A child was among five people killed when troops and security forces opened fire during search operations in the Sarmin district of the northwest province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
One person died when part of his home was leveled as Syrian forces raked houses in Sarmin with heavy machine-gun fire, the head of the Britannia-based Observatory, Rami Abdul Rahman, said.
At least 60 people were also maimed in Sarmin and six houses were partly destroyed, he told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone.
A sixth person was killed when security forces raided his home at dawn in the town of Qara outside Damascus
...The
City of Jasminis the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
during an arrest operation, the Local Coordination Committees reported.
Around 10 trucks and armored vehicles entered Qara, said the group which organizes anti-regime protests and has cut-throats on the ground across Syria. It said some 40 people whose names were on a "wanted list" were jugged.
Meanwhile,
...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase...
troops backed by tanks and personnel carriers early on Monday stormed the village of Heet, two kilometers from the border with Leb, south of the central city of Homs, Abdul Rahman said.
"There has been high intensity gunfire since 9:00 am (0600 GMT)," he told AFP, adding that at least five people were maimed and 13 were nabbed.
"The homes of activists wanted by the authorities were torched," he added.
Activists also reported six people killed by security forces on Sunday.
Earlier this month, U.N. Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
said that Syrian
President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
told him in a telephone conversation that he had halted military operations against protesters.
But the U.N. chief a week ago said Assad had failed to keep his promise.
"It is troubling that he has not kept his word," Ban told news hounds.
"This is what he clearly told me when I had telephone talks with him," Ban said.
"Many world leaders have been speaking to him to halt immediately military operations, killing his own people. He should do that."
More than 2,200 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's crackdown on pro-democracy protests since mid-March, according to the United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone....
The Syrian regime, which insists it is confronting "armed terrorist gangs," came under harsh criticism at the weekend from the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
, of which it is a member, and from its neighbor Turkey.
Early on Sunday, the vaporous Arab League announced plans in a statement to send its chief Nabil al-Arabi to Damascus with a peace initiative to help solve the crisis, urging Syria to "follow the way of reason before it is too late."
League foreign ministers also called in a statement for respecting "the right of the Syrian people to live in security and of their legitimate aspirations for political and social reforms."
Syria rejected the calls, and in a diplomatic note seen by AFP said the declaration was issued "despite the meeting having closed with an agreement that no statement would be published or statement made to the press."
Damascus would act as if it had never been published and considered that the Arab League statement contained "unacceptable and biased language."
Turkish President Abdullah Gul, quoted by Anatolia news agency on Sunday, said "we lost our confidence" in the Syrian regime. "Today in the world there is no place for authoritarian administrations."