DAMASCUS: At least one protester was shot dead in Syria on Friday despite an order from President Bashar Al-Assad for security forces not to open fire on demonstrators, rights activists said.
Activist Nawar Al-Omar said Fuad Rajab, 40, was hit by a bullet to the head when security forces fired to break up a demonstration in the central city of Homs.
And in the southern flashpoint town of Daraa, security forces fired warning shots to disperse thousands of anti-regime demonstrators, another activist said.
The gunfire erupted as thousands of demonstrators took to Daraa’s streets after weekly Muslim prayers, said the activist in the town that was the scene of a massive 10-day military operation that ended last week.
In the Damascus suburb of Saqba, troops deployed in the streets and tore down anti-regime banners, activists told AFP.
After several days of sweeping arrests in protest hot spots, soldiers and security services were deployed in a massive show of force for the latest showdown with demonstrators across Syria on the Muslim weekly day of prayers.
A protests was also stated in the Kurdish majority northeastern city of Qamishli, activists said.
Louai Hussein, a writer and leading activist, said earlier the protests would go ahead as planned following midday prayers in mosques, after Assad’s office promised him that security forces would not shoot at demonstrators.
In a message posted on his Facebook page, Hussein said senior Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban had "told me during a telephone conversation that strict presidential orders were given not to fire on the demonstrators."
"All of those who violate these orders will assume full responsibility," he quoted Shaaban as saying.
The activist went on to call for "peaceful protests, regardless of the behavior of the security services."
Meanwhile, Shaaban announced that the regime planned to start "a national dialogue" on topics including political pluralism, elections and the media next week with Hussein and other activists, according to Al-Watan, a daily close to the regime.
The Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group that has been a driving force behind the protests, called for a "Free Women Friday" in support of arrested women demonstrators.
Four women were killed during protests on May 7. Several more have been arrested, particularly in Damascus and the Mediterranean coastal city of Banias, where they marched calling for the release of detained relatives, activists said.
Russia cautioned earlier against foreign intervention in Syria that could repeat the "Libya scenario," after the United States warned that Assad’s regime would face more international pressure over its bloody crackdown on protests.
Syria, one of the most autocratic countries in the Middle East, has been rocked by two months of unprecedented popular protests inspired by revolts that ousted strongmen in Tunisia and Egypt.
Up to 850 people have been killed and at least 8,000 arrested since the protest movement emerged in mid-March, human rights groups say.
The regime has routinely blamed the deadly violence on "armed terrorist gangs."
On Thursday, troops and security agents pressed on with the crackdown, rounding up opposition leaders, rights watchdogs said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of people were detained in Banias and the neighboring villages of Al-Beyda and Al-Qariri.
Lawyer Jalal Kindo was among those held in the city, where security forces have been hunting down dissidents and protest organizers, the London-based group said.
Activists, journalists, and intellectuals were also detained in Damascus and the cities of Aleppo and Latakia, as well as smaller protest centers.
