Syrians swamped streets in nationwide protests

The US criticised the Syrian regime's incoherence Syrians swamped streets in nationwide protests on Friday seeking to unseat President Bashar al-Asad, activists said after the United States warned time is running out for his embattled regime .
"Tens of thousands of protesters headed towards Deir Ezzor's Freedom Square upon leaving the mosques" after the main weekly Muslim prayers, Abdel-Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for Human Rights, told AFP.
In the central city of Homs, "nine protesters were injured by gunfire from security forces" in their efforts to disperse demonstrations in three districts, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Army tanks entered the district of Baba Amr" in Homs, he added.
Abdel Rahman said security forces had killed three civilians in the northwestern region of Jabal al-Zawiyah late on Thursday, as explosions were heard in the coastal city of Latakia.
In Jabal al-Zawiyah, which has been the theatre of army operations since Tuesday, "tens of thousands of people started to march from the village towards Maaret al-Numan" on Friday, he told AFP.
Elsewhere in Hama, 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of Damascus, "more than 200,000 protesters gathered in Al-Assi Square", an activist told AFP by telephone.
Before people began pouring out of mosques for the protests, Clinton on Friday criticised the regime's incoherence in authorising an opposition meeting while stifling dissent.
"Allowing one meeting of the opposition in Damascus is not sufficient," Clinton told reporters on a visit to Lithuania Friday morning.
"I'm just hurt by recent reports of continuing violence on the border and in Aleppo, where demonstrators have been beaten, attacked with knives by government-organised groups and security forces," Clinton said.
"It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time. There isn't any question about that," she added.
Friday's protests followed a call from a Facebook group for people to take to the streets across the nation.
The Syrian Revolution 2011 group called on people to rally after the weekly prayers, branding July 1 "the Friday of departure" and saying in a message to Assad: "We don't love you ... Go away, you and your party."
Hundreds of protesters in Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub, were beaten back on Thursday by baton-wielding security forces, activists said.
And an activist said on condition of anonymity that "explosions were heard Friday in the Latakia district of Raml al-Shamali," without elaborating.
Meanwhile, night-time demonstrations were held in Idlib, Banias and Homs, where shots were heard, activists said.
In the northwest, "one woman was shot dead by a sniper while a man died under gunfire from security forces in Al-Bara Thursday night. A third person died in the neighbouring village of Brim," said Abdel Rahman.About 60 tanks and 100 armoured personnel carriers entered two villages in the countryside of Idlib province, he said.
Abdel Rahman said "heavy gunfire rang out" as soldiers stormed Al-Bara "probably to terrorise" residents to stay indoors, before moving to the villages of Kafr Nabl and Kansafra.
After the operation, villagers fled Al-Bara and the nearby villages of Al-Rami, Mar-Ayan and Kafr Haya, "heading south and west," Abdel Rahman said.
Ten civilians had been shot dead by troops on Wednesday in villages in Jabal al-Zawiyah district.
On Thursday, the opposition also turned up the heat on Assad, announcing the creation of a "national coordination committee" of exiled dissidents and opponents at home to push for democratic reforms.
The announcement came after about 160 dissidents, several of whom have spent years in jail, gathered in Damascus earlier in the week, vowing to press ahead with a peaceful uprising.
The crackdown comes in defiance of repeated global condemnation and warnings from Western powers to Syria to show restraint and despite new US sanctions against regime pillars and Syria's ally Iran.
The Observatory says 1,353 civilians have been killed since mid-March and that 343 security force personnel have also died. Thousands have been arrested.
However, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Vienna on Thursday the alliance would not take action despite the crackdown.
"We have no plan to intervene in Syria," he said.
"Having said that I strongly condemn the behaviour of the security forces and the crackdown on the civil population," Rasmussen added.