Syria: At least 20 shot by security forces on Friday

Friday's death toll at 20 Syrian security forces shot dead at least 20 people on Friday as they opened fire to disperse protesters urging countries to expel Syria’s ambassadors, activists told Al Arabiya , as Russia called for restraint over the Damascus crisis.
Meanwhile, state television reported that a bomb blast in the restive central city of Hama killed three members of the security forces and critically wounded an officer, while state news agency SANA said two died.
The latest bloodletting comes on the eve of a deadline by the Arab League for Syria to stop the lethal crackdown on protesters seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, or face sanctions.
Meanwhile, Syria has asked for amendments to a plan to send Arab League observers to Syria to assess the situation there where troops are cracking down on anti-government protests, the League chief said on Friday.
Facing growing isolation, Syria has been told by its Arab peers to stop the lethal repression against protesters by 2200 GMT on Saturday or risk sanctions, and the Arab League has suspended it from the 22-member bloc.
The Syrian request is being studied, the League said.
League chief Nabil Al-Araby said in a statement he had received a letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem “including amendments to the draft protocol regarding the legal status and duties of the monitoring mission of the Arab League to Syria” agreed by a League ministerial council on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
“These amendments are now under study,” the statement quoted Araby as saying.
He said the Syrian request was made in a letter received on Thursday evening.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Friday that three people were killed in the Damascus countryside, while one was shot in the restive city of Hama, also in the center of the country.
Five people, including a 14-year-old boy, were also shot dead in the southern town of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad’s autocratic regime, said the Britain-based Observatory.
Around 30 people were shot and wounded in Homs, in the Damascus suburb of Harasta and in Maaret Numan in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory and the opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC) reported. Five people were killed in Khaledia neighborhood in addition to ten injuries in Wadi Iran neighborhood according to the Observatory that reported the injury of a 10-years-old child after being shot in Bbayada neighborhood. The child was reportedly left without medication due to the continuing gunfire in the area.
Three were killed  Baba Amro in Homs and 17 injured after security forces tried to disperse protestors amassing after finishing their prayers in the mosques of Maarat El Noaman in Edlin governorate. In addition, a huge demonstration went out of Abu Bakr and Saad El Nasery's mosques in Tah. The demonstrations were going to Yard of Liberty (Tahrir).
While in Yabroud protestors burned down a police station for arresting and old woman,  a 30-year-old  man was killed because of serious wounds after being shot by the security forces. In addition, ten were injured in the same town.     
On Friday, activists said that Syrian troops had shelled two northern villages overnight after an attack by army defectors on forces loyal to Assad, in the first report of such an incident during the eight-month uprising.
Eight villagers were injured when tank shells and heavy mortars fell for three hours on Tal Minnij and Maarshamsheh and surrounding farmland, activists told the Reuters news agency.
"Hundreds of families have left. Electricity and internet services have been cut off," said one activist.
Army defectors had earlier attacked a building housing security forces near army depots in the Wadi Al-Deif area on the edge of the town of Maarat al-Numaan, 290km north of Damascus, the activists said.
The agency said eight "of the most wanted terrorists" were arrested on Thursday in the central city of Homs, where tanks have been deployed.
Activists reported massive deployments of security forces in several parts of the country and said they had surrounded mosques to prevent worshippers from spilling onto the streets after the weekly Muslim prayers to join protests.
They opened fire as several rallies got under way in defiance of the authorities, in Homs, Deraa and in several areas of the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, they said.
In the Idlib town of al-Tah, protesters flooded the streets calling for the fall of the regime and chanting: “Freedom forever, like it or not Assad.”
The Observatory also reported that 16 people were arrested in raids by security forces in Maaret Numan.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported that only two members of the security forces were killed in the Hama blast and said five others were wounded when gunmen opened fire on them in Deraa.
The agency also said a bomb squad disabled a bomb set to explode in the city.
The Observatory added that Dr. Mohamed Farhan Abu El Kheir was killed on Thursday by an unknown armed grouped using a pick-up vehicle owned by the Department of Social Security found after the murder in a position close to Farhan's house according to witnesses.    
Witnesses said that members of the security forces drove the vehicle. Military reinforcements reported were reported to be moving to Sahl El Ghab to take positions in Mork and Kafrzeeta because of heavy rains. In addition, witnesses said that air strikers were roaring over Sahl El Ghab according to the Public Authority of the Syrian Revolution.  
Security forces also were reported to launch arrests at Al Madeek Citadel with electricity cuts. Troops were vulnerable to extensive firing during their exit from the citadel as tanks and vehicles were targeted by heavy gunshots. Twenty-seven were arrested.
In the meantime. Khaldoun Qassaam, Head of Foreign Affairs Committee in the Syrian Parliament, blamed on the Arab League for its delay in taking practical steps required to put the work plan into action.
A violent strike was launched on Tall Manij and Arsh Hashma villages leading hundreds of their inhabitants to run away.
Official sources have said that the Armed Forces of Syria carried out what the source called "Specific Operation" during which 58 of the wanted people were arrested in addition to seizing a number of weapons and explosive devices.       
Dissident groups from Armed Forces of Syria attacked a number of police stations close to weapon storehouses of the army in Daif Valley located 290 km. from Damascus. Civilian witnesses reports that huge numbers of dissidents took part in defending the town and attacked patrols and check points operated by the Army.
In the last few weeks, residents say a growing number of army defectors have been defending Maarat al-Numaan and attacking army patrols and roadblocks.The town, on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, has seen regular street protests demanding Assad's removal and raids by security forces to put down the demonstrations.
Activists had called for massive protests on Friday to press countries to expel Syrian ambassadors and further isolate Damascus, which is faced with Western and Arab sanctions.
“They are the ambassadors of crime. Expel them, O free ones,” the Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the main groups behind the protests, said on its Facebook page.
Another umbrella group of activists, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, also called for nationwide protests “until the regime falls.”
Counter-rallies were held in some parts of Damascus, SANA reported, with people taking to the streets to protest against Arab pressure on Syria and foreign intervention in domestic affairs.
Meanwhile the LCC reported that the SANA director in Deir Ezzor, Alaa al-Khodr, “resigned in protest over the regime's actions towards civilians.”
“Khodr taped his mouth shut and wore a sign that said: ‘I am a Syrian journalist’,” the LCC said in a statement received in Nicosia.But SANA denied the report saying Khodr had quit for a university job five months ago.
The authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed armed groups who they say have killed more than 1,100 soldiers and police.
Syria's official news agency said troops carried out a "qualitative operation" in the region, arresting 58 wanted people and seizing rifles and bomb detonators.
Meanwhile,  William Hague, the British foreign minister, announced that he would meet with Syrian opposition representatives in London next week in an intensification of contact with opponents of President Bashar Al-Assad.
The Syrian opposition members would also meet senior aides of David Cameron, the UK prime minister, at his Downing Street office, the foreign ministry said on Friday.
It said that Frances Guy, the former British ambassador to Lebanon, had been appointed to co-ordinate relations with the Syrian opposition.
The delegation would include members of the opposition Syrian National Council and the National Co-ordination Committee for Democratic Change, in meetings expected to take place on Monday, a Foreign Office source said.
"We have been having regular contacts with a variety of figures in the Syrian opposition for several months. We are now intensifying these," the Foreign Office said.
Iran said the suspension was "a historic mistake" and would in itself cause civil war.
"The path the Arab League has taken is completely about defeating Syria from inside and triggering a civil war," Alaaddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's foreign policy committee, said on a visit to Turkey.
The repression against demonstrations that erupted in mid-March has claimed more than 3,500 lives, according to UN estimates.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, called for restraint over the Syria crisis, after talks with his French counterpart who accused President Assad of being deaf to pressure.
“We are calling for restraint and caution. This is our position,” Putin told a news conference, the day after his foreign minister had likened the situation in Syria to a civil war.
Russia has accused the Syrian opposition of stoking the unrest in the country, a position that has irked the West which wants Moscow to join unequivocal international pressure against Assad.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon issued a sterner statement against Damascus, saying Assad was ignoring international calls for reforms and an end to the lethal crackdown on demonstrators.
“We consider that the situation is becoming more and more dramatic. Bashar al-Assad has stayed deaf to the calls of the international community and has not followed up reform promises and the massacres are continuing,” Fillon said, according to AFP.
“We think that it is indispensable to increase international pressure and we have tabled a resolution at the United Nations. We hope it will find as wide support as possible,” he added.
Diplomats from Germany, France and Britain tabled a resolution condemning human rights abuses by the Syrian government at the U.N. General Assembly’s human rights committee on Thursday for a vote expected next Tuesday, officials said.
Success could increase pressure on the U.N. Security Council to act over the Syria crisis. Russia and China last month vetoed a council resolution condemning the deadly crackdown by Assad’s forces.
Putin’s call for restraint came after he was asked by a reporter whether Russia would support a U.N. resolution condemning the Syrian regime, but it was unclear if his answer referred directly to this.
But Putin emphasized that Russia was ready to work with the international community.
“We are not intending to neglect the opinion of our partners and we will cooperate with everyone,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday the attack by Syrian army defectors on a Damascus military intelligence base this week resembled a civil war and urged the world to pressure the opposition as well as the regime.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, warned on Friday of the possibility of a civil war in Syria that either is directed or influenced by Syrian army defectors.
"I think there could be a civil war with a very determined and well-armed and eventually well-financed opposition that is, if not directed by, certainly influenced by defectors from the army," Clinton told the US network NBC.
"We're already seeing that, something that we hate to see because we are in favour of a peaceful ... protest and non-violent opposition."