10 killed as Syrians rally on hajj feast: rights group

NICOSIA: Security forces killed 10 civilians as anti-regime demonstrations were staged across Syria on Sunday, the first day of the Muslim feast marking the end of the hajj, a human rights group said.

It was the fourth straight day of deadly violence since Syria agreed to an Arab peace blueprint aimed at ending nearly eight months of bloodshed.

Eight of the civilians were killed in Homs, the flashpoint central city where protests against Assad's rule were held in most districts despite a weeks-long military crackdown.

Most of the deaths occurred in the Baba Amro neighbourhood, where clashes have raged for days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia.

Security forces also shot dead a civilian in the city of Hama, which lies further to the north, and another in Idlib province, near the border with Turkey.

And in Talbi, a town near Homs, "four protesters were wounded, one seriously, when the security forces fired on a demonstration," said the Britain-based Observatory.

"Dozens of people were injured by security forces who shot at a major demonstration in Kafruma, an area of the province of Idlib, in the northwest of Syria," it added.

Armed forces stormed and surrounded the villages of Zamalka and Irbin, in the province of Damascus, said the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), an activist network spurring protests in Syria. (AFP)