Video: Protesters on streets of Homs run from gunfire Activists said at least six people were killed in Syria on Friday and the bodies of six others were turned over to their families, activists said, two days before the Arab League decides whether to keep monitors there despite their failure to halt bloodshed. Security men were out in force in several restive towns and cities to counter protests against Bashar that often erupt after weekly Muslim prayers, activists said, while supporters of the Syrian President demonstrated in Damascus. Hundreds of people have been killed since the monitors arrived in Syria, where an armed insurgency has grown in recent months, contesting President Assad's grip on several parts of the country. Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo on Sunday 22 January 22 to decide whether to prolong the observers' one-month mandate, which expired on Thursday. Supporters say the mission reduced violence somewhat, but critics say it provided diplomatic cover for Assad to pursue a crackdown that the UN says has already killed more than 5,000 people. The Syrian authorities accuse foreign-backed militants of killing 2,000 members of the security forces since the unrest began in March, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five civilians had been killed in gunfire around the country and a security officer had been assassinated in Deraa, possibly because he had changed sides. In the northwestern province of Idlib, security forces returned the bodies of six people who had disappeared two days earlier, it said. It was not possible to verify the latest accounts of unrest in Syria, where tight media restrictions are enforced.