REUTERS AMMAN VIOLENCE in Syria claimed at least 56 lives on Friday, including the first reported fatalities in the commercial city of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights said.

Syrian forces killed at least 44 civilians across Syria, the watchdog said.

That included 19 people in Nawa in the southern province of Daraa, 15 in Homs, another person in nearby Hama, five in Aleppo, a child in Damascus province, and another child and two adults in Douma, just north of the capital.

In a telephone interview, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said it was the first time security forces killed demonstrators in the city of Aleppo, which so far had been spared major unrest.

Separately, two attacks killed 12 members of the security forces, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Six were killed in a car bomb targetting a security checkpoint in the northwestern city of Idlib, Abdel Rahman said, without providing any details on the identity of the assailants.

The other six were killed and five wounded in the southern province of Deraa by deserters who ambushed two buses transporting security personnel, the same source said.

Machinegun fire wounded five people in the Qusour district of Homs, one activist there said, adding that the city was calmer than it was at the height of Thursday’s violence, when 16 people were also killed by mortar fire from security forces.

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