U.N. Considers Arab League Plan for Joint Syria Mission as Attacks Escalate

The United Nations was expected to take up an Arab League proposal Thursday calling for a joint monitoring mission in Syria as President Bashar al-Assad escalated a devastating assault against an opposition that wants end to his regime.

The move follows what Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described as a "disastrous" failure over the weekend by the U.N. Security Council to agree on a resolution to condemn the violence in Syria and call for al-Assad, in power for 12 years, to step down.

The fallout from the failed U.N. vote is playing out in the streets of the besieged city of Homs — Syria’s third-largest city — which has become a flashpoint in the uprising.

Thursday, al-Assad’s forces began a fifth day of indiscriminate shelling and bombing neighborhoods, according to opposition groups.

The president has repeatedly denied attacking civilians, saying Syrian forces are targeting armed gangs and foreign terrorists bent on destabilizing the government.

Syrian state television on Thursday said terrorist armed gangs fired seven shells into Homs in the early morning, adding that there were no reports of damage.

The station then showed video of alleged residents saying armed gangs had fired on their homes and schools with shells and rocket-propelled grenades.

All reports from within the country, however, tell a different story. Opposition activists in Homs describe bomb explosions from Syrian forces every few minutes, wounded people bleeding to death in the streets because they can’t get medical attention, snipers picking off civilians running for cover, and heavy damage.

Medical charities say doctors inside Syria have reported hospitals, clinics, medical staff and patients being targeted.

CNN cannot independently confirm reports in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.

Inside Homs, the opposition reported Syrian forces launched new raids Thursday, targeting homes and beating residents, according to a statement by the opposition Syrian Revolution General Commission.

At least 12 people were killed in shelling that targeted the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group that collects details about casualties. Another fatality was reported in a different Homs neighborhood, the group said.

Among the victims killed in the shelling was a man whose home collapsed after an attack, according to Omar Shakir, an opposition activist and citizen journalist who lives in the Baba Amr neighborhood.

A video Shakir purportedly shot and uploaded onto YouTube shows the rubble of the home he says was shelled.

More than 93 people, including 21 children, reportedly died Wednesday in fighting and shelling in Homs, according to the Syrian Revolution group.

The rebel army in the area cannot engage government forces because the shelling is coming from areas outside the neighborhoods, he said.

"Instead the rebel group is involved in civilian rescue operations," he said.

Fighting also was reported in the southern city of al-Harra, where the Syrian Revolution opposition group said security forces launched an attack using machine guns and tanks.

The failed Security Council vote has shaken relations among the world’s largest powers, after Russia and China vetoed the U.N. resolution that was supported by the United States and the rest of the Security Council, the European Union, and the Arab League.

With the Security Council at an impasse, the United States and other countries have called for the creation of a "Friends of Democratic Syria" group as a way to support a free and democratic Syria, said Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman.

Though details about such a group are still being worked out, one focus is humanitarian support for the Syrian people, Nuland said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived Thursday in Washington, where he was expected to have talks on the Arab League proposal that calls for resuming a monitoring mission to determine whether al-Assad was abiding an agreement that his government would end all violence.

"We are determined in this matter," Davutoglu told reporters Wednesday in Ankara shortly before leaving for the United States, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

Turkey, which has been critical of al-Assad’s crackdown, is widely expected to offer to host a meeting of the friends of Syria group. It has previously offered to host an international conference on the same issue.

While it was not clear whether the friends of Syria group would include invitations to Russia or China to participate, Nuland said that the two countries have made their position on Syria known with their veto in the Security Council.

Russia, a Soviet-era ally of Syria and a primary arms dealer to al-Assad’s government, has said it vetoed the Security Council resolution because it failed to place blame on the opposition as well as the government, saying it amounted to a call for regime change.

On Thursday, China announced that it had met with members of a Syrian opposition delegation and urged the Syrian government to begin an inclusive political process.

"We have done a lot of work to alleviate the situation in Syria," Liu Weimin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told Chinese-state television.

China, according to the Foreign Minister spokesman, was willing to maintain contact with all relevant Syrian groups as part of an effort to resolve the crisis.

"The reasonable aspiration of the Syrian people for reform and to protect their own interests should be respected," he said. "The Syrian government should fulfill their commitment to reform, start an inclusive political process that involves all the relevant parties as soon as possible, and resolve problems and disputes through dialogue and negotiation."

Russia, meanwhile, appeared to begin its own campaign against intervention in Syria, with President Dmitry Medvedev calling French President Nicolas Sarkozy to urge that the United States and the EU "avoid hasty unilateral steps" in Syria, according to Russian state-run Interfax news agency.

There are others, though, who believe that even stronger steps need to be taken in Syria.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been vocal in calling for Syrian rebels to be given arms.

In an interview set to air Thursday on CNN’s "John King, USA," McCain said "peaceful means" have been exhausted, and other options need to be considered.

"We could do things by providing them with intelligence information, with satellite information, with information on the movements of the Syrian armed forces," McCain said.

He also said the United States and its allies could provide medical support as well as work with Turkey to provide refuge for Syrians fleeing across the Turkish border.

Source: CNN