Syrian security forces fired on tens of thousands of anti-government protesters Friday, killing at least two people more than five months into the country's uprising, witnesses and rights groups said.

Activists chose "patience and determination" as the theme of Friday's protests across Syria, which came on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan. Many protesters had hoped Ramadan would serve as a breaking point for the authoritarian regime of President Bashar Assad, but the government crackdown intensified dramatically.

"We are here to tell the regime that nothing is finished, nothing will finish and we will not stay at home like you want us to," a protester told The Associated Press by telephone from the central city of Homs, where he said thousands poured into the streets.

He asked that his name not be published for fear of government reprisals.

Human rights groups say Assad's forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising against his autocratic rule erupted in mid-March, touched off by the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

The swiftly crumbling regime in Libya has buoyed the Syrian protesters, who have taunted Assad with chants of, "You're next, Bashar!"

Many protesters expressed solidarity with Ali Ferzat, 60, a renowned political cartoonist who was grabbed after he left his studio early Thursday and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands and dumped him on a road outside Damascus. He was recovering Friday.

In Hama, Ferzat's hometown, a banner read: "Ali Ferzat, we are with you till death."

Ferzat earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria's autocratic Assad family.

The opposition has rejected Assad's promises of sweeping reform, saying they ring hollow while his forces fire on peaceful protesters.

Although the crackdown has led to broad condemnation and sanctions, Assad has shrugged off the criticism. He says religious extremists and thugs are driving the violence, not true reform-seekers. Assad's backers portray him as the only man who can guarantee peace in a country with a potentially volatile mix of religious groups. The opposition, however, says the protest movement is free of sectarian overtones and is simply demanding freedom and democracy.

The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group that helps organize the protests, said at least two people were killed Friday in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour. Other activists confirmed the toll.

Protests also were reported in Idlib province near Turkey and the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, along with the flash point cities of Homs and Hama. Sweeping arrests also were reported.

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AP Writer Zeina Karam contributed to this report.

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Zeina Karam can be reached on http://twitter.com/zkaram