Syrian security forces opened fire Thursday on tens of thousands protesting outside a mosque in a Damascus suburb, close to a municipal building that members of the Arab League monitoring mission were believed to be visiting.
The presence of Arab League monitors in Syria has re-energized the anti-government protest movement, with tens of thousands turning out over the past three days in cities and neighborhoods where the observers are expected to visit.
The Arab League forged ahead with plans to send teams of monitors into Syria on Monday even though President Bashar Assad's regime has only intensified its crackdown in the week since agreeing to halt bloodshed, killing several hundred civilians, according to activists.
Government forces surrounded residents of a restive Syrian village in a valley and killed all those trapped inside — more than 100 people — in a barrage of rockets, tank shells, bombs and gunfire that lasted for hours, a witness and two activist groups said Wednesday.
Gunmen believed to be army defectors opened fire on a military convoy in central Syria on Wednesday, killing eight soldiers in a retaliatory ambush after troops destroyed a civilian car, an activist group said.
Syrian security forces fired on a funeral procession in a restive northwestern border region, killing two people and raising Tuesday's death toll to at least 28, activists said.
Dozens of soldiers and security forces were gunned down by suspected army defectors in southern Syria, a deadly ambush that comes as President Bashar Assad increasingly appears unable to manage the crisis, activists said Tuesday.
Syrian security forces opened fire Friday on protesters and hunted them down in house-to-house raids, killing about 30 people in the deadliest day in weeks in the country's 7-month-old uprising, activists said.
Yemeni government forces opened fire Tuesday on protesters in Sanaa, killing seven, a medical official said, a day after the capital witnessed its worst fighting in weeks.
