Demonstrations Syria

Rashidiya Sorbeki, her face horribly burned from a war she will not end, held her baby daughter in her arms Saturday morning and screamed in the streets against the Palestinian leader she once worshiped. "Arafat is a coward! Arafat is a spy! Arafat has sold Palestine for dollars!" the 37-year-old Palestinian woman chanted along with 100 or so other Palestinian refugees outside the Damascus embassy of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.

Rashidiya Sorbeki, her face horribly burned from a war she will not end, held her baby daughter in her arms Saturday morning and screamed in the streets against the Palestinian leader she once worshiped. "Arafat is a coward! Arafat is a spy! Arafat has sold Palestine for dollars!" the 37-year-old Palestinian woman chanted along with 100 or so other Palestinian refugees outside the Damascus embassy of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his top deputy have agreed to meet for the first time with the commission investigating the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, according to a report released Tuesday. The meetings, expected this month, would mark a significant reversal for Assad and Vice President Farouk Shareh, who had refused to heed interview requests from the commission.

Protesters marched in the southern Syrian city of Dara on Tuesday, pressing their demands for political freedoms for a fifth day despite a security crackdown. Some witnesses said the protesters numbered in the hundreds; others said thousands took part. But it was clear that the country's burgeoning protest movement of the last week was the largest of President Bashar Assad's 11-year-rule. Tuesday's demonstration once again stopped short of calling for Assad's ouster, pushing instead for the release of jailed political dissidents and an end to the secret police organization, which is headed in Dara by the president's cousin.

Violent mass demonstrations across Syria's cities, towns and villages were met with indiscriminate gunfire by security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, killing dozens of people and hardening the divide between a regime determined to keep power and increasingly fearless protesters demanding the overthrow of the government. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of Syrian cities after weekly prayers on a day dubbed "Great Friday" by protest leaders.

In a striking show of strength, the popular movement opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad took to the streets in large numbers nationwide, defying a campaign of violence and mass detentions by security forces. Protesters' exuberance in demonstrations from Syria's Mediterranean coast to its eastern border, and from the north to the south, appeared to catch authorities and even some activists off guard. Assad's aides had claimed in recent days to have gained the upper hand. Some activists had tried to lower expectations for the protests, which were held after Friday prayers.

Politicians held a wave of closed-door meetings to select an interim government a day after Lebanon's Syria-backed administration collapsed following massive street protests. Battered from its 15-year civil war and dominated by its stronger neighbor, Lebanon will face a major test in the coming days as a divided parliament and the president try to choose an interim prime minister. The new premier will lead the country toward parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring.

Antigovernment demonstrations sweeping Syria appeared to have crossed a threshold in size and scope, with protesters battling police near the heart of the capital and the protest movement uniting people from different regions, classes and religious backgrounds against the regime. Tens of thousands of people turned out across the country Friday, dismissing minor concessions offered a day earlier by President Bashar Assad. The demonstrators called for freedom, the release of political prisoners and, in some instances, the downfall of the government, echoing demands for change across the Arab world.