Assyrian Democratic Organization ADO
ADO-World.org
08-February-2012
DAMASCUS – Syrian forces pressed a relentless assault on the protest city of Homs Wednesday, with dozens of civilians reported killed, hours after President Bashar al-Assad said he was committed to ending the bloodshed.
The barrage of gunfire, mortars and shells came at daybreak and flattened many buildings in the flashpoint neighbourhood of Baba Amr, a stronghold of army defectors the regime is targeting for a fifth straight day.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the overall toll amounted to around 50 dead, including three entire families slain overnight by regime forces and government-backed thugs known as Shabiha.
"We expect the death toll to rise … given the fact that many victims remain under the rubble," Abdel Rahman said.
The most intense shelling was in Baba Amr, where at least 23 buildings were completely destroyed, including a home hit by a rocket that killed a little girl.
All power and communications were cut off.
The three families were killed in the same neighbourhood and included at least three children aged five, seven and 15.
Activists in the besieged central city claimed the widespread shelling was a clear bid to pave the way for a ground assault.
"Since dawn the shelling has been extremely intense and they are using rockets and mortars," Omar Shaker, who was reached by satellite telephone from Beirut, said.
"They have destroyed all infrastructure and bombed water tanks and electricity poles. The humanitarian situation is extremely dire and food is lacking.
"We are trying to set up a field hospital but we have no medical supplies."
Later in the morning, the shelling intensified as tanks moved toward the city from the capital Damascus, said Hadi Abdullah, another activist.
"We fear a new massacre," he said by satphone.
The Britain-based Observatory has reported several hundred civilians killed since the onslaught on the protest hub was launched overnight Friday.
It said new clashes killed at least one person in northwestern Idlib province, and added that 18 soldiers defected in the southern region of Daraa, cradle of the popular uprising against Assad’s 11 years of iron-fisted rule.
Rights groups estimate more than 6,000 people have died in nearly a year of upheaval in the Middle Eastern country, as Assad’s hardline regime seeks to snuff out the revolt that began in March with peaceful protests amid the Arab Spring.
Western and Arab efforts to end the violence have met resistance from Russia, whose foreign minister said after meeting Assad in Damascus on Tuesday that the Syrian leader was "fully committed" to ending the bloodshed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who flew into Damascus to a hero’s welcome on Tuesday, said President Assad "assured (us) that he is fully committed to the task of a cessation of violence, from whatever source it comes."
The Arab League, which in January pulled its observers from Syria after just one month amid spiralling violence, has put forward a plan for Assad to hand power to his deputy and for the formation of a unity government ahead of polls.
The six Arab states of the Gulf went a step further on Tuesday, withdrawing their envoys from Damascus and expelling Syria’s ambassadors from their own countries in protest over the "mass slaughter" of civilians.
That came after the United States closed its embassy in Damascus this week, and several European nations recalled their ambassadors to the Syrian capital.
On Wednesday, Lavrov said in Moscow that said recalling envoys from Damascus did not help promote the Arab League’s plan.
"I do not think that recalling ambassadors helps create conditions that would be favourable to the realisation of the Arab League’s initiative," he said.
But he pointedly declined to say whether Moscow had asked the embattled leader to go during their talks on Tuesday, stressing that Syrians themselves should decide his fate.
"Any outcome of national dialogue should be the result of agreement between the Syrians themselves and should be acceptable to all Syrians," Lavrov told reporters.
Russia, which along with China over the weekend vetoed a UN resolution condemning the government crackdown, has staunchly stood by its last ally in the region, a key buyer of Moscow’s military hardware that hosts a strategic Russian naval base.
Source: Middle East Online
