REUTERS

BEIRUT/WASHINGTON: Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down Friday as Syrian forces killed at least eight people when they opened fire to disperse anti-government protests in Damascus and Homs, activists said.

Medvedev said Friday that Syrian leaders should relinquish power if they could not carry out promised reforms, but that Western states had no right to intervene, the state-run Russian news agency RIA reported.
“We are using our channels and are actively working with the Syrian leadership. We are demanding that the Syrian leadership implement the necessary reforms,” Medvedev said.

“If the Syrian leadership is incapable of conducting such reforms, it will have to go, but this decision should be taken not in NATO or certain European countries. It should be taken by the Syrian people and the Syrian leadership.”

The remarks were Medvedev’s bluntest warning yet to Assad, whose country has historically close ties with Moscow, one of its main arms suppliers, and hosts a Russian naval maintenance facility on its Mediterranean coast.
Russia has warned it will oppose almost any U.N. resolution condemning Assad.
It refrained from using its Security Council veto in March to obstruct NATO airstrikes in Libya, but Syria appears to be a red line for Moscow.

While Assad has sent troops and tanks to crush protests, he has also pledged reforms. He has ended a state of emergency and given citizenship to tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds. He has also promised a parliamentary election in February.
Many of Assad’s opponents say his reform promises are hollow and that his government has forfeited all legitimacy after killing at least 2,900 civilians, by a U.N. count, with more killings Friday, according to activists.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said eight people were killed by Syrian forces Friday – three in the Damascus suburb of Douma, one in Zabadani near the Lebanese border and four in Bab Sbaa, a district in the central city of Homs.
At least 25 people were wounded, he said, in the latest round in almost seven months of demonstrations seeking more political freedoms. Assad has held autocratic power for 11 years and his late father for three decades before that.

Activists said protesters also came under fire in the eastern tribal region of Deir al-Zor on the border with Iraq and in the city of Hama.
Video footage showed protesters holding banners urging the international community to protect civilians.
Some chanted, “Syria, Assad is a germ here,” and, “We do not love you [Assad]. Leave, you and your party.”

An activist told Al-Jazeera television that protesters had burned the flags of Russia and China for blocking a European-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution urging Syria to end its six-month crackdown on protesters.
In the east of the country four gunmen shot dead prominent Kurdish opposition figure Mishaal al-Tammo and wounded his son, Abdel-Rahman said.

It was not clear who was behind the attack. Tammo, a charismatic figure who was released from jail earlier this year, was a critic of Assad who had also angered powerful Kurdish parties because of his criticism of Kurdish rivals.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department accused the Syria government Friday of escalating acts of intimidation against prominent opposition leaders.

Pro-government gangs recently attacked two opposition activists on the street during daylight hours, stepping up a violent campaign against opposition leaders that has largely taken place outside the public eye, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
“This is a clear escalation of regime tactics,” she told reporters at a briefing.

“We’ve obviously had a number of opposition folks arrested, we’ve had reports of torture, beatings,” Nuland added. “But not on the streets in broad daylight, [which is] clearly designed to intimidate others.”
Nuland pointed to video footage that allegedly shows former lawmaker and opposition leader Ryad Saif being beaten in front of a mosque in a Damascus neighborhood. The footage was posted on YouTube.com by Syrian activists.

“He was beaten on the street at the hands of folks who appear to be pro-regime thugs,” Nuland said.
One video clip pictured a group of men at a distance, some wielding clubs and beating a figure as they moved down a street. A second allegedly showed Saif afterward displaying marks on his back and swollen welts along his left forearm at a hospital.
The State Department has received reports of a similar attack on a second Syrian opposition leader outside Damascus.