Syrian security forces killed at least 28 protesters Friday as hundreds of thousands flooded the streets nationwide in the largest anti-government demonstrations since the uprising began more than four months ago. In a significant show of the uprising’s strength, thousands of protesters turned out in the capital Damascus, which has been relatively quiet so far. The crowds also took to the streets in areas where the government crackdown has been most intense, a sign that President Bashar Assad’s forces cannot smother the increasingly defiant uprising.
The protests stretched from Damascus and its suburbs to Hasakeh and Idlib provinces in the north, Deraa in the south and Latakia on the coast. Thousands converged on the flashpoint cities of Homs and Hama in central Syria, among other areas across the nation of 22 million.
Friday’s casualties included 17 people in Damascus, six in the Damascus suburbs of Douma and Kadam, three in the northwestern city of Idlib and two in Deraa in the south, according to the Local Coordinating Committees, which have a network of sources on the ground. Activists say the government crackdown on dissent has killed some 1,600 people, most of them unarmed protesters.