Wall Street protesters dress as zombies in NYC (AP)

NEW YORK – Protesters speaking out against corporate greed and other issues showed no signs of giving up their campaign on Monday, with organizers urging participants to dress up as corporate zombies and to take part in a rally against police brutality.

The arrests of 700 people on Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend fueled the anger of the protesters camping in a Manhattan park and sparked support elsewhere in the country as the campaign entered its third week.

Occupy Wall Street started with fewer than a dozen college students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a plaza near the city's financial center. But a day after Saturday's mass arrests, hundreds of protesters were resolute and like-minded groups in other cities had joined in.

Group spokesman Patrick Bruner urged protesters on Monday to dress up as corporate zombies and eat Monopoly money to let financial workers "see us reflecting the metaphor of their actions."

As the encampment slowly began waking up Monday morning, several dozen police officers stood in formation across the street.

One camper set up a table with tubes of makeup and stacks of fake money and was applying white makeup to the face of a young woman.

John Hildebrand, 24, an unemployed teacher from Norman, Okla., sat up in his sleeping bag around 10 a.m.

He said he arrived Saturday after getting a cheap plane ticket to New York.

"My issue is corporate influence in politics," he said. "I would like to eliminate corporate financing from politics."

He said was returning home on Tuesday and planned to organize a similar protest there.

One supporter, William Stack, sent an email to city officials urging that all charges be dropped against those arrested.

"It is not a crime to demand that our money be spent on meeting people's needs, not for massive corporate bailouts," he wrote. "The real criminals are in the boardrooms and executive offices on Wall Street, not the people marching for jobs, health care, and a moratorium on foreclosures."

Police said the department will continue its regular patrols of the area. And "as always, if it is a lawful demonstration, we help facilitate and if they break the law we arrest them," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Wiljago Cook, 33, of Oakland, Calif., who joined the protest on the first day, said "exposing police brutality wasn't even really on my agenda but my eyes have been opened."

She and her boyfriend and two neighbors all quit their jobs to come and planned "to stay as long as it seems useful," said Cook, who had worked for a nonprofit theater group.

She was wearing zombie makeup that included a red streak down her forehead. "It's a cheeky and fun way to make the same point that we've been making," Cook said of her painted face.

A map of the country displayed on the plaza identified 21 places where other protests were organized.

Wall-Street style demonstrations with names like Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Chicago, and Occupy Boston were staged in front of Federal Reserve buildings in those cities. A group in Columbus, Ohio, also marched on the capital city's street. And signs of support were rearing up outside the U.S. In Canada, a Wall Street rally is planned for later this month in Toronto.

"It was chaos here" two weeks ago, said Jackie Fellner, a marketing manager from Westchester County, north of the city.

Campers take turns organizing a "general assembly" on the plaza where they divide tasks among themselves. They have "a protocol for most things," said 19-year-old Kira Moyer-Sims of Portland, Ore., including a makeshift hospital and getting legal help for people who are arrested. They rally around a website called OccupyWallSt.org, and they even started printing a newspaper — the Occupied Wall Street Journal.

The campers also have been fueled by encouraging words from well-known figures, the latest actor Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his Twitter page that had already been widely circulated. One appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young man being tackled to the ground by an officer.

"This is unsettling," Baldwin wrote. "I think the NYPD has a PR problem."

Fellner said she has an issue with "big money dictating which politicians get elected and what programs get funded."

But "we're not here to take down Wall Street," she insisted. "It's not poor against rich."

Still, the protesters chose Wall Street as their physical rallying point, speaking against corporate greed, social inequality, global climate change and other concerns.

Beside the mass arrest Saturday, police arrested about 100 people Sept. 24 when protesters marched to other parts of the city and got into a tense standoff with officers.

Some said protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge were lured onto the roadway by police, or they didn't hear the calls from authorities to head to the pedestrian walkway. Police said no one was tricked into being arrested, and that those in the back of the group who couldn't hear were allowed to leave.

The NYPD released video footage Sunday to back up its stance. In one of the videos, an official uses a bullhorn to warn the crowd. Marchers can be seen chanting, "Take the bridge."

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Syrian forces kill 13 protesters after Friday prayers (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces shot dead 13 protesters Friday, activists said, as tens of thousands demanded the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, chanting "we will kneel only to God."

Defiant protest marches unfolded across the country despite a military crackdown that has triggered sanctions and condemnation abroad.

These included protests in the cities of Hama and Deir al-Zor, both of which have been stormed in tank offensives launched by Assad during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Local Coordination Committees activists said among the deaths were six in the Damascus suburbs of Saqba and Douma, two protesters killed in the commercial hub of Aleppo, and two in the northern province of Idlib on the Turkish border.

Residents said two people were also killed in Hama, just days after the army completed a week-long assault on the city which became a symbol of defiance to Assad's rule after huge crowds gathered weekly to demand his overthrow.

"Go, Bashar!" protesters chanted in rallies held in the coastal cities of Latakia and Baniyas, as well as across the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against 41 years of Assad family domination first flared nearly five months ago.

In Deir al-Zor, forces fired live ammunition at protesters coming out of a main mosque, killing one person according to the local coordination committees.

A witness said a fire broke out in the mosque after security forces shot at it. "The whole neighborhood is echoing with the sound of bullets. Worshippers are running to take cover in alleyways," he said by telephone.

Another resident said: "Assad wants to finish off the uprising before international pressure becomes too much for him. But people have gone out of almost every major mosque in Deir al-Zor, meters away from tanks that occupy every main square and roundabout."

Syrian state television said two members of the security forces were killed by gunmen in Douma, just outside Damascus.

Syrian authorities have barred most independent media, making it difficult to verify events on the ground in the unrest, among a series of popular revolts against repressive power elites across the Arab world this year.

Assad's forces have intensified assaults on towns and cities across the country since the start of Ramadan nearly two weeks ago to try to subdue mounting dissent against the ruling family, despite threats of new U.S. sanctions and calls from Turkey and fellow Arab states to end attacks on civilians.

Activists said at least 19 people were killed in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni Muslim tribal heartland Thursday. Assad's family belongs to the minority Alawite sect that runs Syria.

More than 1,700 civilians in all have been killed in the military crackdown on protests against Assad, activists say.

Syria says 500 soldiers and police have died in the upheaval, which it blames on armed gangs and terrorists.

CLINTON URGES CUT IN TRADE TIES

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.

Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.

While Syria exports crude oil, its refinery capacity is not sufficient to meet domestic demand for fuel. Trading sources said Swiss oil traders Vitol and Trafigura agreed to supply state firm Sytrol with 60,000 tons of gasoline this week.

The global campaign group Avaaz urged European nations on Friday to impose immediate restrictions on purchases of Syrian oil to "dry up" funding of Assad's security services. It said over 150,000 Avaaz members had signed a petition to that effect.

But there is little prospect of Western states putting teeth into the sanctions on Assad by targeting Syria's oil because of vested commercial interests against doing so.

Asked why the United States had not called on Assad to step down, Clinton said Washington had been "very clear" in its statements about Assad's loss of legitimacy, and wanted other nations to add their voices.

Wednesday Washington imposed sanctions on Syria's largest bank and its biggest mobile telephone company, controlled by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf. The next day, U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford said more sanctions would follow if the Syrian authorities did not halt the violence.

In addition to the Friday protests, nightly Ramadan prayers, or "tarawih," which follow the breaking of the fast, have given more Syrians a focus for daily protest marches.

In neighboring Lebanon, hundreds of people demonstrated in the northern, mainly Sunni Muslim, district of Akkar in support of the Syrian protesters.

Regional powers Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all applied pressure on Assad to stop the violence.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned Assad not to leave reforms until it is too late in a letter delivered to the Syrian president earlier this week, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan spoke Thursday and agreed Syrians' demands for a transition to democracy must be met, the White House said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Syrian troops fire on protesters, killing 10 (AP)

BEIRUT – Security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least 10, as tens of thousands poured into streets across Syria on Friday, chanting for the fall of President Bashar Assad and defying a fierce military siege of Hama, where tanks shelled residential districts around dawn.

The six-day-old assault on Hama, which has killed at least 100 people, seemed to do little to intimidate protesters, though the marches were smaller than previous Fridays, perhaps in part because this was the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

Protests spread from the capital, Damascus, to the southern province of Daraa and to Deir al-Zour in the east. Other demonstrations were reported in Homs in the center and in Qamishli, near the Turkish border.

"Hama, we are with you until death," a crowd marching through Damascus' central neighborhood of Midan shouted, clapping their hands as they chanted, "We don't want you Bashar" and "Bashar Leave," according to amateur videos from Friday posted on line by activists.

In another district of the capital, Qadam, protesters carried a banner reading, "Bashar is slaughtering the people and the international community is silent."

Security forces opened fire with live ammunition and tear gas in several cities, activists said. At least seven people were killed in the Damascus suburb of Arbeen, according to the London-based Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, a group that tracks protests. They said one person was killed in the suburb of Moaddamiya and two in the central city of Homs.

State-run TV said reported that two policemen were killed and 8 wounded when they were ambushed in the northern town of Maarat al-Numan

Activists also said three people were wounded in Homs.

In Hama, government tanks shelled residential districts in Hama around 4 a.m., just as people were beginning their daily fast, one resident told The Associated Press.

The evening before, the shelling hit around sunset, while residents were having their meal breaking the fast, the resident said, asking for anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

"If people get wounded, it is almost impossible to take them to hospital," the resident said by telephone.

On previous Fridays — the day of the biggest protests — Hama has seen massive marches by hundreds of thousands that were the largest in Syria. But under the siege, with electricity, internet and phone services cut off and food supplies running short, there were no immediate reports of protests in the city during the day Friday.

Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen largely out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks. But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive that left corpses in streets Sunday and sent residents fleeing for their lives, according to residents.

State-run Syrian TV on Friday showed footage from inside Hama, with images of streets blocked by makeshift barricades set up by protesters. It showed a tank removing a large cement barrier as well as a bus that had its windshield shattered.

The report also showed a yellow taxi car with a dead man in the driver's seat and bloodstains on the door. A picture carried by state-run news agency SANA showed empty streets with debris and damaged cars.

SANA said the Syrian army is restoring "security and stability" to Hama after it was "taken over by terrorists."

Hama has seen government crackdowns before. In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement there. Hama was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

Although there has been a near-total communications blackout in Hama, witnesses have painted a grim picture of life in the city. "People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street," a resident said Thursday, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank." He said he left Hama briefly through side roads to smuggle in food supplies.

The uprising began in mid-March, inspired by the revolutions sweeping the Arab world. Friday has become the main day for protests in Syria, despite the near-certainty that tanks and snipers will respond with deadly force.

More than 1,700 civilians have been killed in the regime crackdown on the uprising since March.

Assad has largely brushed off international pressure on his regime.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday he has warned Syria's leader that he will face a "sad fate" if he fails to introduce reforms in his country and open a peaceful dialogue with the opposition.

In the United States, the Obama administration moved to further isolate Assad and his inner circle imposing sanctions on a prominent pro-regime businessman and his firm.

Thursday's sanctions against Assad family confidante Muhammad Hamsho and his firm, Hamsho International Group, freeze any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. Hamsho's holding company has about 20 subsidiaries ranging from construction, civil engineering, telecommunications and hotels to carpet sales, horse trading and ice cream production.

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Bassem Mroue can be reached http://twitter.com/bmroue

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Ultraconservative Muslims join protesters in Egypt (AP)

CAIRO – Ultraconservative Muslims turned out in force Friday as tens of thousands filled Cairo's central Tahrir Square in a rally marked by a growing rift in the protest movement.

South of the capital, gunmen fired on a car carrying Christians, killing two. While the motive was unknown, similar events have sparked religious violence in the past.

In one of the largest crowds to fill the square since the popular uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February, Salafis chanted for the implementation of strict Islamic law — spurring accusations that they violated an agreement to keep the rally free from divisive issues.

The decision by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's best organized political force, and other Islamist groups to participate significantly boosted the turnout. These groups stayed away from recent demonstrations that sought to keep up pressure on the military council that took power after Mubarak's fall, leading to smaller crowds.

But the Islamists' participation also highlighted the growing rift between them and liberal activists. Some Islamist groups rallied their members to the square to oppose the adoption of a set of guidelines for drafting a new constitution after parliamentary elections later this year.

Liberal parties endorse the measure in an effort to limit what they fear will be outsized Islamist influence on the new document should religious groups win a large share of the parliament. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has accepted the idea.

Islamists oppose it, saying nothing should restrict the right of the new elected parliament to oversee the process of drafting the document.

While opposing the measure, Muslim Brotherhood members did not press the issue Friday due to an agreement between organizers to avoid divisive issues.

Crowds of ultraconservative Salafis, however, gave a common protests chant an Islamic twist — sparking criticisms from others who said the chants violated an agreement to avoid divisive issues.

Instead of "Peaceful, peaceful," which demonstrators have chanted during confrontations with security forces, they repeated "Islamic, Islamic." And instead of "The people want to topple the regime" — a chant made famous in Tunisia and adopted across the region — they yelled, "The people want to implement Sharia," or Islamic law.

Salafis are ultraconservatives, close to Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and more radical than the Brotherhood. They seek to emulate the austerity of Islam's early days and oppose a wide range of practices like intermingling of the sexes that they view as "un-Islamic." Many also reject all forms of Western cultural influence.

Violence broke out elsewhere in Egypt.

Gunmen fired on a car carrying five Christians in the province of Minya south of Cairo, killing two and injuring two, a military official said. It was the second killing in two weeks in the predominantly Christian village of Roman.

Christian residents gathered in front of the hospital where the bodies were taken as the word spread, although the official said the attackers had not been captured and the reason for the shooting was not known.

In the Sinai city of al-Arish, hard-line Salafis fired rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons in the air during protests, injuring a small boy, according to an intelligence official.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief the media.

In the southern city of Assiut, deputy police chief Yosri el-Jammasi said Salafist protesters beat up a group of protesters from the Communist party trying to join their demonstration. At one point, some in the crowd yelled back at a speaker who criticized the idea of constitutional guidelines.

All protesters agree on a number of other key demands, including the end of military trials for civilians, a clear schedule for the transition to civilian rule and swift trials for former regime officials and those accused of killing protesters during the uprising, which left about 850 people dead.

The rally comes a day after Egypt's Justice Ministry said Mubarak, along with his two sons, his former security chief and seven others, will be tried at a Cairo convention center.

Of the 11, Mubarak, his security chief — former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly — and six top police officers are charged with ordering the use of deadly force against protesters. If convicted, the eight could face the death penalty.

Mubarak, his sons Gamal and Alaa and businessman Hussein Salem also face corruption charges. Salem, a close friend of Mubarak's, is at large.

The announcement had little apparent effect on Friday's protest, mostly because most activists doubt Mubarak will actually stand trial Wednesday as planned.

Mubarak's lawyer and doctors treating him in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh have repeatedly reported that the 83-year-old ousted leader's health is failing, though Egypt's health ministry said he is fit enough to stand trial.

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Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

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Yemen protesters set up transitional council (Reuters)

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemeni protesters formed a transitional council of opposition figures on Saturday to lead efforts to try to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power.

Youth groups, which have been at the forefront of more than five months of protests against Saleh's three decade rule, told a news conference that the 17 member council would include former Yemeni President Ali Nasser Mohammed and leaders of several opposition groups, including exiles.

They named General Abdullah Ali Aleiwa, a former defense minister, as their choice for armed forces commander.

An official from an anti-Saleh coalition of mainstream opposition parties, said the Joint Meeting would not support the new council. The coalition has also called for a transitional body.

"This council does not reflect (the views) of the Joint Meeting, because we have a different plan. It only represents those who set it up," Hamid Assim, deputy secretary-general of an Arab nationalist opposition party, told Reuters.

Saleh, who is in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment following an assassination attempt in June, has backed out three times from a Gulf-brokered plan to ease him from power.

Saudi Arabia, a conservative Muslim absolute monarchy, does not want to see people power bring political change on its borders. It has long been Saleh's main financial backer, and Saleh may not stand down until Riyadh demands it.

Separately, a Yemeni deputy minister said on Saturday that the United Arab Emirates had pledged 3 million barrels of oil to Yemen, which faces a fuel crisis due to attacks on a pipeline during the widespread political unrest.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; writing by Firouz Sedarat; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Syrian protesters take aim at economy (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrians held general strikes in cities and towns across the country Thursday, part of a strategy to squeeze the economy as President Bashar Assad tries to crush a four-month-old revolt against his autocratic rule.

Security forces kept up their crackdown, however, and at least five people were killed.

The calls to strike have become a ritual every Thursday, a day before thousands take to the streets following Friday prayers. But activists said this week's response was the most widespread so far, suggesting a new momentum to the uprising.

"All the shops have closed, we have announced a general strike," said an activist in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, speaking to The Associated Press by telephone. He asked that his name not be published for fear of retribution.

Security forces in Deir el-Zour, near the border with Iraq, opened fire from their cars on thousands of protesters demanding Assad's ouster, killing at least two people. Two others were killed in the central city of Homs when security forces backed by tanks raided neighborhoods, activists said.

A Syrian soldier also was killed in Homs, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of sources on the ground. The circumstances of the death were not immediately clear.

The uprising has proved remarkably resilient in a country known for its brutal dictatorship, backed up by pervasive security forces and a loyal military. Although Assad's regime is shaken, it still draws from a significant base of support.

So far, the opposition has yet to bring out the middle and upper middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses. But there will be little to prop up the regime if business comes to a halt, private enterprises go bankrupt and the government cannot pay state employees.

Unlike some Arab countries that have been able to stave off unrest with their oil wealth, Syria has little to fall back on.

Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees, which help organize the protests, said general strikes could attract Syrians who have been hesitant to join the uprising.

"The aim is to push more people to join the uprising in a way that does not endanger their lives," he said. "The other aim is to pressure the regime economically."

Syria has banned most foreign media and placed tight restrictions on reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently confirm accounts out of Syria.

It was difficult to determine the extent of Thursday's protests, but residents and activists said they were most pronounced in Homs, the Damascus suburb of Douma, Deir el-Zour, as well as towns in northern and southern Syria.

Some security forces attacked shops that took part in the strike in Homs, shooting up windows and setting fires, Idilbi said.

Assad is trying to crush the rebellion with a deadly government crackdown that activists say has killed some 1,600 people since the middle of March.

The government disputes the toll and blames the bloodshed on a foreign conspiracy and "armed gangs." The regime has acknowledged the need for reform, however, and has promised to enact sweeping changes, including constitutional reform.

But protesters say the gestures are empty promises.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA, a mouthpiece for the regime, said masked gunmen tried to cut roads in Deir el-Zour Thursday and forced shop owners to close their stores. It added the gunmen terrorized people and vandalized some shops whose owners refused to close.

The report also said gunmen abducted two police officers and a student in Hama.

SANA's reports often contradict witness accounts.

Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights, said the violence is proof that the regime is escalating its crackdown against anyone who dares protest and that the promises of reform were merely "ink on paper."

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Zeina Karam can be reached on http://twitter.com/zkaram

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Syrian protesters attack US embassy (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian government supporters smashed windows at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Monday, raised a Syrian flag and scrawled graffiti calling the American ambassador a "dog" in anger over the envoy's visit last week to an opposition stronghold, witnesses said.

French Embassy security guards in the capital fired in the air to hold back supporters of President Bashar Assad's regime who were also protesting the French ambassador's visit to the same city, Hama, in central Syria. Protesters smashed embassy windows and shattered the windshield of a diplomatic SUV outside the compound. The French flag was removed and replaced with a Syrian one.

"God, Syria and Bashar. The nation that gave birth to Bashar Assad will not kneel," read graffiti written outside the embassy. One witness said three protesters were injured when guards beat them with clubs. The witness asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

There was no immediate word on casualties among protesters at the American Embassy demonstration.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration will formally protest the attack and may seek compensation for damage caused when a mob breached the wall of the compound before being dispersed by Marine guards.

The official said the State Department would summon a senior Syrian diplomat on Monday to condemn the assault and demand that Syria uphold obligations to protect foreign diplomatic missions. The official said no buildings were entered and there were no injuries to embassy personnel. But the official said the attackers damaged the chancery building.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Syrian security forces were slow to respond to the attack.

The Syrian regime called the French and American ambassadors' visits to Hama last week interference in the country's internal affairs and accused the envoys of undermining Syria's stability.

The protests erupted after U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford harshly criticized the Syrian government's crackdown on a popular uprising.

Some 1,600 civilians and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say. Syria blames what it calls "armed gangs" and Muslim extremists for the violence.

Hiam al-Hassan, a witness, said about 300 people had gathered outside the French Embassy while hundreds others were at the American diplomatic compound.

"Syrians demonstrated peacefully in front of the French embassy but they were faced with bullets," said al-Hassan.

On Sunday, Ford attacked the Syrian government for allowing pro-government protests while beating up anti-regime demonstrators. The pro-Assad protests in Syria are known as "mnhebak," or "we love you."

"I have not seen the police assault a "mnhebak" demonstration yet," Ford wrote on the embassy's Facebook page. "On July 9, a "mnhebak" group threw rocks at our embassy, causing some damage. They resorted to violence, unlike the people in Hama, who have stayed peaceful."

"And how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere," he said. "I saw no signs of armed gangs anywhere not at any of the civilian street barricades we passed," Ford added.

Monday's protests coincided with government-organized talks in Damascus on possible political reforms after four months of unrest.

However the talks did not stop Syrian forces from pressing their crackdown on the opposition.

Before the embassy attacks, Syrian troops stormed the country's third-largest city with armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, a rights activist. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs, activists said.

The clashes in Homs in central Syria suggest the Assad regime will not ease its four-month-old crackdown on the opposition despite proposing some political changes.

Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa called Sunday for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by the authoritarian Assad family dynasty. But the talks, which wrap up Monday, are boycotted by the main anti-government factions and are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs to immediately end the bloodshed.

The two days of meetings, however, were seen as a major concession by Assad's regime after the most serious challenge to its rule.

In Homs, an activist in the city told The Associated Press clashes occurred after security forces on Sunday killed the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) Monday.

Street lights were turned off then troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns atop Russian-made armored personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

He said some people cowered in their bathrooms during the height of the assault. At least one person was killed and 20 wounded, the activist said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said forces pushed into parts of Homs.

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Police, protesters clash for 2nd day in Egypt (AP)

CAIRO – Egyptian security forces clashed for a second day in Cairo Wednesday with hundreds of youths demanding that the country's military rulers speed up prosecution of police officers accused of brutality during mass protests that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down. More than 1,000 people have been injured, a senior official said.

In scenes reminiscent of the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak on Feb. 11, riot police deployed around the Interior Ministry building and fired in the air or used tear gas as demonstrators threw rocks and firebombs. The fighting left streets littered with rocks and debris and a heavy, white cloud of tear gas hung over the area.

By late afternoon, army troops backed by armored vehicles took over from riot police who had been protecting the Interior Ministry, closing all roads leading to the complex, the official Middle East News Agency, MENA, reported.

The protests attest to the ongoing upheaval in Egypt nearly five months after Mubarak stepped down. The country is struggling with a worsening economic crisis and as a security vacuum that has led to a surge in crime.

The question of meting out justice to those responsible for the deaths of some 850 protesters during the uprising, as well as for regime stalwarts charged with corruption, is among the most divisive in post-Mubarak Egypt. Many of those who took part in the uprising accuse the ruling military of showing too much reverence to key figures of the old regime and lenience with senior police commanders accused of ordering the killing of protesters.

Gigi Ibrahim, one of the protesters, said security forces rained tear gas on them.

"It was like January 25," she said, referring to the first day of the uprising. "The protesters have enough anger, either because change has not come or because the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces hasn't done enough" to meet their demands.

MENA quoted Assistant Health Minister Abdul-Hameed Abazah as saying that of the injured, some 900 were treated on the spot and more than 120 went to hospitals.

Most of the injured suffered from gas inhalation or concussions, officials said. At least 18 cars and 11 stores were damaged.

Ambulances ferried the wounded to hospitals, and volunteer doctors and nurses treated others on sidewalks.

The military issued a statement on its Facebook page claiming the clashes were designed to "destabilize the country" and drive a wedge between the groups behind the uprising and the security forces. It called on Egyptians not to join the protests.

Some of the protesters used scarves to shield them from tear gas. They pelted police cars with rocks and advanced when the riot police lines retreated. The main chant back in January and February was "The people want to oust the regime." But that has been replaced by screams of "The people want to oust the field-marshal" — a reference to Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's longtime defense minister and chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that has taken over. Some of the youth groups behind the uprising see Tantawi as tainted because he was a key member of the Mubarak regime.

Critics also charge that Tantawi's policies are designed to keep the old order, and accuse him of deliberately stalling the process of purging Mubarak loyalists and failing to reform the hated Interior Ministry and its security agencies.

The clashes are likely to widen the rift between many Egyptians and the police, blamed for most of the human rights abuses during Mubarak's nearly three decades in power. They also are likely to delay efforts aimed at empowering the police to fully take back the streets. Police melted away following deadly clashes with protesters during the first few days of the uprising and army troops replaced them.

Mubarak's security chief, former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, is on trial along with several of his top aides for ordering the use of deadly force against protesters. This week, his trial was adjourned until July 25, a decision that touched off clashes between relatives and police deployed outside the courthouse. Some of the victims' relatives want Mubarak to be included in the case against el-Adly.

Mubarak has been under arrest at a hospital in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh and has been separately charged with ordering the killing of the protesters. Both men face the death penalty if convicted.

The clashes began Tuesday evening when some 100 people, claiming to be relatives of the uprising's victims, tried to storm a ceremony held at a Nile side theater to honor the memory of 10 protesters killed in the uprising. Clashes between them and security guards at the theater began when they were denied entry. The men pelted the theater with rocks.

Police arrested seven of the attackers, but the rest headed to the road outside the state television building across the river. They persuaded relatives of the victims staging a sit-in outside the building to join them. Together, they marched to the Interior Ministry, where they clashed with police and later headed to the nearby Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising. They battled the police again until authorities ordered the police to pull back.

There were an estimated 6,000 protesters at the peak of the riots late Tuesday night.

Wednesday's clashes centered on streets leading to the Interior Ministry close to the downtown campus of the American University in Cairo.

Tahrir Square was closed to traffic on Wednesday, but about 1,500 protesters remained out on the streets.

A key youth group, April 6, described the police's handling of the latest protests as "brutal" and called in a statement for a sit-in in central Cairo to protest what it said was the failure to implement many of the demands from the uprising and to show solidarity with the families of the uprising's victims.

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