Government forces opened fire on protesters in several towns as thousands took to the streets across Syria on Friday chanting "Freedom" in support of an uprising in the southern city of Dara, news reports said.

An activist told the Associated Press that witnesses had reported one demonstrator shot dead by security forces in the coastal city of Latakia and another killed in the central city of Homs.

There were reports of more casualties in Sanamein and in nearby Dara, where a witness told CNN that protesters burned a picture of President Bashar Assad and attacked a statue of his father. The accounts could not be independently confirmed.

In the capital, Damascus, pro- and anti-government crowds clashed outside the historic Umayyad mosque, hitting each other with leather belts, AP reported.