DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian security forces killed at least five people and wounded dozens more on Saturday as they fired at a crowd in the central city of Homs after funerals of anti-regime protesters, an activist said. "Tens of thousands had accompanied the funeral procession from the city's main mosque to Tal al-Nasr cemetery," the activist told AFP, contacted by telephone. "The shooting began as people were coming out of the cemetery." He said thousands of people were demonstrating on Saturday in the town of Saqba near Damascus. Security forces on Friday killed 44 people, including 13 in Homs, as anti-regime protests swept the country following Juma prayers, according to activists. The international community has piled the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop the brutal crackdown on nine weeks of protests roiling the country, with Turkey on Saturday urging him to act before it is too late. "There is still a chance for a stable and peaceful transition in Syria (if) comprehensive, shock reforms (are initiated) at a pace and within a scope that will satisfy the people," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "Time is running out," he warned. "If they stick to the method of using the security forces to suppress the protests without introducing concrete reforms... there could be really negative consequences that would sadden us all," he added. Despite mounting international pressure, Assad's regime has remained defiant and blamed the unrest gripping his country since March 15 on "armed terrorist gangs" backed by Islamists and foreign agitators. In a keynote speech earlier this week on US ME policy, US President Barack Obama bluntly told Assad to lead a transition to democracy or to leave the scene. "President Assad now has a choice ... He can lead that transition or get out of the way," Obama said. "The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests." However, Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organisation for Human Rights, told AFP on Saturday that it was clear the regime was bent on the use of force to crush the protests. "Syrian authorities are continuing to use excessive force and live ammunition in the face of popular protests in various regions," he said. Among the 44 killed on Friday were a 12-year-old boy and four others between the ages of 15 and 18, according to Qurabi. One victims was identified as a soldier. The official news agency SANA for its part put the death toll at 17 - among them police and security troops - and blamed the violence on "armed groups". Quoting an interior ministry official, SANA said these groups had taken advantage of specific instructions by authorities not to open fire on public gatherings. "These armed groups opened fire on several gatherings ... and on the police," SANA said. "They also vandalised public and private property." Foreign media are not allowed to travel in the country to report on the unrest, making it difficult to verify information. Fridays have become a rallying point in the nine-week revolt that has left at least 850 people dead and thousands more arrested, according to rights groups. Rami Abdel Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP that apart from those killed in Friday's protests, several people have been reported missing amid a wave of arrests in the flashpoint region of Daraa.