At the same time, 10 Syrian soldiers and policemen were killed in the central city of Homs by “terrorist” groups, said a military spokesman quoted by state news agency SANA.

European Union ambassadors met in Brussels to fine-tune a range of punitive measures against Syrian official, including an arms embargo and a suspension of aid to Syria.

The ambassadors agreed to impose sanctions on 13 Syrian officials and will look during further talks Monday at whether to also target Assad with an assets freeze and travel ban, diplomats added.

The Syrian rights group, Insan, put the day’s toll at 26 killed but said it expected this to rise.

“Death toll for today is 26,” Insan said in a statement. The toll included 16 protesters killed in the central city of Homs, six in Hama north of Damascus and two in the Mediterranean town of Jableh.

“We have a list of 27 more names. We are verifying at the moment,” the brief statement said.

Rights activist Najati Tayara said security forces opened fire to disperse protests after Friday prayers in the central city, killing eight people and wounding several, some seriously. Tanks entered the industrial city earlier and also rolled into other protest centers across Syria.

“Dozens of people were arrested in several districts of the city during the night between Thursday and Friday,” Tayara said by phone from Homs.

Using loudspeakers, security forces ordered residents who took part in protests to voluntarily go to police stations “to avoid being arrested and punished” and ordered businesses to close and residents to stay indoors, activists said. The Interior Ministry issued a statement Friday urging citizens to refrain from taking part in any protests in a bid “to contribute significantly to stability and security.”

SANA said an “armed criminal group” opened fire on a security checkpoint in Baba Amr in Homs, killing an officer and four policemen,” adding that assailants also mutilated the bodies.

An activist reported six protesters killed in Hama and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a demonstrator died in Syria’s main port of Latakia.

Prominent dissident and former MP Riad Seif, 64, was arrested from his home in Damascus. 

Seif had been imprisoned twice since 2001, serving in total more than seven years in jail, for seeking reforms and constitutional changes in autocratic Syria. Around 9,000 people also rallied in the Kurdish areas of Amuda and Derbassiye in northeast Syria, while thousands took to the streets in the coastal city of Banias, Kafar Nubbol in the north and Al-Bukamal near the border with Iraq, activists said.

Friday’s protests coincided with the Martyrs’ Day public holiday in Syria, which Assad marked by laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Damascus, according to the official news agency SANA. In a concession that failed to dampen the protest movement, Assad decreed an end to five decades of emergency rule on April 21, but his forces have continued to use deadly force and carry out arbitrary detentions.

Security forces killed four protesters in the city of Deir Al-Zor in the country’s main oil producing region, a local tribal leader said.

The deaths were the first in Deir Al-Zor since protests began seven weeks ago. The area produces most of Syria’s 380,000 barrels per day of oil.

Thousands of angry residents gathered for further protests in the city by nightfall, the tribal leader said.