ring road around Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood in exile in Syria, which until now have stayed away from the protest, called on Syrians to go to the streets on Friday to support Dera, where a human rights group said that civilian deaths from the attack of Army rose to 50.
It was the first time the brothers, strongly repressed along with other secular leftist movements under President Hafez al-Assad, the late father of current president, called directly to the demonstrations. The group said the allegations of the Syrian authorities that Islamist militants were behind the riots were wrong and sought to foment a civil war and undermine the demands for greater political freedoms and an end to corruption.
On Friday, the day of rest and prayer for Muslims, has been the opportunity for opponents to congregate, defying repeated warnings from the authorities. Security forces killed at least 120 demonstrators last Friday, said the Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah, in the biggest protests in the country since the uprising began on March 18 in Dera.
But residents said the attack Dera Army will not break the city of 120 000 inhabitants. "Nevertheless, people have gone after prayers yesterday morning and shouted" God is Great "from the rooftops. We want to resist, even if only with our voices," he said by phone a man who identified himself as Abu Zaid.
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