A young girl and six soldiers were among 21 Syrians killed on Thursday as security forces pressed a crackdown on protests and in clashes between troops and army deserters, a human rights group said. The deadly clashes came as protest organisers called for nation-wide demonstrations on Friday to demand the Arab League suspend Syria's membership in the pan-Arab group.
The Arab League, under international pressure to act after Syria failed to honour its peace plan and stepped up the brutal protest crackdown, is to hold talks on Friday ahead of an extraordinary weekend meeting on the crisis. On the ground on Thursday, an eight-year-old girl was among 11 civilians killed by security forces in the besieged central city of Homs, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The bodies of another five missing people were also found in the Homs region, the Observatory said in a statement. "Security forces arrested three wounded people in a private hospital" in Homs, and several others were detained in Jassem, in southern Daraa province, the Observatory added.
In the northwestern province of Idlib, near the Turkish border, four civilians were killed during raids by the security forces, said the Britain-based watchdog. Also in Idlib, "at least four soldiers in the regular army were killed at dawn in an attack, headed by armed men - probably deserters - on a military checkpoint in Has region, near Maaret al-Numan town," said the Observatory. Early on Thursday, in Jabal al-Zawiya, people began a general strike, responding to protesters there, while security forces tried to force them to open closed shops, said the same source.