DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces killed at least 13 people on Friday, activists said, as President Bashar al-Assad's regime accused the US envoy of inciting violence in Hama, where nearly half a million people protested.
Opposition activists reported five deaths in the central city of Homs, two in the capital's commercial neighbourhood Medan and six in the area of Dmeir, east of Damascus.
In Homs, "at least five people were killed in the Al-Khalidya neighbourhood by security forces who opened fire against demonstrators," said Abdel Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for Human Rights.
"Security forces shot dead two demonstrators in the neighbourhood of Medan in Damascus."
London-based Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said six people were killed in the Dmeir area and that at least 24 people had been injured in Homs, some of them gravely.
Abdel Rahman said a record 450,000 Syrians rallied after Friday prayers in Hama under the banner "No to dialogue" with Assad's regime and called for its fall.
Both US envoy Robert Ford and French Ambassador Eric Chevallier visited the city on Thursday.
"The US ambassador met with saboteurs in Hama who erected checkpoints, cut traffic and prevented citizens from going to work," an interior ministry statement said.
The foreign ministry called Ford's presence in Hama "obvious proof of the implication of the United States in the ongoing events, and of their attempts to increase (tensions), which damage Syria's security and stability."
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said she was "dismayed" by such criticism and stressed that Syrian authorities knew of the visit in advance.
The ambassador met "average Syrian citizens" and "certainly did not incite anyone to anything," US embassy press attache JJ Harder told AFP.
Harder also took issue with Syrian government claims that armed gangs are the problem in Hama -- where activists say regime forces have killed 25 people since Tuesday -- stressing that Ford "saw no evidence of this."
In Paris, foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Chevallier went to Hama "to show France's engagement with the victims, the civilian population.
"France repeats its concern over the fate of the inhabitants of the city of Hama, and its condemnation of the violence being carried out by Syrian authorities against the protesters and the civilian population."
State news agency SANA said that "tens of thousands of people" marched in Damascus, Aleppo in the north and Deir Ezzor in the east, against foreign intervention and to show their support for Assad's reform programme.
State television, meanwhile, broadcast footage of pro-regime rallies centred on Bab Tuma -- a predominantly Christian neighbourhood of the capital's walled Old City.
Elsewhere, security forces used live rounds against anti-regime protesters in the coastal city of Banias.
"Protesters left the mosques in the southern districts of the city and dozens were arrested," Abdel Rahman said.
Further north on the coast, in Latakia, more than 1,000 protesters were dispersed as they left Al-Rahman mosque, an activist there told AFP.
"Armed security services came in more than 20 cars, dispersed the protesters and arrested some of them," the activist said.
In Aleppo, a regime stronghold, "thousands of people rallied at Seif al-Dawla and Salheddine. They were attacked by security forces and a pro-regime militia," a witness told AFP.
Protests also took place in Saqba and Jdeidet Artuz, while 7,000 protesters filed through Qatana north of Damascus, activists said.
In the northern town of Raqqa, "security forces fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse protesters, at least one of whom was hurt," said an activist who requested anonymity.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011
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