Dozens killed in Syria as protests spread

CAIRO -- The most widespread protests in Syria in decades erupted across cities and towns Friday, prompting a brutal reaction by government forces in which dozens of people were killed, witnesses said.

"The demonstrations are spread across various points in the country," said Najib Gadban, a Syrian human rights activist with a network of contacts throughout the country. "At least 40 people were killed, and the number is rising."

In Dara, the southern city that has served as the epicenter of the weeklong uprising, demonstrators burned a picture of President Bashar Assad and attempted to torch a statue of his father and predecessor, the late Hafez Assad, eyewitnesses said. Government forces fired on them, killing between two and 20 people, according to most accounts. Others died in the coastal city of Latakia, the central city of Homs, and Sanamein in the country's south, witnesses said.

In the capital, Damascus, witnesses said protesters emerged from the Umayyad mosque after Friday prayers shouting, "Freedom, God, Syria!" but were overtaken by security forces.

In the poor suburb of Madamayeh, southwest of Damascus, where a large crowd protested killings of demonstrators earlier this week in Dara, security forces cordoned off the area and several people were killed, witnesses said. Other demonstrators chanted in small pockets throughout the city in favor of the regime led by Bashar Assad.

Meanwhile, the White House urged governments in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain to cease attacks on protesters, while saying fighting in those countries has not risen to the same level as in Libya, The Associated Press reported. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision to intervene in Libya was based not only on the violence that had already occurred there, "but also what was about to occur and the promises made by Gadhafi himself."

The unrest ignited last week when residents of Dara, a city near the Jordanian border, demanded the release of 20 political detainees. Their demands soon swelled to include an end to the government's secret police organization, headed by Assad's cousin.