Syrian helicopter gunships fired machineguns to disperse a large pro-democracy protest in the town of Maarat al-Numaan today, witnesses said, in the first reported use of air power to quell protests in Syria's uprising.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that helicopters fired at the town after security forces on the ground killed five protesters, but said no killings were reported in the assault by the helicopters.
"At least five helicopters flew over Maarat al-Numaan and began firing their machineguns to disperse the tens of thousands who marched in the protest," one of the witnesses said by telephone.
"People hid in fields, under bridges and in their houses, but the firing continued on the mostly empty streets for hours," said the witnesses, who gave his name as Nawaf.
State television said earlier that well-armed "terrorist groups" had burned police buildings and killed members of the security forces in Maarat al-Numaan, which lies 55km south of Syria's second city Aleppo on the highway to Damascus.
It said they were "trying to repeat the scenario of Jisr al-Shughour", some 35km away, where the Syrian army swept into the northwestern border town and began to arrest what state television called "armed opponents".
Authorities, who have banned most foreign correspondents from the country, have repeatedly tried to portray anti-government protesters as armed and violent.
"There were peaceful protests today (in Maarat) calling for freedom and for the downfall of the regime," one demonstrator said by phone. "The security forces let us protest, but when they saw the size of the demonstration grow, they opened fire to disperse us."
"During the protest, two officers and three soldiers refused to open fire so we carried them on our shoulders. After that, we were surprised to see helicopters firing on us."
The northwest border area, like other protest hotspots, is prone to tension between majority Sunni Muslims and president Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, which dominates the Syrian power elite. The Jisr al-Shughour violence may hint at splits within security forces, where commanders are mainly Alawite and conscripts Sunni.
Mr Assad (45) has promised reforms, even while cracking down on unrest posing the gravest threat to his 11 years of iron rule.
Activists said Syrian forces shot dead at least 28 at rallies after Friday prayers and thousands of civilians have fled the town into Turkey, fearing security forces' revenge for incidents in which 120 troops were reported killed this week.
But protesters, refugees in Turkey and rights activists said some soldiers in the northwest had refused to shoot at protesters and fighting had broken out between loyalist and mutinous forces this week.
A 40-year-old man who had fled across the border into Turkey from Jisr al-Shughour with a bullet still in his thigh also described mutiny in Syrian ranks.
"Some of the security forces defected and there were some in the army who refused the orders of their superiors," he said. "They were firing on each other."
Human rights activists aired a YouTube video purporting to be from a Lieutenant Colonel Hussein Armoush saying he had defected with soldiers to "join the ranks of the masses demanding freedom and democracy".
"We had sworn in the armed forces to direct our fire at the enemy and not on our own defenceless people. Our duty is to protect citizens and not to kill them," he said in the video, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified.
Fifty-seven Syrians from Jisr al-Shughour were in hospital in Turkey, its state-run Anatolian news agency said on Friday.
Elsewhere in Syria tens of thousands of people marched to call for the overthrow of the president.
"Long live Syria, down with Bashar al-Assad!" many shouted.
Security forces shot dead at least two demonstrators taking part in a rally in the Qaboun district of the capital Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Some troops fired from rooftops at marchers, activists said.
Residents said government forces also killed two protesters in the village of Busra al-Harir in the southern Hauran plain and fired on thousands defying a heavy security presence in the southern city of Deraa, fount of the three-month-old revolt.
"There was a demonstration of 1,000 people when security police fired from their cars," a Busra al-Harir resident said, giving the names of the dead as Abdelmuttaleb al-Hariri and Adnan al-Hariri. The latter was an amputee, residents said.
However, state television said unidentified gunmen killed a member of the security forces and a civilian in Busra al-Harir.
Another protester was shot dead in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A Turkish newspaper said Ankara was looking into creating a buffer zone along the border as a contingency if hundreds of thousands of Syrians were driven out by the military campaign to stamp out protests against 41 years of Assad family domination.
Demonstrators demanding the "downfall of the regime" and chanting slogans in support of compatriots in Jisr al-Shughour took to the streets in the oil-producing eastern province of Deir al-Zor, the central cities of Hama and Homs, the main Mediterranean port of Latakia and the Tabaqa region on the Euphrates River in Raqqa province, activists and residents said.
Tens of thousands of people marched unchallenged in Hama, they said, well above the turnout of the previous Friday when security forces killed at least 70 protesters.
Protests were also reported in five Damascus suburbs and Syria's second largest city Aleppo.
Inhabitants said at least 15,000 troops along with some 40 tanks and troop carriers had deployed near Jisr al-Shughour.
"Jisr al-Shughour is practically empty. People were not going to sit and be slaughtered like lambs," said one refugee who crossed on Wednesday and who gave his name as Mohammad.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) urged Syria to allow its aid workers wider access to the civilian population without further delay, including people who have been wounded or detained in the military clampdown on public dissent.
Rights groups say over 1,100 civilians have been killed since March in the revolt to demand more political freedoms and an end to corruption and poverty.
"Whether Assad still has the legitimacy to govern his own country, I think is a question everyone needs to consider," said US defense secretary Robert Gates said today.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have asked the U.N. Security Council to condemn Assad, although veto-wielding Russia has said it would oppose such a move as counter-productive.
World powers have shown no appetite for any Libya-style military intervention in Syria because it sits on a major fault line of Middle East conflict, allied with Iran against nearby Israel. The Syrian leadership has shrugged off mild punitive sanctions imposed so far, and verbal reprimands from abroad.
Reuters