The unrest in the city of Daraa started on Friday after security troops fired at protesters, killing five people.
Syrians chanting "No more fear!" held a defiant march on Monday after a deadly government crackdown failed to quash three days of protests in a southern city, an extraordinary outpouring in a country that brutally suppresses dissent.
Riot police armed with batons chased away the small group on Monday without incident, but traces of earlier, larger demonstrations were everywhere: burnt and looted government buildings, a dozen torched vehicles, an office of the ruling Ba'ath Party with its windows knocked out.
Protesters burnt an office of the telecommunications company Syriatel, which is owned in part by the president's cousin.
The unrest in the city of Daraa started on Friday after security troops fired at protesters, killing five people.
Over the next two days, two more people died and authorities sealed the city, allowing people out but not in, as thousands of enraged protesters set fire to government buildings and massed in their thousands around the city.
Among the victims was 11-year-old Mundhir Masalmi, who died on Monday after suffering tear-gas inhalation a day earlier, an activist told The Associated Press.
The activist asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
An Associated Press team was today allowed into Daraa, accompanied by two government minders who kept them away from protesters and would not allow photographs of the demonstrations.
Army checkpoints circled the city and plainclothes officers were dispatched in key areas.
A lawyer said criminal records were destroyed as people ransacked and burnt the two-story Palace of Justice, which houses a criminal court and a police station.
Every room in the building was burnt and more than 20 computers were stolen, lawyer Samir Kafri said.
Municipal workers hosed down charred courts covered in soot and ash, and security officers hung Syrian flags outside broken, scorched windows.
The violence in Daraa has fast become a major challenge for President Bashar Assad, who has tried to contain the situation by freeing detainees and promising to fire officials responsible for the violence.
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