"Protests Across Syria Despite Military Presence"

Obama administration officials say that while some figures in the Syrian leadership, Ms. Shaaban and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa among them, seem to favor at least some reform, hard-liners in the leadership are ascendant.

On Friday, the European Union decided to impose a travel ban and a freeze of assets of 14 Syrian officials, though Mr. Assad was excluded.

The worst violence was reported in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, where activists described a chaotic, bloody day, as tanks entered the town.

But Mr. Tarif said checkpoints and military deployments had succeeded in preventing protesters from coalescing in bigger demonstrations in most towns and cities.

In the past two weeks, the military has been deployed in force to Dara’a, Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast and Rastan, a town near Homs.

Other opposition figures dismissed the tentative outreach and pointed to the arrests of two government opponents — Riad al-Seif, a former member of Parliament ailing with prostate cancer who was jailed twice in 2002, and Mouaz al-Khatib, a prominent Muslim cleric.

Mr. Khatib was arrested Thursday, and Mr. Seif on Friday, after attending a small protest in the capital, Damascus, outside the Hassan Mosque that was quickly dispersed.

For the past two weeks, the government has almost entirely relied on force to crush dissent, and there appears to be a sense in official circles that the government has gained the upper hand.

Over the past week, opposition figures said, Butheina Shaaban, an adviser to Mr. Assad, has reached out to some dissidents.

On Friday, the European Union decided to impose a travel ban and a freeze of assets of 14 Syrian officials, though Mr. Assad was excluded.

Wissam Tarif, executive director of Insan, a Syrian human rights group, said the biggest protests on Friday were reported in Baniyas and Jassem, a town near Dara’a, where protests last month over the arrest of high school students helped galvanize

“The protests can’t get the momentum to increase the numbers on the ground, as we saw in Egypt and Tunisia,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights advocate and visiting scholar at George Washington University in Washington.

Thousands have been arrested, in particular in Dara’a and towns on the capital’s outskirts.

Other opposition figures dismissed the tentative outreach and pointed to the arrests of two government opponents — Riad al-Seif, a former member of Parliament ailing with prostate cancer who was jailed twice in 2002, and Mouaz al-Khatib, a prominent Muslim cleric.

Security forces fired on demonstrators in six Syrian towns and cities in a day of protests that activists declared a “Friday of Defiance,” in which 26 people died, but a withering crackdown subdued the most restive town and prevented many protesters from gathering in larger demonstrations, activists and human rights groups said.

When the uprising erupted in Dara’a, a poor town near the Jordanian border, he initially responded with a mix of crackdown and concessions that proved largely rhetorical.

President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited power from his father, Hafez, in 2000, initially claimed that Syria was immune to the tumult sweeping the Arab world.

The government said Thursday that it was withdrawing troops from Dara’a, and state television broadcast images of armored columns leaving, but residents insisted the military remains there in force.

Security forces fired on demonstrators in six Syrian towns and cities in a day of protests that activists declared a “Friday of Defiance,” in which 26 people died, but a withering crackdown subdued the most restive town and prevented many protesters from gathering in larger demonstrations, activists and human rights groups said.