© AFP/YoutubeImage grab taken from a YouTube video on April 19, 2011 - which AFP cannot independently verify - claims to show Syrian anti-regime protesters during a demonstration in Homs on April 18, 2011.
Beirut - Syrian security forces fired at tens of thousands of people joining funeral processions Saturday after the bloodiest day of the monthlong uprising against President Bashar Assad, bringing the death toll from two days of violence to more than 120 and prompting two lawmakers and a local religious leader to resign in disgust over the killings.
The resignations were a possible sign of cracks developing in the regime's base in a nation where nearly all opposition figures have been either jailed or exiled during the 40-year dynasty of the Assad family.
"I cannot tolerate the blood of our innocent sons and children being shed," Sheikh Rizq Abdul-Rahim Abazeid told The Associated Press after stepping down from his post as the mufti of the Daraa region in southern Syria.
The lawmakers, Nasser Hariri and Khalil Rifai, also are from Daraa, which has become the epicenter of the protest movement after a group of teenagers were arrested there for scrawling anti-regime graffiti on a wall in mid-March.
Since then, the relentless crackdown on demonstrations has only served to invigorate protesters whose rage over the bloodshed has all but eclipsed their earlier demands for modest reforms. Now, many are seeking Assad's downfall.
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