AMMAN - Syria's army deployed in the city of Homs and police put up checkpoints across the capital, witnesses said, ahead of Friday prayers which have attracted big protests against President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule. The prayers will test whether Assad's decision on Thursday to lift emergency law, imposed by his Baath Party when it took power in a coup 48 years ago, will defuse a month of mass discontent with repression and corruption. Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power in Syria. More than 220 protesters have been killed since pro-democracy protests erupted on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa, including 21 protesters killed this week in Homs, rights campaigners say. A decree Assad signed on Thursday that lifted emergency law is seen by the opposition as largely symbolic, since other laws still give security forces wide powers. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma University, said the Syrian government had "drawn a line in the sand" after offering concessions, and that Assad made clear he believed "there is no longer reason to demonstrate". "The organisers of the revolution vowed to turn out their largest numbers yet ... They are determined to bring down the regime and understand that this is their chance," he said. "Friday will be a day of reckoning". A rights activist said on Thursday trucks carrying soldiers and vehicles equipped with machine guns were seen on the main highway from Damascus to Homs, a central city that has emerged as the new focal point of protests. Soldiers in groups of five patrolled the streets of Homs on foot overnight. Plainclothes security police and others wearing camouflage uniforms were also present, two witnesses said. Homs residents organised neighbourhood patrols after 21 protesters were shot dead on Monday and Tuesday by security police and gunmen known as 'al-shabbiha'. "We are determined on totally peaceful protests ... we rejoice at the downfall of the state of emergency. It was not lifted, it was toppled ... With the help of God, we will embark on freedom," a comment on a Facebook page run by activists said. A Damascus resident said police had set up checkpoints across the capital overnight, and security forces were also present at the city entrances, apparently to prevent protests sweeping into Damascus from the suburbs. Another resident said army buses dropped security forces dressed in tracksuits on streets leading into Abbasside square. Human Right Watch said Assad "has the opportunity to prove his intentions by allowing (Friday's) protests to proceed without violent repression. "The reforms will only be meaningful if Syria's security services stop shooting, detaining, and torturing protesters," said Joe Stork, the group's deputy Middle East director. Emergency rule has been used since Assad's Baath Party seized power to justify arbitrary arrests and detention and a ban on all opposition. Assad's conciliatory move to lift the state of emergency followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made before Friday when demonstrations are the strongest, and are usually followed by an intense crackdown. The authorities have blamed armed groups, infiltrators and Sunni Muslim militant organisations for provoking violence at demonstrations by firing on civilians and security forces. Western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the killings in Syria for fear of destabilising the country, which plays a strategic role in many of the conflicts in the Middle East. Syria is technically at war with Israel but has kept its Golan Heights front with the Jewish state quiet since a 1974 ceasefire. It has long borders with Iraq, and supports the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Shi'ite Hezbollah movement in neighbouring Lebanon, also backed by Iran.
