A MASS PROTEST calling for sweeping changes in Syria’s authoritarian regime turned bloody today, with the government and protesters both claiming to have sustained heavy casualties as the country’s three-week uprising entered a dangerous new phase.

Human rights activists and witnesses said Syrian security forces opened fire on tens of thousands of protesters in the volatile southern city of Daraa, killing 25 people and wounding hundreds.

State-run TV, however, said 19 policemen and members of the security forces were killed when gunmen opened fire on them.

It was the first significant claim of casualties by the Syrian government, which has contended that armed gangs rather than true reform-seekers are behind the unrest — and the admission could signal plans for a stepped-up retaliation.

Protest organisers have called on Syrians to take to the streets every Friday for the past three weeks, demanding change in one of the most rigid nations in the Middle East. Protests were held in several cities across the country as the movement showed no sign of letting up, despite the violent crackdowns.

Syria’s National Organization for Human Rights said at least 32 people were killed nationwide on Friday. That tally, if correct, would lift the death toll from three weeks of protests to more than 170 people.

The protests have shaken the regime of President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Assad, a British-trained eye doctor, inherited power from his father 11 years ago and tried to help the country emerge from years of international isolation and lift Soviet-style economic restrictions.

But despite early promises of social and political reform, Assad has slipped back into the autocratic ways of his father.

“The protests are about Syrians wanting freedom after 42 years of repression,” Murhaf Jouejati, a Syria expert at George Washington University, told AP.

“So Mr. Assad may fire all the people he wants – this still doesn’t touch on the basic issues and the basic demands of the protesters.”

AP