Security forces in Syria 'raid homes'

Citizens in Syria's capital woke up early on Sunday to a series of powerful explosions shaking the outskirts of Damascus, sending massive fireballs into the night sky. Preliminary reports that this was an Israeli attack were subsequently confirmed by NBC citing a senior US official who said Israeli jets had bombed a military research center near of Damascus.

The residents of Hama have mobilised to keep out the army from the flashpoint city which has become a centre of the anti-regime revolt in Syria, activists said on Tuesday.The activists, contacted by telephone, said a child was among three people shot dead by security forces on Monday in districts on the outskirts of the city north of Damascus that is home to 800,000 people."Tanks are now posted at access routes to the city except for the northern entrance," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Victims found shot at point-blank range on the banks of Quweiq River in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e- mail. The group said the men were mostly 20-30 years old and had bullet wounds to the head. It said some had their hands tied. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said 80 bodies were recovered from the scene.

Residents of the Syrian city of Hama said they were observing a general strike on Sunday in memory of the dozens of people killed by security forces in a crackdown on pro-democracy protests."We started a three-day strike on Saturday for the fallen martyrs," one resident said by telephone from Hama, about 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of Damascus."Everything is closed, even the supermarkets. People are just walking through the streets," he said, adding that "security forces have withdrawn to the outskirts of the city."

Syria's security forces are pressing a deadly town-by-town crushing of dissent and mass round-up of opposition leaders, according to rights activists, while Washington has slammed the repression as "barbaric".Thousands of students meanwhile defied the crackdown to stage a protest in Syria's second-largest city Aleppo late Wednesday before being dispersed by baton-wielding loyalists and security force personnel, a rights activist said.

Human Rights Watch called on Syria's president to rein in his security forces and stop them from firing on anti-government demonstrators."President Bashar al-Assad should immediately order Syrian security forces to stop using unjustified lethal force against anti-government protesters," the New York-based rights group said in a statement late Tuesday.Citing lists compiled by Syrian rights group, HRW said the number of demonstrators and bystanders killed since protests erupted in Syria mid-March was at least 100.

DJENNE, Mali (AP) — A France-based human rights group is warning about dozens of “summary executions” and other abuses allegedly committed by Malian troops as they counter-attack jihadists holed up in the West African country’s hinterlands. The International Federation for Human Rights, or FIDH by its French acronym, is calling for the creation of an independent commission to look into the crimes and punish those responsible.

At least 16 people have been killed over the last two days in and around the Syrian town of Hama, described by a human rights group as the "latest city to fall victim to President Bashar al-Assad's security forces."