Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: When "Many Thousands" Becomes Routine....

Claimed footage of protest today in Idlib Province in northwest Syria

1715 GMT: Libyan insurgents carried out a late-night reconnaissance raid on Friday on the oil port of Brega in north-central Libya.

An opposition military spokesman said a light mobile force of about 50 troops had breached regime positions before pulling back for a hoped-for offensive early on Saturday.

The insurgents held Brega for weeks in the spring before it was retaken by Muammar Qaddafi's forces.

The opposition troops had reportedly tried to dispose of more than 150 landmines found outside the town, to make way for heavy artillery, but the assault left at least 10 dead and 172 wounded, according to medics.

1710 GMT: The Egyptian military has broken up a sit-in in front of the Gharbiya Governorate headquarters in the north of the country.

The sit-in, staged by various political groups including the 6 April Youth Movement and the Freedom and Justice Party, was demanding the dismissal of the heads of city councils in Gharbiya, job opportunities, unemployment benefits, and compensation for families of the martyrs of the uprising against the Mubarak regime.

Military forces removed tents and dispersed protesters after they chanted slogan against Egypt's military rulers, led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

Police reportedly arrested three activists.

1700 GMT: Global Voices Online reports on the suppression of a protest in the Tunisian capital Tunis yesterday by police.

The protesters, gathered outside the headquarters of the Cabinet, were calling for reform and demanding the departure of the Minister of Justice, for failing to “bring to justice the killers of the revolution martyrs”, and the Minister of Interior, Habib Essid.

Both ministers held key positions during the regime of President Ben Ali, who was overthrown in January.

1300 GMT: More on the formation by a youth coalition of a National Transitional Council in Yemen (see 1155 GMT)....

The council consists of 17 Yemeni figures of different partisan and political affiliations inside Yemen and abroad. It has appointed General Abdullah Ali Elaiwa, the former Minister of Defence, as chief commander of the armed forces and Judge Faheem Abdullah Muhsen as the Chief Justice.

1205 GMT: Bahrain's largest opposition party, Al Wefaq may be on the brink of pulling out of the regime's "national dialogue" talks, launched at the start of the month.

Al Wefaq only agreed to join the discussions at the last minute and are only participating in two of the four committees. Some delegates are now recommending withdrawal, according to Khalil Al Marzooq:

We entered the dialogue to help the country, to try to reform it from inside. But now we believe that we have enough evidence for the international community that the authorities are not serious in reform....Nobody is responding to us. We cannot continue this, fooling ourselves and fooling the people and fooling the international community that this is a solution.

1200 GMT: Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said that 47-year-old Zainab Hasan Ahmed al-Jumaa suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by riot police during a demonstration on Friday near her home in Sitra.

Al-Jumaa is the 33rd person to die since the pro-reform protests began on 14 February.

The Ministry of Interior denied al-Jumaa's death was linked to a police operation and said she died of natural causes.

1155 GMT: In Yemen, a youth coalition has formed a Transitional Council with 17 members.

1125 GMT: Claimed footage of a funeral procession on Friday, in Idlib in northwest Syria, for a man killed by Syrian security forces.

After a weeping woman, presumed to be the dead man's mother, kisses the body, the procession is disrupted by firing of tear gas and live ammunition.

1045 GMT: Reuters reports fighting in the Nafusa mountains in western Libya, near the village of Bir Ayad, 15 km (9 miles) south of the town of Bir Ghanam.

Insurgents hold the high ground on the outskirts of the town, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Tripoli. Fighters in Bir Ayad said forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi were sending a column of reinforcements to Bir Ghanam.

1030 GMT: CNN summarises an attack by Jordanian riot police on demonstrators on Friday in the capital Amman, punching, kicking, and beating them with sticks.

A regime spokesman said police intervened between two groups, one backing the government and the other calling for reform.

Video showed injured and bloodied protesters. State news media claimed that 17 police officers were injured in the clashes.

0915 GMT: A protest in Sitra in Bahrain on Friday calls for the fall of the al-Khalifa regime:

0905 GMT: Demonstration in Idlib Province in northwest Syria on Friday, honouring a martyr of the protests:

0900 GMT: In Egypt, thousands of protesters marched on Friday from Tahrir Square to the High Court, calling for the dismissal of corrupt judges and the sacking of Public Prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, one of the officials remaining from the Mubarak regime:

0540 GMT: Matthew Cassel of Al Jazeera English profiles Bahraini writers, such as Ali al-Jallawi, who have been forced into hiding and exile by the regime's crackdown on dissent.

0510 GMT: Continuing our opening theme about the "routine", this quote from the US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, in an interview in Foreign Policy magazine: "I have seen no evidence yet in terms of hard changes on the ground that the Syrian government is willing to reform at anything like the speed demanded by the street protestors. If it doesn’t start moving with far greater alacrity, the street will wash them away."

0450 GMT: It must be significant that the presence of many thousands --- tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? a million? --- on the streets of Syria becomes a routine event. On Friday, four months after the start of the uprising against the Assad regime, the protesters again turned out, from towns in the northeast to the flashpoint area in the northwest to the capital Damascus:

And there were marches in the second city Aleppo, once thought to be immune from demonstrations:

And it must be significant that the reports of violence and deaths also becomes "normal". Activists claimed that at least 28 more people were killed on Friday, including 16 in Damascus.

Six others were reportedly slain in the capital's suburbs, three in the northwestern city of Idlib, and two in the southern town of Daraa.

It must be significant that, with the expectation of such reports, it is only when video comes through that we are shaken from the everyday of reporting.

For example, this footage of protesters running from gunfire in the Qaboun section of Damascus:

And here again --- with the caution that the imagery is disturbing and that we have questions about how this claimed footage emerged --- is the 90-second clip of what "clashes" mean, as security forces allegedly 2beat people in Homs:

Last night, despite that "routine" of confrontation, the protests continued:

In the Rukn Al-Deen sections of Damascus:

A short clip from Harasta in Damascus Province: