Russian lawmakers arrive in Damascus in bid to end crackdown

The Syrian president's counsellor Boutheina Chaabane (R) and senator of Russia’s upper house A group of Russian lawmakers arrived in Damascus Saturday in a bid to broker an end to violence in the country, as security forces were reported to have killed two more people. Moscow is a traditional ally of President Bashar al-Assad, and the delegation aims to meet him and opposition figures, news agencies reported.
"Russia cares about the fate of the Syrian people. That's why we want to find a way to stop a negative scenario developing," Russia's Interfax quoted Ilyas Uumakhanov, vice president of the Russian upper house, as saying.
"Russia is against any external interference in Syria's domestic problems and is ready to assist where it can with internal political dialogue, which should take place in a peaceful atmosphere, without victims," he said.
"We intend to assess the situation, lead the consultations with the different political forces," he added.
Syria's SANA news agency said the group began a four-day visit to meet "independent politicians and the opposition."
No date was given for the meeting with Assad, and it was not clear which opposition forces the delegation intended to meet.
Russia has continued to support the Syrian regime despite its crackdown on protests that the United Nations estimates to have killed around 2,600 people.
On Saturday, Syrian security forces killed two people as they conducted searches in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The victims, a man and a woman, were killed in the town of Khan Sheikhun, the British-based group told AFP by telephone.
For its part, SANA said one member of the security forces was killed and another wounded in an ambush by an "armed terrorist group" in the same town.
It also said five members of the security forces were killed in an ambush in the central city of Homs.
The Russians arrived a day after security forces in Syria shot dead at least 22 people in operations across the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as pressure mounted on the regime to end the crackdown.
Moscow has refused to support Western sanctions against Assad and argued that equal pressure should also be placed on the protesters who refuse to engage Assad in direct talks.
President Dmitry Medvedev has said that some of those taking part in the Syrian demonstration had links to "terrorists."
In other news, at least 200 Syrian opposition members have met outside the capital, Damascus, in a significant gathering of dissidents on Syrian soil, a day after at least 44 people were killed in anti-government protests.
The meeting held on Saturday was organised by the executive office of the National Co-ordinating Body (NCB), a group established to unite key opposition figures inside and outside Syria.
A news conference was planned for Sunday."Participants from all Syria's opposition groups and figures are participating in the two-day meeting," one participant told Al Jazeera.
"There are participants from Kurdish parties and young activists from the Local Co-ordination Committee (LCC) also taking part.
"We will try to elect an executive council, about 60 members, and this council will elect an executive bureau. Tomorrow, there will be a press conference in Damascus by the commission's co-ordinator Hassan Abdul Azim. This meeting will draw the future of the opposition movement."
Funerals follow clashes
The meeting came amid funerals for some of the 44 people activists said were killed in the country following Friday prayers.
Friday marked the start of the seventh month of protests in Syria, Al Jazeera's Omar al-Saleh reported from neighbouring Jordan.
Clashes between security forces and protesters erupted mainly in the Idlib province, the outskirts of Homs, and in the Damascus suburb of Doumma on Friday, pro-democracy activists said.
In the city of Hama, security agents "surrounded the Saad bin Abi Waqas mosque" anticipating a protest after Friday prayers, activists said.
Citing activists on the ground, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group, reported several tanks and troop transports heading towards the northwest town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province.
Elsewhere, communications were cut on Friday in Zabadani, about 50km northwest of Damascus.
The latest deaths came after Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, called for "coherent" global action over President Bashar al-Assad's security crackdown on the pro-democracy movement.
Nearly 4,000 people who fled to neighbouring Lebanon between March and September as Syrian troops crack down on anti-regime demonstrations have registered with the United Nations, a report said.
The report by the UN Development Programme released late on Friday said that more than 3,580 Syrians registered with the UN in north Lebanon by September 7, more than 600 of them between September 1 and 7.
"In the past two weeks, new arrivals from Syria have come to Lebanon from villages of Heet, Tal Kalakh and in Homs as clashes flared in those areas," it said.
"Most Syrians who have been displaced from their villages in recent weeks enter Lebanon at official border crossings since unofficial crossing points are reportedly heavily guarded by Syrian authorities."
Eyewitnesses in north Lebanon have said they could hear gunfire from the Syrian side of the border and have seen black plumes of smoke rising in recent weeks.
Security sources have said that some refugees arrived in Lebanon suffering from gunshot wounds.
The United Nations estimates that more than 2,600 Syrians have been killed, many of them civilians, since mid-March as a result of the Syrian regime's crackdown on protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.