Dozens of people staged an anti-government protest before attacking the building in Latakia, said Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights.
Protesters and Syrian government forces clashed today in the coastal city of Latakia, where demonstrators set fire to the offices of President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party, an activist said.
Dozens of people staged an anti-government protest before attacking the building in Latakia, said Ammar Qurabi, an exile in Egypt who heads Syria's National Organization for Human Rights.
Presidential advisor Bouthaina Shaaban said that an "armed group" had occupied the roofs of some buildings. She claimed the group was shooting randomly at citizens.
"There is a project to sow strife in Syria," Shaaban told reporters in Damascus.
Qurabi said four people were killed when armed forces fired on protesters Friday in Latakia, which is almost evenly divided between the country's majority Sunni Muslims and Alawites, members of a branch of Shiite Islam who hold most positions of power, including the presidency.
More than a week of protests centered in the southern Syrian city of Daraa exploded into nationwide unrest Friday when tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities, town and villages around the country, posing the greatest threat in decades to Assad's iron-fisted rule. Troops and soldiers opened fire in at least six places, killing some 15 protesters, according to witnesses, activists and footage posted on social networking sites.
Assad pulled back police and soldiers from Daraa and released hundreds of political prisoners today in an attempt to appease demonstrators furious about the violent government crackdown on dissent.
A resident told The Associated Press by telephone that security forces had withdrawn to the outskirts of Daraa, where protests demanding the release of youths arrested for spraying anti-government graffiti have spiraled into daily confrontations with security forces, who have repeatedly opened fire.
The Daraa resident said more than 1,000 people were holding a silent sit-in the al-Omari mosque, the epicenter of the protests. Protesters used the mosque as a refuge and ad hoc medical center until they were driven out in a government assault on Wednesday. They retook the mosque during clashes with government forces on Friday, witnesses said.
The clashes erupted after protesters attack a statue of late President Hafez Assad in Daraa's main square, witnesses said. The Daraa resident said the statue had been knocked down, a giant picture of President Bashar Assad, the late leader's son, had been torn apart.
A video posted on the main Facebook page used by Syrian pro-democracy activists showed a crowd of young men in Deraa climbing onto the base and trying to shake its from its perch, then rushing toward a nearby building, some throwing what appear to be stones. Suddenly, automatic weapons fire breaks out and the video ends.
A human rights activist said authorities had released 260 political prisoners. Abdul-Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights League, said most of those released were Islamists and 14 Kurdish detainees were also let free.
Rihawi called the move a "positive step" and urged authorities to release all political detainees.
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