DAMASCUS, Nov 4, (Agencies): Syrian troops killed 23 people on Friday as demonstrators, denouncing “despots and tyrants,” took to the streets to test the regime’s commitment to an Arab peace deal calling for an end to violence.

Washington had already warned that the signs were not encouraging after troops killed 20 civilians on Thursday — the first day the hard-won agreement aimed at ending nearly eight month of bloodshed came into effect.

France echoed the US concerns on Friday, saying Syria was breaking its commitments to the Arab deal by continuing a deadly crackdown on protesters, and cast doubt on President Bashar al-Assad’s dedication to the deal.

As more deaths were reported, the government offered an amnesty to anyone who surrenders weapons by November 12, linking the offer to the Eid al-Adha Muslim feast that begins on Sunday.
Troops raked several residential neighbourhoods of Homs — a city of some one million people that has been one of the hubs of the protests raging since mid-March — which heavy machineguns mounted on tanks, a watchdog said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 15 people were killed across Syria, six of them in Homs.
Further north in Hama four civilians were shot, while four people were killed in the town of Kanaker, outside the capital, and a protester was shot dead by security forces in Damascus.
Two more people were killed, one of them an army deserter, when troops opened fire on a group of people trying to slip across the border into Jordan, the Britain-based Observatory said.
In the Mediterranean coastal city of Banias, security forces laid siege to the Abu Bakr Siddiq mosque and beat up worshippers as they attempted to demonstrate after weekly prayers, it said.

They also arrested dozens of people from their homes, “including four children closely related to Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman,” the watchdog said.

Video footage posted on YouTube showed dozens of demonstrators, some masked, marching through the historic Midan neighbourhood of Damascus, chanting anti-Assad slogans.
Protesters in Harasta just outside Damascus, described Assad as a “liar” who has no intention of implementing the Arab roadmap.

Demonstrators also chanted: “Allah will overcome tyrants and despots” — echoing the slogan of Friday’s protests which activists called to “validate” whether the government was implementing terms of the Arab peace deal.

“The more the regime kills and oppresses us, the more it boosts our resolve ... to gain our liberty,” activists wrote on the Facebook page of the Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the key engines of the protests.

There has been enormous scepticism among opponents about the regime’s readiness to call off its troops and enter meaningful negotiations with the opposition as it promised under the deal unveiled on Wednesday.

“We told the secretary general of our fears that the regime will not keep its promises,” Samir al-Nashar, a member of the key opposition Syrian National Council, said after talks Thursday with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi.
The doubt were echoed by France and the United States.

Bahrain
Thousands of Bahraini Shiites clashed with security forces on Friday during the funeral of a man opposition group Wefaq said died after a police assault, witnesses said.
Ali al-Daihi, father of Wefaq’s deputy secretary general Hussein al-Daihi, died on Thursday from wounds he suffered a day earlier when he was attacked by riot police, the group said on its website. The government said he died of natural causes.

Demonstrators clashed with police after Daihi’s body was buried, a Reuters photographer said, adding Shiite protesters chanted anti-government slogans. Police fired tear gas at the demonstrators. No casualties were reported.

Bahrain’s Sunni ruling family brought in troops from Sunni allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates earlier this year to help crush a protest movement they said was fomented by Iran and had Shiite sectarian motives.

Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said on Twitter that Bahraini police had blocked roads leading to the funeral in the Shiite district of al-Daih.

“I am trying to get there, government blocked all roads so people do not take part in the funeral,” Rajab said.

The United States, whose Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, called on all sides to exercise restraint. It urged the government to be fully transparent in the investigation of what happened to Ali al-Daihi.
“We understand that in connection with the circumstances of the father’s death, the family has now filed a criminal complaint with the Bahraini police,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.

“We, the US, would encourage full transparency as this case proceeds and we obviously call on everybody to exercise restraint,” she added. “It is a fragile time in Bahrain as all sides wait for the Bahraini independent commission of inquiry report.”

The head of the commission, which was set up to investigate allegations of human rights violations in Bahrain during months of unrest, on Monday was quoted as saying that he had found evidence of systematic torture.

Wefaq said the elder Daihi was attacked by riot police when he was returning home on Wednesday.