Bloodshed in cities across the country prompts protesters to redouble calls for end to president Bashar al-Assad's rule.
Hugh Macleod and a special correspondent
Al-Jazeera
"Weeping over his Quran, the imam of the al-Rahman mosque in Hajjar al-Aswad, a poor neighbourhood near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern edge of Damascus, the Syrian capital, led evening prayers for the dead.
Six young men from the neighbourhood had been shot and killed by Syrian security forces, one of them Imam Abu Bilal's 22-year-old son.
His eyes black with rage, the imam vowed to bring thousand of supporters on to the streets to rally against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the president, when, like up to 100 other Syrian families on Saturday, he buries his dead.
"It started with 200 to 300 young men demonstrating in front of the police station," said Omar, a shopkeeper from the neighbourhood.
"Then the mosque told us the names of six people killed and within half an hour all the residents of Hajjar al-Aswad were on the street.
"All the young men, all the women, all the teenagers. We are a tribal society here."
The largest day of protests in a five-week uprising against the Syrian regime was also the most widespread, with the blood of citizens killed by plain clothes security and military spilled on the streets of the capital for the first time......
'Arabs and Kurds are brothers'
As they had on previous Fridays, the protests began in the northeast, home to the majority of Syria's Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in the country.
Earlier this month, al-Assad tried to win support among this long-hostile demographic by restoring citizenship to up to 300,000 stateless Kurds.
But for at least one of the up to 8,000 mainly Kurdish demonstrators who took to the streets of Qamishli and Amouda chanting "Syrian people are one" and holding banners declaring "Arabs and Kurds are brothers", the concession meant little......
Bloodshed in the capital
It was the towns and suburbs around Damascus that saw the most killing, bringing bloodshed and chaos crashing in on the peace and quiet many in the capital had hoped would not be disturbed....."
Hugh Macleod and a special correspondent
Al-Jazeera
"Weeping over his Quran, the imam of the al-Rahman mosque in Hajjar al-Aswad, a poor neighbourhood near the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern edge of Damascus, the Syrian capital, led evening prayers for the dead.
Six young men from the neighbourhood had been shot and killed by Syrian security forces, one of them Imam Abu Bilal's 22-year-old son.
His eyes black with rage, the imam vowed to bring thousand of supporters on to the streets to rally against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the president, when, like up to 100 other Syrian families on Saturday, he buries his dead.
"It started with 200 to 300 young men demonstrating in front of the police station," said Omar, a shopkeeper from the neighbourhood.
"Then the mosque told us the names of six people killed and within half an hour all the residents of Hajjar al-Aswad were on the street.
"All the young men, all the women, all the teenagers. We are a tribal society here."
The largest day of protests in a five-week uprising against the Syrian regime was also the most widespread, with the blood of citizens killed by plain clothes security and military spilled on the streets of the capital for the first time......
'Arabs and Kurds are brothers'
As they had on previous Fridays, the protests began in the northeast, home to the majority of Syria's Kurds, the largest ethnic minority in the country.
Earlier this month, al-Assad tried to win support among this long-hostile demographic by restoring citizenship to up to 300,000 stateless Kurds.
But for at least one of the up to 8,000 mainly Kurdish demonstrators who took to the streets of Qamishli and Amouda chanting "Syrian people are one" and holding banners declaring "Arabs and Kurds are brothers", the concession meant little......
Bloodshed in the capital
It was the towns and suburbs around Damascus that saw the most killing, bringing bloodshed and chaos crashing in on the peace and quiet many in the capital had hoped would not be disturbed....."
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