NICOSIA: Syria’s security forces opened fire Monday during a raid on political dissidents in the town of Houla in central Homs Province, a flashpoint in the months-long anti-regime uprising, activists said.

“Five residents, including a woman, were shot dead Monday by security forces, who have been conducting a sweep in Houla since Sunday,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

A 26-year-old man died of his wounds Monday after being among a group of people whom security forces shot at the night before in the town of Irbin, near Damascus, the activist group said earlier.

Elsewhere, security forces also fired at hundreds of demonstrators in the towns of Qusayr and Talbisseh, in central Homs Province, said the activist group.

The forces conducted a campaign of arrests in Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, eastern Deir Ezzor and the coastal cities of Latakia and Banias, it added.