BEIRUT: Syrian security forces fought gunmen in battles that left over 120 members of the security forces dead, state television said, in the first such report of large-scale armed fighting in the country’s revolt.
It said armed groups had set government buildings ablaze in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour, stole five tons of dynamite and were firing at civilians and security using machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades.

“The security forces have managed to end a blockade of one of the neighborhoods that was seized by the gunmen for a while and are now battling them to end the blockade of the other neighborhoods,” it said.
“The gunmen mutilated some of the bodies and threw some into the river. The people in Jisr al-Shughour are urging the army to intervene speedily,” the state television report said.

Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shaar said authorities would respond firmly to the attacks.
“We will deal strongly and decisively, and according to the law, and we will not be silent about any armed attack that targets the security of the state and its citizens,” he said.

Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud acknowledged that Syrian forces had lost control of some areas for “intermittent periods of time” and promised that the army would restore security in the area.
Opposition activists earlier said a security operation had been under way in the town since Saturday in which they said at least 37 residents and 10 police had been killed.
Authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making it impossible to verify accounts of the violence from activists and officials.

Protests against President Bashar Assad have grown despite reform gestures and a continuing crackdown that has killed at least 1,100 people since the uprising broke out in mid-March.
Residents said the wave of killings in Jisr al-Shughour erupted Saturday when snipers on the roof of the main post office fired at a funeral for six protesters killed during a demonstration a day earlier.
Angry mourners set fire to the post office after the shooting, said one Jisr al-Shughour resident, a history teacher who gave his name only as Ahmad. State television said eight security members were killed when armed gunmen attacked the post office building.

It said at least 20 security members were killed in an ambush by “armed gangs,” and 82 were killed in an attack on a security post.
It said the overall death toll for security forces was over 120.
A rebellion in Jisr al-Shughour in 1980 against President Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, was brutally crushed with scores of deaths.

A town of 50,000 people, it lies on a road between the coastal city of Latakia and Syria’s second city of Aleppo, which have seen little protests against Assad so far. The town has a Sunni Muslim majority but there are Alawite and Christian villages in the area.

Rights campaigners say some deaths of soldiers or police during the uprising have been the result of the killing of security forces trying to defect or refusing to obey orders.
“The story of forces defecting is not true. The [police and security members] were killed by gunmen during the operation, they came under fire. Some people in some areas have taken up arms,” an activist said on condition of anonymity.

The activist said that the towns of Khan Shaykhoun and Maaret al-Naaman, which lie on a strategic road between the capital and Aleppo, are out of the government’s control.
“The situation is grave, what is happening is considered an armed rebellion. I oppose violence from whatever side it came from,” the activist said.

Western powers have intensified their condemnation of Assad as the death toll has grown.
Syrian security forces killed at least 70 protesters Friday in one of the bloodiest days since the revolt began.
The United States, the European Union and Australia have all imposed sanctions on Syria.