Syria protests spreading

From AFP:

Protests for greater freedoms spread Wednesday to Aleppo, Syria’s second city, where hundreds of university students clashed with police and a smaller protest took place in the capital, rights activists told AFP by telephone.
Meanwhile, thousands of women blocked a stretch of a main coastal road in the north of the country demanding authorities release hundreds of people arrested during a crackdown on the flashpoint towns of Banias and in Baida, London-based rights activist Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by phone.

Also, from The Weekly Standard, Who Are the Shabbiha?

Reporters covering the ongoing popular revolt in Syria were recently introduced to a new term from the sociopolitical lexicon of the Levant—the shabbiha.

The shabbiha refers to a phenomenon originating in the coastal region of northwest Syria – where the ruling Alawite clan is from – and describes gangs of young thugs working for members of the Assad family, but in no official capacity.