Syrian security forces killed eight people yesterday, including two children, activists said, amid reports that the army had laid mines along the border with Lebanon.

“A 15-year-old minor was killed and three people were wounded by security forces during raids” in Dael, a protest hub near the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

On Wednesday, more than 5,000 people in Dael called for the fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the Observatory said, adding that 23 people were arrested there.

In the central region of Homs, another hotbed of dissent, two civilians were killed, one shot by sniper fire, a statement from the Britain-based watchdog said.

Further north, in Hama, five civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed by heavy machinegun fire as the army and gunmen believed to be deserters clashed, the Observatory said.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist network spurring protests on the ground, said security forces entered several towns to the east of Damascus looking for people “on the basis of lists.”

State TV, meanwhile, broadcast images of a huge pro-Assad rally in Latakia, saying that showed people’s support for (Assad’s) reform programme and their rejection of foreign interference.

In a region bordering northern Lebanon, Syrian troops were seen planting mines in the early morning in an apparent bid to stop weapons smuggling along the porous border, a local Lebanese official said.