Dawn crackdown in Syria after nine protesters killed

Syrian security forces made dawn arrests on Saturday as mourners prepared to bury the first of at least nine people killed in anti-government protests on the Muslim day of rest, rights activists said.

The arrests came in the tribal region around the town of Daraa, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, which has been one of the main centers of more than two weeks of demonstrations.

A 20-year-old who was killed by security forces during a protest in Sanamein, just outside Daraa, was to be buried in nearby Inkhel, a human rights activist said.

He was one among as many as three people killed during the Friday protest in the village. The official SANA news agency a soldier was also seriously wounded in Daraa itself when young men tried to snatch his weapon.

Ahead of the funeral, security forces carried out a series of raids in the area, another activist said.

Funerals were also expected to be held later in the town of Douma, just north of Damascus, for eight people killed when police opened fire on worshippers who pelted them with stones as they left the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday, a witness told AFP by telephone.

"Dozens more were wounded or detained," the witness added.

"Armed groups"

An official source said via state news agency SANA "armed groups" had positioned themselves on rooftops and opened fire on citizens and security forces gathered in Douma, killing and wounding dozens.

Activists said Syrians took to the streets after Friday prayers in the capital Damascus, Homs to the north of the capital, Banias on the coast, Latakia port and the southern city of Deraa, where the unprecedented protests challenging Assad's 11 years in power began in March.

The United States applauded what it called the courage and dignity of demonstrators in Syria.

We condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens demonstrating in Syria, and applaud the courage and dignity of the Syrian people," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

Protests also took place for the first time in Qamishli and Amuda in the mainly Kurdish populated northeast, Kurdish rights activist Radif Mustafa told AFP.

"There is no confidence"

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.

Instead, he said there was a "conspiracy" targeting Syrian unity.

"There is no confidence. President Assad talks about reform and does nothing," said Montaha al-Atrash, board member of the independent Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah.

Assad, who became president after his father Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, had predicted the popular revolts seen in Tunisia and Egypt would not spread to Syria, saying the ruling hierarchy was "very closely linked to the beliefs of the people".

But for the past two weeks thousands of Syrians have turned out demanding greater freedoms in the tightly controlled Arab state, posing the gravest challenge to almost 50 years of monolithic Baath Party rule.

Assad blamed Syria's "enemies" for inciting sectarian divisions in the country ruled by emergency law since the Baath party seized power in 1963.

The Syrian Revolution 2011, a wildly popular yet anonymous Facebook group that has emerged as a driving force of the protests, had called for rallies after Friday prayers.

Government-appointed preachers denounced "acts of turmoil" which they said had been "provoked from the outside and had targeted the nation's security".

On Thursday Assad 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.

Assad also ordered an investigation into 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 earlier said security forces had arrested two armed groups that opened fire and attacked citizens in a Damascus suburb.

Assad also 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.

Activists estimate that more than 160 people have been killed so far in clashes with security forces, mainly in Daraa, and in Latakia, while officials put the death toll at about 30.