BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad ordered a new general amnesty Tuesday, as government supporters and opponents clashed in three Syrian cities, with security forces opening fire, killing at least seven people including a teenager, activists reported.
It was the latest deadly turn in a three-month-old mass uprising that appears unbowed by a relentless government crackdown.

The violence flared a day after a speech in which Assad, trying to contain the situation, offered a vague promise of reform, one brushed off as too little, too late, by the opposition, demanding Assad step down as president.
Tens of thousands of regime supporters converged on squares in several major cities Tuesday, shouting, “The people want Bashar Assad!” and releasing black, white and red balloons – colors of the Syrian flag.
They soon clashed with opposition supporters, drawing in security forces. In a main square in the central city of Hama, security personnel opened fire on anti-regime protesters, killing a 13-year-old boy, Mohammad Abulrazeq Naser, according to the Local Coordinating Committees, which track the Syrian protest movement.

Three other people were reported killed in Homs, in central Syria, and three in the Mayadin district in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour during pro- and anti-regime demonstrations.
The pro- and anti-Assad sides have fought each other in the past, but Tuesday’s bloodshed appeared to be the worst such violence.
“We are seeing an escalation by authorities today,” said Omar Idilbi, spokesman for the committees. “They are sending pro-government thugs with security forces to attack protesters.”

The opposition estimates over 1,400 Syrians killed and 10,000 detained by security forces since mid-March.
In the hours following Assad’s third national address Monday, the state-run news agency SANA announced that the president would offer a “general amnesty” for crimes committed before June 20. But there were few details, and it appeared the decree applied only to prisoners with a fatal illness or who were convicted of minor smuggling or drug charges.

The International Committee of the Red Cross announced in Geneva Tuesday the Syrian government has promised to give it and the Syrian Red Crescent more access to Syrians wounded and detained in the crackdown.
The announcement came after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger met with Prime Minister Adel Safar and Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in Damascus. Kellenberger had urged Syria to allow the humanitarian organizations to operate unhindered to assess the needs of those affected in the unrest and military operations.

Continued bloodshed appeared to be driving even Russia, a longtime Syria backer, to distance itself from Assad, as international pressure mounts for him to adopt major political change.
“We need to apply pressure on the leadership of any country where massive unrest, and especially bloodshed, is happening,” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in Paris Tuesday.

“In the modern world it is impossible to use political instruments of 40 years ago,” Putin said of the Syrians’ strategy. It remained to be seen, however, whether this signaled a change in Moscow’s opposition to tough U.N. action on Syria. Russia continued, however to oppose foreign interference in the country.
Activists claimed that the government mobilized pro-regime demonstrators Tuesday, forcing students to participate and busing in people from villages in the Mediterranean coastal heartland of the ruling elite.

An eyewitness in Homs told the Associated Press a pro-Assad protest with some 10,000 participants “descended” on the city. “Nobody knows them, they are strangers to the city, they were asking for directions,” he said.
“The security forces arrested the wounded. They stepped on them on the ground and arrested them,” said the witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

In the restive northern province of Idlib, where the army has conducted operations for days, activists said soldiers had reached Hamboushieh, a village a mile (2 kilometers) from where thousands of displaced Syrians were camped out on the Syrian side of the Turkish border. Heavy shooting was reported in the area, but its source was not immediately clear.

Thousands more had already fled into Turkey. The U.N. refugee agency’s spokesman, Adrian Edwards, said Tuesday that 500 to 1,000 people a day have been crossing from northern Syria into Turkey since June 7, and more than 10,000 were being sheltered by Turkish authorities in four border camps.