At least four people were killed in the Syrian city of Latakia, including a police officer, and about a hundred others injured during a demonstration for political reforms, witnesses said.

One of the witnesses consulted by telephone by Efe, who asked not withhold his identity, said at least one of the victims, Ali Jamus, was shot dead by unknown snipers.

The attack came on another day of protests in different parts of Syria, which since the middle of this month have caused more than seventy dead, mostly through the intervention of police.

According to medical sources consulted by Efe, about a hundred people, including seventy police officers were treated at Latakia and injured in the riots occurred during demonstrations of young people who were deployed there.

Burning buildings. Meanwhile, a group of protesters torched a police station and offices of the ruling party in a small town in southern Syria, officials said.
Baath party offices in the coastal city of Latakia were also burned, said an activist.
Presidential adviser Buthaina Shaban said protesters attacked two buildings in the city of Tafas, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the city of Dara, the center of anti-government protests have spread over a week.

Besides the turmoil in Latakia and political protests were Tafas other cities, as Deraa, in the south, where about fifty people were killed this week by police firing on protesters.
There were also protests in Sanamein, where about twenty people died yesterday also shot by the police, according to Al Jazeera. The chain said it had been confirmed that six of the victims were buried today in Sanamein and eight in a nearby town.

The unrest of today's announcement overshadowed the release of 260 political prisoners, most of them Islamists and Kurdish activists who were in prison in Saidnaya, on the outskirts of Damascus.

The measure, released by human rights activists, was interpreted as an attempt by the government to quell political protests that erupted in mid-month, weeks after it broke out in Tunisia and Egypt.

Agency EFE, AFP and AP