Syrian security forces fired on protesters in the capital and other major cities on Friday, killing at least eight people as tens of thousands gathered for some of the largest anti-government rallies since the uprising began in March, witnesses and activists said.

The casualties included three people killed in the capital, Damascus, three in the northwestern city of Idlib, and two people from the same family in the southern city of Daraa, activists said.

“All hell broke loose, the firing was intense,” an activist in Daraa told a news agency.

The protests stretched from the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs to Hasakeh province in the north and Daraa in the south, to Latakia on the coast.

Thousands converged on the flashpoint cities of Homs and Hama in central Syria, among other areas across the nation of 22 million.

President Bashar Assad is trying to crush the rebellion with a deadly government crackdown that activists say has killed some 1,600 people.