DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces and pro-government gunmen killed four protesters Sunday in the port city of Banias after the army sealed off the city as hundreds of protesters gathered, witnesses said.
A Syrian security officer was later killed and another was wounded when their patrol was ambushed in the northwestern coastal town, the official SANA news agency reported.

The latest deadly violence came one day after mourners in the southern town of Daraa, epicenter of more than three weeks of pro-democracy protests, buried around 20 demonstrators killed by security forces.

In Banias, the civilian toll was at least four dead and 17 wounded Sunday from shooting by security forces in the neighborhood of Ras al-Nabee, where the Al-Rahman mosque has been a focal point of anti-regime demonstrations.
“The army and security forces and gunmen besieged the town from all sides and fired without interruption for several hours,” a university professor told AFP.

“[President] Bashar Assad is sending us a message: punish those who dare demand freedom with death,” he said.
A rights activist said the shots were aimed at the mosque and left “four dead and 15 wounded.”
An unprecedented opposition movement erupted in Syria on March 15 challenging the regime of Assad to introduce major political reforms. Assad has pledged to replace an emergency law in force for five decades with an anti-terrorism law.

Assad told Bulgaria’s visiting foreign minister Sunday that “Syria was on the road to general reforms,” SANA reported.
SANA quoted Abboud Sarraj, head of a panel drafting the anti-terrorism legislation, as saying the body was working on ending the “state of emergency in Syria,” not the emergency law.

“If the state of emergency has ended, the law stays on the side without being enforced … and if the need arises one of these days like if there is war, or an earthquake … there’s no problem for emergency law to be present in any country.”
State news agency SANA said that a security officer was killed and another critically wounded in apparent retaliation.

“At 4 p.m. an army unit between Latakia and Tartus was ambushed by an armed group by the roadside in trees and buildings,” the agency quoted an official as saying. “One officer was killed and another critically wounded, and several soldiers were also wounded. The armed forces are hunting down the elements of this armed group to arrest them and bring them to justice.”

Banias residents Saturday had reportedly agreed to stage a rooftop protest at 10:00 p.m. to call for the fall of the regime, but by 8:30 all landlines and cell phones were cut. A witness said residents had set up checkpoints to guard their neighborhoods against unrest.
Five people had already been wounded earlier Sunday in Banias in a drive-by shooting reportedly by plainclothes government agents in the Mediterranean town, according to a witness. Seven cars “carrying people sent by the regime arrived in front of the Abu Bakr al-Sidiq mosque and their occupants opened fire” during morning prayers, the witness said.

The perpetrators quickly took flight, although witnesses were able to record the license plates of some of their vehicles.
“The people behind this shooting are regime thugs and their names are known to us,” the witness said, and added that peaceful demonstrations had also been held in Banias Saturday afternoon.

In the Houla area of the central province of Homs buses were also seen unloading security personnel. Assad’s sacking of the Homs governor has failed to placate protesters.
Anti-regime demonstrations and clashes with security forces raged across the country Friday leaving 28 dead, including 26 in Daraa, according to an updated toll by six Syrian rights groups.

And Saturday security forces shot at protesters in Daraa, wounding two people, an activist said, as a huge crowd buried the dead from the previous day.
The organizations Sunday voiced their “concern at the determination of Syrian authorities to continue violating essential rights and freedoms.”