Hundreds of
thousands of Syrians protested Friday, nine months into their uprising,
demanding the Arab League hasten its response to a bloody crackdown on dissent,
activists said.
The mass protests came after Russia,
a longtime ally of Syria's
embattled President Bashar al-Assad, drew a guarded response from Western
governments for signs of toughening its stance at the United Nations Security
Council.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 200,000 protested in the
besieged central city of Homs alone, venting
their frustration at the Arab League for postponing a meeting on Syria scheduled
for Saturday.
"More than 200,000 demonstrators came out in several neighborhoods of the
city after Friday prayers," the U.K.-based organization said in a
statement sent to AFP in Nicosia.
Video footage posted online also showed demonstrators taking to the streets of
the capital Damascus and the protest hubs of
Daraa in the south, Deir Ezzor in the east and the other restive central city
of Hama.
"Security Council: Where Is Your Security, Stop Covering The
Killers," said a banner carried by protesters in the town of Hass, in northwestern
Idlib province, according to some of the footage on YouTube.
Organizers had urged protesters to press the Arab bloc over its postponement of
Saturday's emergency foreign ministers' meeting to give more time for Damascus
to agree to a deal to end the bloodshed to avoid sanctions.
They had set the slogan for the protests as: "The Arab League is killing
us--enough deadlines."
The 22-member bloc approved a package of sanctions against Damascus Nov. 27 after it failed to meet a
deadline to agree to an observer mission to monitor implementation of an Arab
plan to protect Syrian civilians.
But on Sunday, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem wrote to the Arab League saying Syria would
accept the monitors under certain conditions, including the lifting of the
sanctions.
The bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said late Thursday that the planned
foreign ministers' meeting had been postponed indefinitely while talks
continued with Damascus
on its offer.
Also Thursday the Arab League held new talks with the Syrian opposition on the
eve of the opening in Tunisia
of a three-day congress of the Syrian National Council.
SNC leader Burhan Ghaliun said it was vital that the opposition close ranks
after the formation in Istanbul
Thursday of the National Alliance, another opposition grouping.
"We need to unite the opposition and make it stronger. We need to emerge
from this congress with a higher level of organization, clearer targets and
more momentum," Ghaliun told AFP.
The SNC is generally regarded as the main civilian opposition coalition and
includes the local committees running protests in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood as
well as parties representing the Kurdish
and Assyrian minorities.
However, announcing the formation of the National Alliance, Mohammed Bessam
Imadi, a former Syrian ambassador to Sweden,
charged the SNC had "lost contact with local revolutionary movements in Syria."
The Syrian opposition has been pushing hard for the U.N. Security Council to
take tough action against Damascus after a
European draft that would have threatened "targeted measures" against
regime figures was blocked by Beijing and Moscow in October.
The new text circulated by Russia late Thursday still makes no mention of
sanctions but strongly condemns the violence by "all parties, including
disproportionate use of force by Syrian authorities," according to a copy
obtained by AFP.
In line with Moscow's insistence that its ally
has been facing an armed rebellion not the overwhelmingly peaceful
demonstrations cited by the West, the draft also raises concern over "the
illegal supply of weapons to the armed groups in Syria."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed renewed criticism of that
position but said the U.S.
hoped it could work with Russia
on the text.
"There are some issues in it that we would not be able to support. There's
unfortunately a seeming parity between the government and peaceful
protesters," she said.
"But we are going to study the draft carefully."
The crisis in Syria was be
discussed during talks between U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Turkish
President Abdullah Gul in Ankara
later Friday.