Syria's President Bashar al-Assad formed a new government on Thursday, state news agency SANA said, in a move to appease protesters calling for reforms.

The new government is headed by Adel Safar who served as agriculture minister in the government of Naji al-Otari which resigned on March 29, more than a week after protests broke out in the southern city of Deraa and spread to other parts of the country.

Assad, who abandoned his medical studies and inherited power when his father died 11 years ago, is battling a wave of protests across his tightly-controlled state in which rights groups say more than 200 people have been killed.

The protests, which reached unprecedented numbers today, have spread to the key cities of Aleppo and Hama. The unrest has begun to draw in Lebanon.

Syrian security forces have dispersed thousands of protesters marching, fired tear gas and beat protesters with batons towards central Damascus from the suburb of Douma, witnesses say.

The violence seems to continue without abatement. Haitham al-Maleh, an activist and lawyer, told local newspaper Al Jazeera on Friday that protesters were close to Abasyeen Square when the intelligence services brought several buses carrying men with "pistols and sticks" who attacked protesters. He said those injured were taken away by medics.

Hundreds of people have already died in the demonstrations and many hundreds more have been detained by state security forces. State-controlled media reported that snipers shot and killed a soldier who were on patrol in the northwestern coastal city of Baniyas, the site of prior violence disturbances. Syrian military has reportedly entered and sealed off the city.

IBTimes with Reuters