“A 15-year-old minor was killed and three people were wounded by security forces during raids” in Dael, a protest hub near the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

On Wednesday, more than 5,000 people Dael called for the fall of the regime of President Bashar Assad, the Observatory said, adding that 23 people were arrested there. In the central region of Homs, another hotbed of dissent, two civilians were killed, one shot by sniper fire, a statement from the Britain-based watchdog said.

Further north, in Hama, five civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed by heavy machine gun fire as the army and gunmen believed to be deserters, the Observatory said.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network spurring protests on the ground, said security forces entered several towns to the east of Damascus looking for people “on the basis of lists.”

State TV, meanwhile, broadcast images of a huge pro-Assad rally in the coastal city of Latakia, saying that showed people’s support for (Assad’s) reform program and their rejection of foreign interference.

In a region bordering northern Lebanon, Syrian troops were seen planting mines in the early morning in an apparent bid to stop weapons smuggling along the porous border, a local Lebanese official told AFP.

He said the troops began planting the mines at dawn in an area facing two Lebanese villages — Knaysseh and Al-Hnayder. “A number of Syrian soldiers were also seen deploying on their side of the border, near the Syrian villages of Heet and Buwayt,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The area is separated only by mounds of earth and for long has been used to smuggle goods between the two countries.

On the diplomatic front, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem held talks with China’s special envoy for the Middle East, who reaffirmed his country’s opposition to foreign interference in Syria, Syria’s official news agency said.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Syrians held a mass rally Thursday in support of Assad. The demonstration in the coastal city of Latakia came one day after a similar pro-regime rally in the capital, Damascus, as authorities try to galvanize supporters in the face of a seven-month uprising against Assad.

Assad’s main bases of support include Syrians who have benefited financially from the regime, minority groups who feel they will be targeted if the Sunni majority takes over, and others who see no clear and safe alternative to Assad. For the most part, the military, a key factor, has remained loyal to Assad

On Thursday, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw acknowledged Damascus was having difficulty selling its oil after the European Union banned oil imports from Syria.

Syria was exporting some 140,000 barrels of oil per day, most of it bound for the European Union. The EU says that Syria earned euro 3.1 billion ($4.35 billion) by selling oil to the EU in 2010.

Allaw said discussions are under way with more than 50 international companies to export the Syrian crude oil, but finding tankers to ship the oil was a challenge.