Syrian forces kill 6 in mosque attack – residents

DAMASCUS, (Reuters) – Syrian forces killed at least  six people today in an attack on the Omari mosque in the  southern city of Deraa, site of six days of unprecedented  protests challenging Baath Party rule, residents said.
Those killed included Ali Ghassab al-Mahamid, a doctor from  a prominent Deraa family who went to the mosque in the city’s  old quarter to help victims of the attack, residents said.
It was not immediately clear whether the protesters had any  weapons.
The attack, which occurred shortly after midnight, brought  to 10 the number of civilians killed by Syrian forces in  confrontations with protesters calling for political freedoms  and an end to corruption.
It came a day after the U.N. Office for Human Rights said  the authorities “need to put an immediate halt to the excessive  use of force against peaceful protesters, especially the use of  live ammunition”.
The protesters, who erected tents in the mosque’s grounds,  said earlier they were going to remain at the site until their  demands were met.
Before the attack, electricity was cut off in the area and  telephone services were severed.
Cries of “Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest)” erupted across  neighbourhoods in Deraa when the shooting began.
On Tuesday, Vice President Farouq al-Shara said President  Bashar al-Assad was committed to “continue the path of reform  and modernisation in Syria”, Lebanon’s al-Manar television  reported.
A main demand of the protesters is an end to what they term  repression by the secret police, headed in Deraa province by a  cousin of Assad, who faces the biggest challenge to his rule  since succeeding his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000.
Authorities arrested a leading campaigner who had supported  the protesters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It  said Loay Hussein, a political prisoner from 1984 to 1991, was  taken from his home near Damascus.
Syria has been under emergency law since the Baath Party  took power in a 1963, banning any opposition and ushering in  decades of economic retreat characterised by nationalisation.
Assad, who lifted some bans on private enterprise after he  took power, has ignored increasing demands to end emergency law,  curb Syria’s pervasive security apparatus, develop rule of law,  free thousands of political prisoners, allow freedom of  expression, and reveal the fate of tens of thousands of  dissenters who disappeared in the 1980s.