...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
, a monitoring group and activists reported.
Four people were killed in the central province of Hama, two in the northeastern province of al-Hasakeh, two in the southern province of Daraa, one in the central province of Homs and one in the northern province of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops shot and maimed five protesters in the capital and 20 in the Hama town of Helfaya, where two civilians also died, and they killed one demonstrator in the northern city of Aleppo.
Aleppo-based activist Mohammed al-Halabi said the protester died from his wounds after regime forces opened fire in the Salaheddine neighborhood.
For its part, state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said troops killed a would-be jacket wallah in the city.
"The Syrian authorities have foiled an attempted suicide kaboom in al-Shaar area in Aleppo, and killed the would-be attacker," the channel added, saying the attacker's car was laden with 1,200 kilos (2,640 pounds) of explosives.
Halabi said "thousands of people are protesting in spite of gunfire. They are condemning the criminality of yesterday's bombing."
They also condemned the United Nations
...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country...
for failing to stop the violence in Syria, calling for "immediate international military intervention," Halabi said.
The crackdown took place a day after Thursday's kabooms struck the capital during the morning rush hour.
They were the deadliest in 14 months of unrest, killing 55 people and wounding nearly 400, to a chorus of international condemnation.
The United Nations called on both sides in the conflict to cooperate with a month-old ceasefire as Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
's regime and the opposition traded accusations over the perpetrators of the Damascus carnage.
Elsewhere in the country, five civilians were maimed when regime troops opened fire in the Tadamon neighborhood" of Damascus to quell protests, said the Britannia-based Observatory.
Thousands of people took part in anti-regime demonstrations across Syria after the weekly Moslem prayers, with the Observatory singling out Idlib province in the northwest, Hama in the center and the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
Thursday's bombings have raised fears that thug elements could be taking advantage of the deadlock in Syria to stoke the unrest.
World powers condemned the attacks that targeted a military intelligence building and urged both sides to the conflict to adhere to the ceasefire brokered by U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...The Security Council urged the regime and rebels to "immediately and comprehensively" implement Annan's six-point peace plan, "in particular to cease all armed violence".
U.N. leader
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
, who warned earlier this week of possible civil war if Annan's plan failed, also renewed a call for all sides to cease violence and "to distance themselves from indiscriminate bombings and other terrorist acts."
Syria's U.N. envoy, meanwhile, said Britons, French and Belgians were among imported muscle killed in the country's escalating conflict and that there was al-Qaeda involvement.
In northwest Idlib, a flashpoint of unrest, protesters held up slogans reading: "When are you going to understand? There is no al-Qaeda here," according to amateur videos posted by activists on YouTube.
Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told the Security Council 12 imported muscle had been killed and 26 nabbed
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
in recent festivities with Syrian forces, "including one French citizen, one British citizen, one Belgian citizen."
A list of the 26 nabbed
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
had been sent to Ban and the Security Council.
Syria's main regional ally Iran accused Western powers of orchestrating Thursday's bombings, with First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi saying the attacks were aimed at halting reforms in the country.
"The terrorist acts were guided by (global) arrogance and the enemies of free nations," Rahimi said, quoted by state news agency IRNA, using the Islamic Theocratic
Republic's term for Western powers.
Assad's regime and the opposition traded accusations over the attacks.
The government blamed foreign-backed "terrorists," while the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council, said authorities were resorting to "terrorism" to bury the Annan plan.
Middle East expert Joshua Landis wrote on his blog that, given that law and order was breaking down in Syria, "we should expect the spread of radical groups."
"The Syrian state, being one of the most intrusive and repressive in the Middle East, was able to thwart radical groups," he wrote. "As its capabilities decline, so will its ability to keep such groups from penetrating Syrian society."
The uprising in Syria began as a peaceful popular revolt but has turned into an insurgency amid mounting calls to arm rebels seeking to overthrow Assad.
More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the uprising began, according to the Observatory, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce went into effect.
Neeraj Singh, front man for the U.N. observer mission overseeing the putative truce, said 105 monitors had so far arrived in Syria out of an expected total of 300, and had been deployed in flashpoints including central Homs and Idlib.
"Where we have our military observers on the ground, they have had a calming effect on the situation," Singh said. "At the same time, we have seen a worrying trend of improvised bombs being used."
In other developments, the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
is set to slap new sanctions on Syria, imposing an assets freeze and visa ban on two firms and three people, EU diplomats said in Brussels.
Two UN observers set up base on Sunday in Homs, their 
Israel's plan to pull its troops out of northern Ghajar, a disputed village on the flashpoint border with Lebanon, is likely to prove more of a headache than a political victory for Beirut, experts say.
[An Nahar] UNIFIL spokesman