allesennogwat
02-11-2012, 07:40 AM
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Angus MacSwan | Reuters
AMMAN/BEIRUT - Syrian forces unleashed new tank and rocket bombardments on opposition neighborhoods of Homs on Saturday while diplomats sought U.N. backing for an Arab plan to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria.
Activists said seven people were killed in the latest attacks in a week-long government siege of Homs, a battered city at the heart of the uprising to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohammed Hassan, one opposition campaigner in Homs, told Reuters by satellite telephone (everybody has one these days) that a 55-year-old woman was among those killed by shellfire on the Bab Amro district.
The bloodshed followed a day of violence across Syria on Friday, when bombings targeting security bases killed at least 28 people in Aleppo and rebel fighters battled troops in a Damascus suburb after dark.
Assad has ignored repeated international appeals, the latest from the European Union, to halt his crackdown.
"I am appalled by the reports of the brutal attacks by the Syrian armed forces in Homs. I condemn in the strongest terms these acts perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own civilian," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
However, the world is deeply divided over how to end the Syria conflict. On Sunday Russia and China vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Western and Arab states that backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.
HOMS SUFFERS
The government offensive on opposition-held, mostly Sunni Muslim areas of Homs has killed at least 300 people in the past week, according to activists. Food and medical supplies are running low in blockaded areas, where many people are trapped in their houses, fearful of coming under fire if they step out.
Accounts could not be independently confirmed as Syria restricts access by most foreign journalists.
Youtube footage provided by activists showed a doctor at a field hospital next to the body of the woman. "Shrapnel hit her in the head and completely drained her brain matter," he says.
Big guns also pounded other Sunni neighborhoods in Homs that have been at the forefront of the uprising.
The 46-year old president belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated the majority Sunni country since Assad's late father took control in a 1970 coup.
Security forces have also made house-to-house raids in Homs in the last two days. The bodies of three people shot by snipers were pulled from the streets on Saturday, activists said.
YouTube footage from Friday showed two tanks said to be on the edge of Bab Amro, one firing its main gun across a highway.
"The indiscriminate shelling is killing mostly civilians," Fawaz Tello, an Egyptian-based member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters.
"Assad cannot push his troops into street fighting...so he is content with shelling Homs to bits until civilian losses pressure the Free Syrian Army to withdraw and regime troops can enter these neighborhoods without taking any serious losses."
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-forces-shell-homs-saudis-push-u-n-121701042.html
AMMAN/BEIRUT - Syrian forces unleashed new tank and rocket bombardments on opposition neighborhoods of Homs on Saturday while diplomats sought U.N. backing for an Arab plan to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria.
Activists said seven people were killed in the latest attacks in a week-long government siege of Homs, a battered city at the heart of the uprising to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
Mohammed Hassan, one opposition campaigner in Homs, told Reuters by satellite telephone (everybody has one these days) that a 55-year-old woman was among those killed by shellfire on the Bab Amro district.
The bloodshed followed a day of violence across Syria on Friday, when bombings targeting security bases killed at least 28 people in Aleppo and rebel fighters battled troops in a Damascus suburb after dark.
Assad has ignored repeated international appeals, the latest from the European Union, to halt his crackdown.
"I am appalled by the reports of the brutal attacks by the Syrian armed forces in Homs. I condemn in the strongest terms these acts perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own civilian," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.
However, the world is deeply divided over how to end the Syria conflict. On Sunday Russia and China vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Western and Arab states that backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.
HOMS SUFFERS
The government offensive on opposition-held, mostly Sunni Muslim areas of Homs has killed at least 300 people in the past week, according to activists. Food and medical supplies are running low in blockaded areas, where many people are trapped in their houses, fearful of coming under fire if they step out.
Accounts could not be independently confirmed as Syria restricts access by most foreign journalists.
Youtube footage provided by activists showed a doctor at a field hospital next to the body of the woman. "Shrapnel hit her in the head and completely drained her brain matter," he says.
Big guns also pounded other Sunni neighborhoods in Homs that have been at the forefront of the uprising.
The 46-year old president belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated the majority Sunni country since Assad's late father took control in a 1970 coup.
Security forces have also made house-to-house raids in Homs in the last two days. The bodies of three people shot by snipers were pulled from the streets on Saturday, activists said.
YouTube footage from Friday showed two tanks said to be on the edge of Bab Amro, one firing its main gun across a highway.
"The indiscriminate shelling is killing mostly civilians," Fawaz Tello, an Egyptian-based member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters.
"Assad cannot push his troops into street fighting...so he is content with shelling Homs to bits until civilian losses pressure the Free Syrian Army to withdraw and regime troops can enter these neighborhoods without taking any serious losses."
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-forces-shell-homs-saudis-push-u-n-121701042.html