Tens of thousands protested across Syria on Friday as a deadly suicide bombing rocked the capital Damascus, killing 11 people, AFP reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the news agency that three people, including a child, were killed as regime forces opened fire to disperse protests.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based group, told AFP that one protester was killed in the village Daf al-Shok in Damascus province. Another died in the Sakhur district of northern Aleppo, Syria's second city, and the child was killed in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.
Three members of the security forces and a deserter were also killed in other clashes across the country, the Syrian Observatory said.
The bomb blast in Damascus killed at least 11 people and wounded 28. The blast hit as worshippers were leaving weekly Muslim prayers at nearby Zein al-Abidin mosque in the central Midan district.
A report on state television blamed “terrorists” for the blast. President Bashar al-Assad's regime uses the word “terrorists” to refer to the armed opposition against the regime.
AFP quoted the official SANA news agency as having reported that the Syrian interior ministry said “it will not tolerate the armed terrorist groups and vowed to strike with an iron fist those who are terrorizing citizens.”
As well, a separate blast hit an industrial zone of Damascus where there were no reports of casualties.
Amnesty International said on Friday, according to AFP, that it had received the names of 362 people reportedly killed in Syria since UN observers were deployed last week to monitor the peace deal brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
Syria's exiled Muslim Brotherhood urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to acknowledge that Damascus had failed to honor Annan’s peace plan and to suspend its UN membership until a transitional government representing the Syrian people is formed.
“We ask Ban Ki-moon to announce that Assad's government has failed to honor the peace plan and to declare the plan finished... at a time when dozens of innocent people are dying,” AFP quoted the group as having said in a statement issued in Britain.
On Thursday, Ban demanded that the Syrian government immediately comply with its commitment to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from cities and towns.
Earlier on Thursday, Turkish and French officials said they were mulling a potential military intervention in Syria if the violence continues.
Annan told the UN Security Council this week that the situation in Syria is "bleak." He also expressed alarm at media reports that Syrian troops continue to carry out military operations in towns where UN observers are not present.
"If confirmed, this is totally unacceptable and reprehensible," Annan said.
On Friday, the Arab League said it would approach the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to protect the civilians in Syria.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)