In this image from amateur video made available by the Ugarit News group on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a soldier takes aim in Homs, Syria. The United Nations' human rights chief called on the international community to protect Syrian civilians Friday as violence surged across the country, with hours of intense shooting that sent stray bullets whizzing across the border.(AP Photo/Ugarit News Group via APTN) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL. TV OUT
In this image from amateur video made available by the Ugarit News group on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a soldier takes aim in Homs, Syria. The United Nations' human rights chief called on the international community to protect Syrian civilians Friday as violence surged across the country, with hours of intense shooting that sent stray bullets whizzing across the border.(AP Photo/Ugarit News Group via APTN) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL. TV OUT
In this image from amateur video made available by the Ugarit News group on Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, an inured person is put into a car in Homs, Syria. The United Nations' human rights chief called on the international community to protect Syrian civilians Friday as violence surged across the country, with hours of intense shooting that sent stray bullets whizzing across the border.(AP Photo/Ugarit News Group via APTN) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL. TV OUT
A pro-Syrian regime protester waves a Syrian flag as he stands in front of portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad, during a protest against sanctions, Damascus, Syria, Friday Dec. 2, 2011. International intervention, such as the NATO action in Libya that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi, is all but out of the question in Syria. But the European Union, the Arab League, Turkey and others have piled on sanctions aimed at crippling the regime once and for all. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman)
Pro-Syrian regime protesters gather during a protest against sanctions, in Damascus, Syria, on Friday Dec. 2, 2011. The Syrian violence has led to several rounds of sanctions, a key tool used by the international community to exert pressure on the regime. The measures include travel bans and asset freezes. The EU's latest sanctions, which were announced Thursday, target 12 people and 11 companies. They add to a long list of regime figures previously sanctioned by the EU, including Assad, his top associates, and high-ranking security officials. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)
BEIRUT (AP) ? Violence sweeping across Syria killed 25 people on Saturday, most of them in a battle between troops and a growing force of army defectors who have joined the movement to oust the autocratic ruler, President Bashar Assad, activists said.
The revolt against Assad's rule began with peaceful protests in mid-March, triggering a brutal crackdown. The unrest has steadily become bloodier as defectors and some civilians take up arms, prompting the United Nations' human rights chief to refer to it this week as a civil war and urge the international community to protect Syrian civilians.
Economic and diplomatic sanctions by the United States, the European Union, Turkey and the 22-member Arab League have so far failed to blunt the turmoil. Arab officials were to meet Saturday in the Gulf nation of Qatar to review punitive steps by the Arab League, including a travel ban on 17 Syrian officials, among them Cabinet ministers and security officers.
Many of the sanctions announced last Sunday by Syria's Arab neighbors went into effect immediately, including cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank, halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria and freezing government assets.
The worst violence on Saturday took place in the restive northwestern city of Idlib.
The pre-dawn clashes between regime forces and defectors killed seven soldiers and policemen, as well as five defectors and three civilians, according to a British-based group of Syrian activists called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Elsewhere, security forces killed one civilian in the southern province of Daraa, six in the central region of Homs and three others in areas near Idlib, the observatory said.
The U.N.'s top human rights official said this week that Syria is in a state of civil war and that more than 4,000 people have been killed since March.
Until recently, most of the bloodshed in Syria was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protesters, but there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting regime forces.
November was the deadliest month of the uprising, with at least 950 people killed in gunbattles, raids and other violence, according to activist groups.
In the west of the country, Syrian troops detained at least 27 people in the village of Talkalakh on the border with Lebanon and set fire to the homes of nine activists who were on the run, the observatory said.
Talkalakh is within walking distance from Lebanon, and at least two Lebanese civilians were struck by bullets on their side of the border on Friday. Witnesses said that they had heard hours of explosions and heavy machine-gun fire coming from the village.
The country's state-run SANA news agency confirmed the arrests in Talkalakh, saying that those detained were "terrorists" involved in smuggling weapons, drugs and bringing in fighters from Lebanon. The regime has consistently blamed armed gangs acting out a foreign conspiracy for Syria's unrest.
The opposition activists reject that and say they are pushing for Assad's ouster in hopes of breaking open the nation's closed political scene.
The reports of new violence could not be independently confirmed. The regime has sealed the country off from foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting.
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Bassem Mroue can be reached on http://twitter.com/bmroue
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