Syrian troops crackdown on demonstrators

Deraa residents – the town which saw the first protests against Presdient Bashar al-Assad erupted - said hundreds of troops had arrived: “The were firing. Witnesses have told me that there have been five deaths so far and houses have become hospitals.”

Rights groups says security forces have killed more than 350 civilians since the beginning of the protest. News media report that a third of the victims were killed in the past three days as the scale and breadth of a popular revolt against Assad.

In some of the latest violence, activists said government troops and gunmen loyal to Assad shot dead at least nine civilians on yesterday in Jabla, where troops deployed following a protest the previous night.

Foreign journalists have been expelled from Syria.