Envoy in Syria amid protests

Lakhdar Brahimi, who took over for Koffi Annan as UN-Arab League special envoy at the beginning of September, held talks with regime-tolerated opposition groups on Friday. Brahimi's complete schedule for his first tour in his new role also included a visit with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Thursday. A meeting with President Bashar Assad is planned for Saturday.

"Mr. Brahimi will listen to the opposition and officials and crystallize new ideas and a plan that could succeed," Hassan Abdel Azim, the spokesman for the dissident bloc, said after Friday's talks. "There will be new ideas and measures," Abdel Azim added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that more than 27,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011. The UN puts the figure at 20,000.

Heavy artillery

On Friday, regime forces struck at the northern city of Aleppo with fighter jets and helicopter gunships, monitors said. Warplanes hit nearby rebel-held towns and police stations that had fallen from regime hands.

Despite the shelling, residents turned out to demonstrate against the regime, activists said. Protests were reported in other cities and provinces such as Damascus, Idlib, Daraa and Hama, where the Observatory said soldiers used explosives against protesters, wounding several. The army also shot at a demonstration held in the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees, the Local Coordination Committees, an activist network, reported.

Visiting neighboring Lebanon, Pope Benedict XVI called for nations to stop sending arms to Syria.

"Arms imports must stop once and for all, because without arms imports, war cannot continue," the pope said.

Visiting camps in neighboring Turkey, the movie star and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie expressed her worries over the effects of the coming winter on refugees.

"It is a very large concern for all of us," she said.

mkg/mz (AFP, dpa)