Protests broke out across Syria on Friday, with thousands calling for freedom in the Kurdish east and dozens briefly marching in Damascus to demand the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad, activists and witnesses said.
But the army, which stormed the southern city of Deraa last month to crush resistance in the cradle of the seven-week uprising, deployed tanks in the central city of Homs and security forces quickly dispersed the Damascus protest.
Witnesses said security forces also opened fire at protesters in the town of Tel, just north of the capital, wounding demonstrators.
Activist Wissam Tarif said protests also took place in the southern town of Jassem, coastal Banias, and Amouda in the east.
Human rights campaigners say army, security forces and gunmen loyal to Assad had killed at least 560 civilians during pro-democracy demonstrations that started in March. Thousands have been arrested and beaten, including the elderly, women and children, they said.
Officials give a much lower death toll and say half the fatalities have been soldiers and police, and blame "armed terrorist groups" for the violence.
Western powers, which had sought for several years to engage Damascus and loosen its anti-Israel alliances with Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas, condemned the bloodshed.
The United States, which called the army crackdown in Deraa "barbaric", imposed further targeted sanctions last week against Syrian officials and Europe's main powers have been pushing for similar European Union measures.
Last week, Assad ordered the army into Deraa, cradle of the uprising that began with demands for greater freedom and an end to corruption and is now pressing for his removal.
An ultra-loyalist division led by his brother Maher shelled and machinegunned Deraa's old quarter on Saturday, residents said. Syrian authorities said on Thursday the army had begun to leave Deraa, but residents described a city still under siege.
Aid workers from the Red Cross and Red Crescent delivered their first emergency relief supplies to Deraa on Thursday, bringing drinking water, food and first aid materials. They had no immediate information on casualties in the city.
Human Rights Watch cited figures from Syrian rights groups saying 350 people had been killed in Deraa. It urged authorities on Friday to "lift the siege" on the city and to halt what it called a nationwide campaign of arbitrary arrests.
"Syria's authorities think that they can beat and kill their way out of the crisis," said HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson. "But with every illegal arrest, every killing of a protester, they are precipitating a larger crisis."
Diplomats said the European Union could reach a preliminary agreement on imposing sanctions on Syria's ruling hierarchy on Friday, but had yet to decide whether Assad should be included.
Assad has said the protesters were part of a foreign conspiracy to cause sectarian strife.
His father Hafez al-Assad used similar language when he crushed Islamist and secular challenges to his rule in the 1980s, culminating in the violent suppression of an uprising in the city of Hama in which 30,000 people were killed.
Hafez lost two wars to Israel, as defence minister in 1967 and as president in 1973. He maintained Syria's position as a central player in Middle East geopolitics by building ties with Shi'ite Iran and backing Palestinian guerrilla forces.
The younger Assad, who belongs to the minority Alawite sect, has reinforced the anti-Israeli alliance with Tehran, despite disquiet on the part of Syria's majority Sunni population. Reutersspite disquiet on the part of Syria's majority Sunni population.
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