More atrocities in Syria....

I'm waiting for the protests here in the West...

An estimated 3,000 mourners on Saturday filed through the coastal city of Latakia for the funeral of one of at least nine protesters shot dead by security forces the day before, activists said.

Around the country, 25 people were killed on Friday, including three in the Qabun district of Damascus, after protesters took to the streets following the main weekly Muslim prayers, activists said.

As the death toll mounted, detailed accounts emerged from some of the thousands who fled to Turkey from the bloodshed in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughur.

Among them were Syrian army deserters who told of atrocities committed by soldiers in suppressing protests, who themselves were under the threat of execution if they disobeyed orders.

Tahal al-Lush described the operation, in Ar-Rastan, a town of 50,000 people in Homs province, that had pushed him to desert.

"We were told that people were armed there. But when we arrived, we saw that they were ordinary civilians. We were ordered to shoot them," said Lush, with a blank stare in his eyes.

"When we entered the houses, we opened fire on everyone, the young, the old... Women were raped in front of their husbands and children," he said.

He showed his military passbook and other papers as proof of identity.

A second conscript, Mohammed Mirwan Khalaf, said he had been in a unit stationed at Idlib, near the border.

"Just in front of me, a professional soldier pulled out his knife and stabbed a civilian in the head, for no reason," he said.

In the Turkish city of Antakya, Nabil, one of the last Syrian aid workers out of Jisr al-Shughur, recalled the roar of helicopters and a "skull split in two" before he collapsed with a bullet in his back.