Sunday Syria violence 'killed 40'

The head of Syria's military police has defected from the army and declared allegiance to the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to a video and a Syrian security source.

Syria's government on Tuesday accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time, but the opposition denied the claim, saying instead that government forces might have used banned weapons. "Terrorists fired rockets containing chemical materials on Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province," the state news agency SANA and Syrian state television said.

Syrian rebels on Sunday launched a surprise dawn attack on Baba Amr, a former rebel stronghold in the central city of Homs, a year after it was taken by the army in a bloody battle, a monitoring group said. "At dawn, the rebels launched a surprise attack on Baba Amr, which they have entered," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman, who was in contact with the rebels, told AFP.

Syrian rebels on Sunday launched a surprise dawn attack on Baba Amr, a former rebel stronghold in the central city of Homs, a year after it was taken by the army in a bloody battle, a monitoring group said. "At dawn, the rebels launched a surprise attack on Baba Amr, which they have entered," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman, who was in contact with the rebels, told AFP.

Syrian security forces shot dead two anti-government protesters near Damascus and deployed tanks in a town near the Turkish border, activists said on Monday."Two demonstrators were killed and eight wounded on Sunday night as security forces opened fire to disperse a protest in Hajar Aswad," a community in Damascus province, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Activists said another eight people were wounded early on Monday in an army operation in Idlib province, northwest Syria.

The Syrian army pressed a crackdown on dissent in the northwest on Sunday making sweeping arrests, as troops deployed in the hotbed central city of Hama, an activist said.Troops backed by 97 tanks and personnel carriers advanced late Saturday on Kfar Rumma village and made arrests in the district of Jabal al-Zawiyah, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Abdel Rahman told AFP in Nicosia that the troops moved to the outskirts of Kfar Rumma but did not enter it as residents tried to block them.

Syrian army tanks rolled into more northwestern villages on Wednesday, as hundreds of lawyers staged a sit-in protest in the second city of Aleppo, a human rights activist said."Tanks and troop carriers entered the villages of Mar-Ayan and Ihsem. They are currently at the outskirts of Al-Bara," a hamlet known for its Roman remains, said Rami Abdel Rahman."The soldiers are deployed in the villages and are conducting searches," Adbel Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP in Nicosia on the telephone.

Syrian forces opened fire on protesters in the western city of Banias Friday, causing casualties, a rights activist said, adding that demonstrations were being staged in several places across the country after the weekly Muslim main prayers."There was intense firing to disperse the demonstrations in Banias and there were casualties" among the protesters, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, told AFP by telephone.