The crowd had gathered to protest a deadly crackdown by security forces who activists say killed 14 demonstrators Sunday. Tensions mounted throughout the day, and around 2 pm Tuesday forces began to draw again, witnesses said.
Shortly before 3 a.m., a woman who lives near the place of the said by cell phone: "Shooting is heard echoing across the city." Mosques are asking for help. "We fear that many of them are killed in the square, it's a massacre".
Razan Zeitouneh, an activist with the link of Information of the human rights of the Syrian Damascus, said she heard shots by telephone while talking to a distraught friend instead. He said he saw four people were killed and dozens injured.
Renewed protests amounted to a denial of concessions outlined by President Bashar al-Assad in a televised speech, lifting Saturday including State of 48 years of the country of emergency later this week.
Funeral processions in Homs Monday, far to new Square Tower of the clock in the first traditional prayers offered for the dead. But the demonstrators began to applause and chanting against Mr. Assad as a walking funeral caskets swelling has thus overhead.
Security forces fired into the air in the afternoon, witnesses said by telephone, but the crowd refused to disperse. At 7: 45 that a protester reported that security forces had begun surrounding the place that the crowd chanted, "A sit-in, a dining room until the overthrow of the regime."
Activists called the "tahrir" square - the Arabic word for liberation and the name of the place in Cairo where mass protests overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February.
"They want to create a moment Tahrir-like, a decisive event," said Ammar Abdulhamid, the leader of the Syrian opposition under the based in Maryland that is in contact with some of the young activists.
Another activist of the rights of man, Rassem al-Atassy, said by telephone from Homs during the day, people are in charge in the city centre now."
Ahmad, 28, a student of the University in protest of Homs, said: "the people of Homs, we ask three day general strike show our rejection of the murder in cold blood of peaceful demonstrators." Homs is boiling and no one can tell you what will happen in the near future.
Mr. Abdulhamid said activists in the square were not armed, but had organized themselves to sleep in shifts, anticipating a confrontation on the day the day.
Late Monday night, the news agency, SANA, reported that the Ministry of the Interior called disorders "an armed mutiny" led by radical Salafi Muslims.
"The Department added that these armed groups have committed vicious crimes that the law would punish with stronger penalties," said SANA. "These groups aim to sow chaos and terrify the Syrian people, exploiting the process of reform and freedom launched a comprehensive program according to specific schedules announced by President Bashar al-Assad."
Radwan Ziadeh, a researcher Syrian human rights activist invited to the George Washington University, said the statement by the Ministry has suggested that the Government of the Syria was considering a confrontation with the demonstrators.
"I am very concerned by the statement," said Mr. Ziadeh. "It is a justification for what they intend to do so in the next few hours." This is the green light for the armed confrontation.
"I spoke to five or six protesters in Homs, and there are many women and children in the place, families, women making sandwiches." Minarets, they called for more information to join the demonstration. They estimated 50 000 today.
"But all communication was cut now.". I lost them. ?
Ms. Zeitouneh, of the Human Rights Information link Syrian, said that up to 20 people may have died at Homs on Sunday. Security forces opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators with live ammunition and tear gas, said another witness by telephone.
State media has reported that an officer of the army, Brigadier-General Khodir al-Tilawi, two of his sons and nephew have been ambushed, bullets and brutally mutilated by "armed criminal groups."
Ms. Zeitouneh said that she had received reports from the coastal city of Latakia that security forces had opened fire Sunday evening on the demonstrators there as well. The number of victims did not know immediately.
Wissam tariff, Executive Director of Insan, a Syrian human rights group, said that five died in Latakia.
Activists of human rights said Monday that the forces in both the Homs and Latakia were arresting demonstrators injured in local hospitals, leading a physician in Homs to say that, up to a dozen patients in a critical condition could have died in detention.
Syrian protests coincided with the new disclosures that in 2005 the United States began to finance secretly some wishing to Syrian opposition groups to overthrow Mr. Assad. Disclosures, in the diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, showed the funding of the Department of State of Barada TV, a radio broadcaster anti-Assad satellite run by Syrian exiles in London, as well as the concern by diplomats Americans in Syria Syrian intelligence officers began to suspect the funding two years ago.
Liam reported Stack of Cairo and Katherine Zoepf of New York. An employee of the New York Times paid of Damascus Declaration, Syria, Scott Shane of Washington and j. David Goodman of New York.
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