Videos posted online from flashpoints across major cities from Damascus to Idlib showed that the ceasefire dictated by the Annan peace deal had encouraged more people than recently to join protests after Friday prayers.

But the so-called “Day of Revolution for all Syrians” failed in its attempts to pose an overwhelming threat to the Assad regime, as activists hoped.

Regime forces were able to limit the numbers and their effect using force, but without sufficient violence to call the Annan plan into question.

The Local Co-ordination Committees website said there had been 31 incidents of gunfire being turned on protests, and about 11 deaths, fewer than on other Fridays.

Omar al-Khani, from Qaboun in Damascus, one of the places named, said forces had fired on the funeral of Fares al-Habboul, a young man killed on Thursday, also in breach of the ceasefire.

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