DAMASCUS, July 15: More than a million protesters flooded Syrian streets on Friday demanding an end to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime as security forces killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100, activists said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syria could not return to the way it was before anti-regime protests began in March, but how the situation would evolve remained unclear.

“Eight people were killed on Friday in the Damascus neighbourhood of Qabun, while scores others were wounded, 15 of them critically, by security forces who opened fire,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Abdel Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, said security forces killed three in the capital’s Rukn Eddin area, three in the northern city of Idlib and two in the southern town of Daraa.

Other activists said at a protest in Duma, 15km from the capital, three people were killed and at least 40 wounded by security forces firing on a rally that attracted 35,000 people.

More than one million Syrians turned out in just two cities --- Hama and Deir Ezzor --- in protest against Assad’s regime and demand the release of hundreds of detainees seized in earlier pro-democracy rallies.

“More than a million people demonstrated today in Hama and Deir Ezzor,” Rami Abdel Rahman said. “It’s a major development.”—AFP