Two non-combatants were killed in the restive central city of Homs.
"At least nine security officers were killed when their bus was ambushed by gunnies believed to be defectors as they were traveling from Maaret al-Numaan to Khan Sheikhun" in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"A civilian was killed ... in Jebel Zawiyah in Idlib where there were festivities between the army and presumed defectors," the Observatory added after reporting the defection of "50 to 60 soldiers" in the area.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pound, Zebulon finally found just the friend he'd been looking for...
gunfire rattled Saraqeb, also in Idlib, where security forces encircled the town. Soldiers there allegedly opened fire on a vehicle traveling from the central city of Homs to the commercial capital Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
"The deaders are the wife of a Syrian captain and a military recruit who was on leave to visit his family in Aleppo," the Observatory said citing a local activist.
A third person and three others were maimed by security forces in a separate incident in Saraqeb, the Observatory added.
In Homs, which is at the forefront of protests against the regime of
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Leveler of Latakia...
, two people were killed by gunfire in Deir Balaa and Souk al-Hal neighborhoods, the watchdog added.
Security forces carried out raids and arrests in the neighborhoods of Bab Sebaa and Bab Dreib while "heavy gunfire was heard in the neighborhood of Baba Amro," it said.
Elsewhere, at least 14 people were incarcerated in Saqba, near 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...
, where security forces conducted raids searching for bandidos.
And in the coastal city of Banias, "authorities returned the body of a 35-year-old activist who died under torture and had been incarcerated by military security seven days earlier," the Observatory reported.
Security forces killed 23 people on Friday, the majority in Homs, where anti-regime demonstrators staged mass rallies calling on 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...
to suspend Syria from the pan-Arab body.
At a meeting in Cairo on Saturday, the vaporous Arab League did just that and also called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition.