BEIRUT: Four Lebanese people were injured Friday in heavy shooting from the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon, a Lebanese Red Cross source said.

The source, speaking to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity, said the wounded were two men and two women.

He said the casualties were taken from the border towns of Bekaya and Arida to the Salam Hospital in Qobeiyat, north Lebanon.

Only two of them, however, have so far been identified -- Afraa Khaled Sayyed, a 12-year-old girl, who was wounded in her left thigh, and Ibrahim Shahwan, 40, in coma as a result of wounds he suffered to his back and legs.

Lebanese security sources reported hearing heavy tank shelling and machine-gun fire in the border region of Wadi Khaled.

“The Wadi Khaled area is shaking with the sound of explosions from tank shelling and heavy machine guns,” a security source told The Daily Star.

Activists have reported heavy shooting in the western Syrian town of Talkalakh, near the border with Lebanon.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited witnesses as saying shooting erupted early Friday and that dozens have been wounded.

There also were reports of anti-government protests in Idlib province, near Turkey. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Syria is trying to crush an 8-month-old revolt challenging President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule.

On Thursday, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead since mid-March and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight Assad's regime. -- With AP