Syria Protests Continue As Thousands Take To Streets

Syria Protests

BASSEM MROUE 03/20/11 04:47 PM AP

DAMASCUS, Syria — Police fired live ammunition and tear gas Sunday at thousands of Syrians protesting in a tense southern city for a third consecutive day, killing one person and signaling that unrest in yet another Arab country is taking root, activists said.

Enraged protesters set fire to several local government buildings, according to state media and a witness.

The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000 near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for President Bashar Assad, who tried to contain the situation by freeing detainees and promising to fire officials responsible for the violence.

Protesters in Syria, however, would face a tough time trying to pull off a serious uprising along the lines of those that toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia. Assad's Syria is a country that crushes political dissent, closely controls the media and routinely jails critics of the regime.

(Original here.)