Syrian protesters hit streets in Daraa

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(CNN) -- At least 15 people were killed Friday across Syria in widespread anti-government demonstrations, according to reports.

Six people were killed in Latakia, five in Idlib and Maaret al-Nouman, two in the Damascus suburb of Qaboun and two in Basra al-Harir in Daraa province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In the northern town of Maaret al-Nouman, Syrian security forces and helicopters sprayed automatic weapons fire into a crowd of thousands of protesters demonstrating Friday after prayers, killing at least four men, an activist said.

Another group reported a nationwide death toll of 22.

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The Syrian military launched an operation to retake the rebellious border town of Jisr Al-Shugur, located near Turkey, but it was not known how many casualties may have occurred there.

Anti-government marchers have staged nationwide protests on Fridays after Muslim prayers for weeks and have given each one of those days a theme.

Friday's expression of discontent was dubbed "the Friday of the kinship," implying that all Syrians are members of one family. A Facebook page promoting the activism reported demonstrations in Damascus, Qamishli, Tabqa, Deir Ezzor, Abu Kamal, Al-Mayadin, Basira, Qurie, Ras El-Ein and other cities.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on Friday described as "alarming" the reports she was receiving from Syria. "The rights of citizens must be respected, as must the rights and security of journalists. This includes the right to freedom of expression, the need to access information and the ability to communicate. The decision to shut down Internet access and cell phone networks, to block broadcasters and prevent journalists from doing their job is not acceptable."

Citing a promised amnesty and a call for national dialogue by Syrian government officials, Bokova urged "authorities to immediately restore Internet and cell phone services for citizens, to lift restrictions on the media and to prevent acts of aggression against journalists, so that they can report freely on events as is their duty."

A spokesman with the Local Coordination Committees in Syria said there were two demonstrations after noon prayers in Daraa, where 1,000 people gathered in the Al Kousour neighborhood and 3,000 in Tarik Al Sad. Daraa is where anti-government protests began nearly three months ago.

Crowds were chanting for the fall of the regime and in support of the people of Jisr Al Shugur and Hama, where there have been military assaults on protesters. Security forces fired into the air to disperse the protesters, and casualties were reported.

The activist also received reports of two dead in the village of Basra al-Harir, more than 20 miles northeast of Daraa when the security forces randomly opened fire at protesters.

The LCC cited a death toll of 22 protesters countrywide.

Syrian state TV reported an assault on security forces in Qaboun resulting in injuries. It said gatherings in the cities of Ras El-Ein and Amouda were dispersing.

State TV said "armed gangs" in Maaret al-Nouman and Idlib were shooting at security force headquarters and were trying "to repeat the same scenario of Jisr Al-Shugur by setting various public and security forces and police institutions on fire."

The activist, who has provided CNN with reliable information in the past, said the crowd numbered in the tens of thousands when security forces on the streets and an attack helicopter aloft opened fire.

Some demonstrators used their personal weapons, including hunting rifles and AK-47s, to detain a number of members of the security forces when they ran out of ammunition, said the activist, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation. He did not say that demonstrators exchanged fire with the security forces.

CNN cannot independently confirm the activist's report.

As for nearby Jisr Al-Shugur, Syrian refugees and opposition activists who fled the town fearing a government attack said they heard tanks firing cannons as they advanced through villages approaching the town.

The military advance spread panic throughout the civilian population. Residents said they had evacuated women and children from Jisr Al-Shugur in recent days. More than 3,800 Syrian refugees have fled to Turkey and humanitarian workers feared many more were en route.

The Syrian government announced it would punish Jisr Al-Shugur after it said "armed groups" massacred at least 120 security forces there several days ago.

Refugees have disputed that claim. They say some of the soldiers rebelled after being ordered to fire on unarmed protesters and instead started fighting among themselves.

CNN's Nada Husseini contributed to this report

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Syrian army pulling out of Daraa: Report

(CNN) -- The Syrian military began pulling out of the southwestern town of Daraa on Thursday after a mission to "restore security and calm," state TV reported.

Government troops have been battling pro-reform protesters over the past month and a half. The human rights group Amnesty International says more than 500 people were killed during the clashes and thousands more were rounded up for questioning.

"Scores were arrested and huge amounts of up-to-date weapons and ammunition in several places were confiscated, which helped bring back the sense of safety to the residents of the city," a Syrian military source told the SANA news agency about the Daraa mission.

But the international activist group Avaaz said there was little sign of a Syrian withdrawal from Daraa, and warned that remaining Syrian armored units still pose a threat to demonstrators.

Syrian soldiers were gathered on the edges of Banias, a city on Syria's northwest coast, according to a witness who spoke to CNN Thursday.

"The army has deployed more than 30 tanks around Banias and 40 armored vehicles," said Anas Al Shaghri, a 23-year-old Syrian economics student. "We are told that the Syrian army will enter the city just like they did in Daraa any minute."

Citizen protesters are posted at checkpoints leading into Banias in an effort to keep the Syrian military out of the city, Al Shaghri said. "We just carry batons and telephones to film whenever the government thugs and armed security forces attack."

The Syrian military warned the protesters that "if we don't pull out the checkpoints the security forces will break into the city," he said.

But Al Shaghri said the protesters "are not terrorists, nor armed. We are simple a people longing for freedom."

At least 16 people have been arrested and detained in the city over the past three days, he said.

The announcement of the pullout from Daraa came a day after Syrian security forces arrested two people outside the University of Damascus as student demonstrators rallied for the release of political detainees, eyewitnesses told CNN. Army convoys and tanks rolled into the capital city, setting up what the witnesses described as a base in the central square.

"The army knows they cannot pressure the economic situation too much in Damascus. Everyone is trying to go about their work, school and their businesses," one eyewitness activist told CNN.

Amnesty International said it has received firsthand reports of torture and other ill treatment from detainees held in Syria, as a wave of arrests of anti-government protesters intensified over the weekend.

The organization said "widespread, arbitrary arrests" had taken place in towns across the country in recent days. At least 499 people were detained Sunday during house-to-house raids in Daraa, a key location for pro-reform protests, the group said, adding that most were being held at unknown locations without access to lawyers or their families.

The rights group also said it had the names of 54 people killed last Friday, which brought to 542 the number of people killed during a month and a half of protests in Syria. Amnesty International stated in a report that the high number of deaths can be attributed to the tactics used by Syrian security forces.

And in a statement released Thursday, Avaaz said more than 400 people -- including members of prominent families who took part in recent protests -- have been rounded up in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani. The group said 38 of those arrested were released Wednesday "and sent home with instructions to spread the word in their communities of their arrest and torture, as a warning to anyone involved in anti-government activism."

Another 300-plus arrests have been made in Sakba, another Damascus suburb, Avaaz said. CNN could not independently corroborate those reports.

Avaaz said more protests are expected across Syria after Friday prayers.

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Syrian troops take key Daraa mosque, kill 4

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian army troops backed by tanks and three helicopters on Saturday took a prominent mosque that had been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city killing four people, a witness said.

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In this citizen journalism image acquired by the AP, Syrians gather after Friday prayers during an anti-government protest in the coastal city of Banias, Syria.

AP

In this citizen journalism image acquired by the AP, Syrians gather after Friday prayers during an anti-government protest in the coastal city of Banias, Syria.

The operation in the town of Daraa came a day after President Bashar Assad unleashed deadly force to crush a months-old revolt, killing at least 65 people, mostly in the border town.

Daraa resident Abdullah Abazeid said the assault on the mosque lasted 90 minutes during which troops used tank shells and heavy machine guns. Three helicopters took part of the operation dropping paratroopers on to the mosque itself, he said.

The Omari mosque, in Daraa's Roman-era old town, had been under the control of the residents.

Daraa is the heart of a six-week-old uprising against the government and has been under siege since Monday when the government first sent in tanks to crush the daily demonstrations.

Abazeid said that among the dead was Osama Ahmad, the son of the mosque's imam, Sheik Ahmad Sayasna. The other three were a woman and her two daughters who were killed when a tank shell hit their home near the mosque, he said.

In the early hours of the morning, military reinforcements poured into Daraa, including 20 armored personnel carriers, four tanks, and a military ambulance, a resident of the city told The Associated Press.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said 65 people were killed Friday. with 36 deaths in the Daraa province, 27 in the central Homs region, one in Latakia and another in the Damascus countryside. Total civilian deaths since the uprising began has reached 535, he said.

The latest deaths came as the United States slapped three top officials in Assad's regime ? including his brother ? with sanctions and nations agreed to launch a U.N.-led investigation of Syria's crackdown.

An activist said authorities have asked families of some of those killed Friday to hold small funerals attended by family members only. Similar orders were given last week but most people did not abide by them, the activist added.

The move appeared to be an attempt by authorities to avoid more bloodshed, with funerals in the past weeks turned into demonstrations.

A devastating picture is emerging of Daraa ? which has been without electricity, water and telephones since Monday ? as residents flee across the border. The uprising began in Daraa in mid-March, sparked by the arrest of teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall.

Sounds of sporadic gunfire were heard in the city Saturday, mainly from the city center area, another Daraa witness said.

He said for the past week, troops had been allowing women to go out to buy bread, but on Saturday they were stopped.

In the coastal city of Banias, a resident said armed forces had withdrawn from the city center after taking up positions there earlier in the month.

The witnesses' accounts could not be independently verified. All spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.

Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Arab world.

Large demonstrations were reported Friday in the capital of Damascus, the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the northeastern town of Qamishli near the Turkish border.

Syrian TV said Friday that military and police forces came under attack by "armed terrorists" in Daraa and Homs, killing four soldiers and three police officers. Two soldiers were captured but were later rescued by the army, state TV said. The station also said one of its cameramen was injured in Latakia by an armed gang.

The Obama administration hit three top Syrian officials as well as Syria's intelligence agency and Iran's Revolutionary Guard with sanctions over the crackdown.

Meanwhile, diplomats say the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency is setting the stage for potential U.N. Security Council action on Syria as it prepares a report assessing that a Syrian target bombed by Israeli warplanes in 2007 was likely a secretly built nuclear reactor meant to produce plutonium.

Also Friday, nations agreed to launch a U.N.-led investigation of Syria's crackdown, demanding that Damascus halt the violence, release political prisoners and lift media restrictions.

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council said it would ask the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to send a mission to investigate "all alleged violations of international human rights law and to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated."

U.N. officials said the killings may include crimes against humanity.

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