At Least 22 Dead in Syria as Troops Clamp Down in Damascus

Syrian security forces on Sunday killed at least 20 people across the country and flooded a tense neighborhood where a mourner was shot dead in the largest anti-regime rally seen in Damascus, activists said.

Regime troops killed nine people in the restive northwestern province of Idlib, nine in the central protest hub of Homs, one in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and another in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the uprising, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

Protesters seemed to be more emboldened in Damascus after 11 months of revolt which has largely escaped the city.

Although the security deployment thwarted attempts to stage new protests in Mazzeh neighborhood, scene of a Saturday funeral that turned into a huge anti-regime rally, business there ground to a halt, activists said.

Mohammed Shami, a spokesman for activists in Damascus province, said most shops were shut in Mazzeh as well as in the Barzeh, Qaboon, Kfar Sousa and Jubar districts.

Student demonstrations had been expected in Mazzeh but security forces were stationed around schools, Shami said.

"Security forces are heavily deployed throughout Mazzeh," he said.

Another activist, Abu Huzaifa from the Mazzeh Committee, said police forced the family of Samer al-Khatib, 34, who died after being shot in neck during the mass funeral on Saturday, to bury him in a small ceremony earlier than planned, in an apparent move to prevent protests.

In central Damascus shops opened as usual, witnesses said, while state television showed live interviews from Mazzeh with people who claimed life was proceeding normally.

Dib al-Dimashqi, a member of the Syrian Revolution Council based in the capital, told Agence France Presse earlier that "huge demonstrations" were expected, but adding that security forces had imposed a tight clampdown round the city.

"There is a large security presence," he said.

In a message to Damascus residents on the "Syrian Revolution 2011" Facebook page, activists said: "The blood of the martyrs exhorts you to disobedience," after more than 6,000 deaths since anti-regime protests erupted in March, according to activists' estimates.

Meanwhile, the official SANA news agency said a "terrorist group" shot dead prosecutor Nidal Ghazal and judge Mohammed Ziyadeh and their driver in the northwestern province of Idlib on Sunday.

It said that another "terrorist group" on Saturday had killed Jamal Bish, a city councilor in Aleppo.

Security forces on Sunday shot dead a woman when they stormed the town of Sukhna in Homs province as they hunted activists, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

It also said that a man was shot dead at a checkpoint in the northern province of Aleppo.

A lawyer was shot dead as troops stormed the town of al-Ashara in the province of Deir al-Zour, according to the Syrian Observatory.

Regime forces pounded the flashpoint central city of Homs for the 15th straight day, activists said.

Sporadic shelling that targeted the Baba Amr neighborhood in the defiant city of Homs intensified in the afternoon, at the rate of 4-5 rockets a minute, said Hadi Abdullah of the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution.

He said the districts of Bab Sbaa, Bab Dreib and al-Safsafa were being targeted with sporadic shelling.

Abdullah voiced fears of the army being reinforced.

"News has been leaked to us from army officers about a bloody attack that will burn everything in Baba Amr. We were expecting the attack two nights ago, but it could have been just delayed because of the snowstorm," he said.

Saturday's funerals in Damascus were for four people, including two teenagers, killed on Friday when security forces fired on protesters in Mazzeh which houses many government offices and embassies.

"The funerals in Mazzeh turned into protests -- it was the closest major gathering to Omayyad Square" in the city center, Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP.

Shami said that some 15,000 people had turned out despite the snow.

He said the shootings during the funerals, in which many people were wounded, were followed by a "wave of searches and arrests" across the upscale district which is overlooked by the presidential palace.

Activists described demonstrations held on Friday in Damascus as "unprecedented," saying there were 49 in all.

Agnes Levallois, a Paris-based Middle East expert, said the demonstrations in Damascus indicated growing pressure on the government.

"We said from the onset that the day when huge demonstrations will spill out in Damascus and Aleppo, it will be the end of the regime," said Levallois.