Syria forces kill five protesters

Syrian security forces shot dead five protesters and wounded scores more on Friday, witnesses said, in a widening crackdown on unrest that has sent thousands of civilians fleeing into Turkey this week.

                        The Syrian army also swept in on the northwest border town of Jisr al-Shughour on Friday to seize ‘armed’ opponents, state television said, as protests erupted anew around the country despite Bashar al-Assad’s increasing resort to armed repression.
                         ‘There was a demonstration of 1,000 people when the security police fired from their cars,’ a resident of Busra al-Harir said, giving the names of the dead as Adnan al-Hariri and Abdelmuttaleb al-Hariri.
However, state television said unidentified gunmen killed a member of the security forces and a civilian in Busra al-Harir.
                       Syria has barred most independent media from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts of the bloodshed.
                          Witnesses said by telephone that some of the protesters shot by security forces in Deraa — including two who were hit in the head and chest — were hurriedly carried by youths to a nearby makeshift clinic.
                         A Turkish newspaper said Ankara was looking into creating a buffer zone along the border as a contingency if hundreds of thousands of Syrians wound up fleeing the military campaign to stamp out protests against 41 years of Assad family rule.
                       Syrian authorities said that ‘armed gangs’ killed more than 120 security personnel in Jisr al-Shughour, a town of 50,000.
But rights campaigners said scores of civilians were killed after some security forces refused to fire at protesters and fighting broke out between loyalist and mutinous soldiers.
                     Rights groups say over 1,100 civilians have been killed since March in the anti-Assad revolt. Fifty-seven wounded Syrians from the Jisr al-Shughour area were receiving hospital treatment in Turkey, state-run Anatolian news agency said.
‘Our correspondent in Jisr al-Shughour told us now that in response to people’s calls, units from the Syrian Arabic Army started its duties in Jisr al-Shughour ... to arrest armed members,’ a state television announcer said.