Syrian security forces have launched a major assault on Hama, the country's third-largest city, a day before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The National Organisation for Human Rights, a Syrian activist group, said 136 people were killed in Hama and three other centres across the country on Sunday.
The activist group reported at least 100 deaths in Hama, after tanks and soldiers stormed the city and said that dozens of anti-government protesters died in Deir ez-Zor, Harak and Al Bukamal.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin said that the number of deaths "are on the rise and the government seems adamant in wanting to crush the protests".
"We have seen that the government had intensified its effort to try and end the wave of protesters or contain it over the past two weeks using more severe measures, like mass arrests of activists as well as just regular people who took part in the protests, or sometimes never even went to the streets.
"So it seems that the government is expecting some sort of escalation in the protest movement during the month of Ramadan and they are trying to pre-empt it," our correspondent, reporting from neighbouring Lebanon, said.
The Syrian government has banned Al Jazeera and many other foreign media outlets from reporting from inside the country, making it difficult to verify reports of fighting.
Just some much-needed global perspective as we decry how awful our own political system is...it could be worse. A republic if you can keep it, and all that. A gigantic chunk of the world never had a republic to try to keep.
What will the State Department's response be to this open slaughter? I'd like very much to see Hillary Clinton go on record in some fashion.
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