Anti-regime demos rock restive Syria

DAMASCUS/BEIRUT/GENEVA: Syrian troops opened fired on democracy activists yesterday who took to the streets across the country demanding regime change, monitors said, as armed rebels vowed to protect peaceful protests.
International peace mediator Kofi Annan will visit Syria "soon," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Reuters yesterday, in what would be his first visit since he presented his peace plan to Syria's government in early March.
Fawzi declined to give details or specify the date, citing security reasons. Fawzi has repeatedly said that Annan, whose 6-week-old cease-fire plan has failed to stop the violence in Syria, would travel to the country when the time was right.
Separately, Syrian rebels released yesterday Lebanese hostages kidnapped in northern Syria.
Several protesters were wounded gunfire in the town of Houla, in Homs province, where demonstrations also took place in the city itself despite shelling by the army, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The army bombarded Homs's Jobar neighborhood yesterday morning, according to a video posted online, in which strong explosions are heard and a plume of smoke rises into the sky.
Demonstrations were held after Friday's weekly Muslim prayers in various parts of southern Daraa province, birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, with several protesters wounded in Inkhel as they emerged from mosques, the Observatory said.
Protests also took place in several districts of Aleppo, where security forces fired on protesters in the Salaheddin neighborhood in a bid to disperse them, the Observatory said.
In Idlib province, clashes broke out between regime forces and rebel militias, the Britain-based rights watchdog added, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.
In Damascus, protesters gathered at dawn in numerous residential districts in support of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), and calling for Assad's downfall, with loyalist forces firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators marching in the Midane district.
The Observatory said six civilians were killed yesterday. Among them were four people, including three teenagers, who were gunned down in the early morning by regime forces as they guarded their farm in Chizar village, Hama province.
Violence across the country on Thursday, including the shelling of the rebel stronghold of Rastan left at least 34 people dead, including 24 civilians.
The outgoing leader of Syria's largest opposition group charged on Thursday that the deeply divided opposition had failed its people.
Burhan Ghalioun, speaking to AFP after the main opposition Syrian National Council accepted his resignation, said the chasm in its ranks between Islamist and secularists had let down the Syrian people and played into Assad's hands.
"We were not up to the sacrifices of the Syrian people. We did not answer the needs of the revolution enough and quickly enough," Ghalioun said.
"I submitted my resignation precisely to say that this path of division between Islamist and secular doesn't work and I think the Syrian regime has won in that respect because since the beginning it has tried to play on this division," the Paris-based academic added.
Meanwhile, freed Lebanese hostages were on their way to Beirut, Lebanon's prime minister and a cleric who brokered their release said.
The Lebanese were among a group of people returning to Lebanon from Iran on Tuesday when gunmen stopped their bus after it crossed into Syria from Turkey. The kidnapping had triggered protests in areas of Beirut and raised fears it could ignite sectarian conflict in Lebanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati received confirmation from Turkey that the hostages had been released, an aide said.
"The prime minister received a call from (Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet) Davutoglu (saying) the Lebanese hostages in Syria are well and are on their way to Beirut," an aide to Mikati said.
Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Zoaby, the cleric who brokered their release, and Lebanese officials said there were 11 hostages in total, after earlier, conflicting accounts of their numbers.
More than 12,600 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt against Assad's rule broke out in March last year, including nearly 1,500 since the UN-backed truce took effect, according to Observatory figures.
Assad, speaking during talks with a visiting minister from key Middle East ally Iran on Thursday, insisted his government could find a way to end the 14-month uprising against his rule.
"Syria has been able to overcome the pressures and threats it has faced for years and is able to get out of this crisis thanks to the strength of its people and commitment to unity and independence," state media quoted him as saying.
FROM: AGENCIES