Syrian forces fire at protests despite Assad pledge

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad opened fire to disperse protests demanding his removal on Friday despite assurances that he had ended the crackdown on the five-month uprising

Activists say the shooting occurred in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and the southern Hauran Plain, where five people were reported wounded, as demonstrations erupted across the country.
The main midday Muslim prayers held on Friday have been a launch pad for huge rallies across Syria and have seen some of the heaviest bloodshed, with 20 people killed last week in defiant protests chanting: "We kneel only to God".
Assad, from the minority Alawite sect in the majority Sunni Muslim nation, told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week that military and police operations had stopped.
But activists said two protesters were killed in Homs and a town northeast of Damascus on Thursday night and security forces fired machine guns in Hama to prevent a demonstration.
Similar attacks occurred in the Houla Plain north of Homs and in the town of Qusair on the Lebanese border, it said.
"Maybe Bashar al-Assad does not regard police as security forces," said a witness in Hama, one of four big cities which bore the brunt of an escalated military crackdown this month in which activists say scores of people have been killed.
Syria has expelled most independent media since the unrest began, making it difficult to verify reports from the country.
But Internet footage of Friday's protests suggested that although widespread they were smaller than at their peak in July, before Assad sent tanks and troops into several cities.
A doctor in Zabadani, 30 km (20 miles) northeast of Damascus, said army vehicles were in the town and snipers were on the roof to prevent crowds marching. A resident of Banias also reported an "unprecedented security presence".
Protesters from Syria's Sunni majority resent the power and wealth amassed by some Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and want Assad to quit, the dismantling of the security apparatus and the introduction of sweeping reforms.
The violent repression prompted coordinated calls from the United States and European Union on Thursday for Assad to step down and Washington imposed sweeping new sanctions on Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon and Iraq and is an ally of Iran.
There is no immediate obvious alternative leader to Assad although the disparate opposition, persecuted for decades, has gained a fresh sense of purpose as popular disaffection has spread across the country.
U.S. President Barack Obama ordered Syrian government assets in the United States frozen, banned U.S. citizens from operating or investing in Syria and prohibited U.S. imports of Syrian oil products.
"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way," Obama said. "His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."
Diplomats said the European Union could decided to toughen sanctions to match the U.S. measures, including a ban on oil imports. Syria exports over one third of its 385,000 barrels per day oil production to Europe.
Adding to international pressure, U.N. investigators said Assad's forces had committed violations that may amount to crimes against humanity. The United Nations plans to send a team to Syria on Saturday to assess the humanitarian situation.
Simultaneously, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called on Assad to step aside and said the EU was preparing to broaden its own sanctions against Syria.
The United States, Britain and European allies said on Thursday they would draft a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution on Syria.
But Russia, which has resisted Western calls for U.N. sanctions, said on Friday it also opposed calls for Assad to step down and believed he needs time to implement reforms.
"We do not support such calls and believe that it is necessary now to give President Assad's regime time to realise all the reform processes that have been announced," Interfax news agency quoted a foreign ministry source as saying.