The following video, received a few minutes ago, show Syrian soldiers fraternizing with protestors in South Syria, Near Deraa. Soldiers took away the checkpoints seperating neighbouring villages and stood watching on their tanks.
Such a development could signal the collapse of the Assad regime if it spreads.
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Syrians protest anew after Assad reform gesture
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Hundreds of Syrian protesters marched in several cities on Friday, rejecting a limited reform gesture by President Bashar al-Assad, and security forces beat demonstrators outside a Damascus mosque, witnesses said.
Civic activists told Reuters that protests broke out in the capital Damascus, Banias and the port city of Latakia against Assad’s authoritarian rule after he stopped short of a clear commitment to meet popular demands for more freedoms.
Two weeks of unprecedented unrest in the tightly controlled Arab state, under monolithic Baath Party rule for almost 50 years, has left at least 61 people over the past two weeks.
Security forces and Assad loyalists attacked protesters with batons as they left the Rifaii mosque in the Kfar Sousseh district of Damascus after Friday prayers, a witness said.
At least six protesters were arrested and dozens where beaten as they made their way out of the mosque, the witness told Reuters by telephone from the mosque complex.
Residents said police also fired tear gas at protesters in the Damascus suburb of Douma.
Around 200 worshippers chanted slogans in support of the southern city of Deraa where the unrest kindled by pro-democracy uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world first erupted.
Online democracy activists had called for protests across Syria on “Martyrs’ Friday”, after a spate of pro-democracy demonstrations challenging Assad’s 11 years in power.
Activists said security forces and Assad loyalists had earlier gathered in force around the mosques where protests resumed after Friday prayers.
In his first public appearance since the demonstrations began, Assad declined on Wednesday to spell out any reforms, especially the lifting of a 48-year-old emergency law that has been used to stifle opposition and justify arbitrary arrests.
On Thursday he ordered the creation of a panel that would draft anti-terrorism legislation to replace emergency law, a move critics have dismissed, saying they expect the new legislation will give the state much of the same powers.
SYRIA INVESTIGATING DEATHS
Assad also formed a panel tasked with investigating the deaths of civilians and security forces in Deraa and in Latakia, where clashes that authorities blamed on “armed gangs” occurred last week, killing 12 people, according to officials.
The Syrian News Agency said security forces had arrested two armed groups that opened fire and attacked citizens in a Damascus suburb. It did not say how many people were detained.
Ethnic Kurds, who complain of discrimination and make up 10-15 percent of Syria’s population of 20 million, mounted violent demonstrations against the state in 2004 that resulted in scores of deaths.
Assad on Thursday formed a panel to “solve the problem of the 1962 census” in the eastern region of al-Hasaka. The census resulted in 150,000 Kurds who now live in Syria being denied nationality.
Western powers have largely muted kept their criticism of Syria, which they have been trying to coax out of its anti-Israeli alliance with Iran and support for militant movements Hezbollah and Hamas.
Before Friday’s protests, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for restraint from the Syrian security forces.
“I believe it is important for the Syrian government to address the legitimate demands of the Syrian people. I call for serious political reforms to be brought forward and implemented without delay,” he said on Thursday.”
The United States, which has criticized Assad’s speech for lacking substance, advised its citizens to put off non-essential travel to Syria and urged those in the country to consider leaving because of the unrest.