Russia and China yesterday vetoed a UN resolution condemning Syria for its lethal crackdown on protests, as activists said Syrian troops killed more than 230 people in shelling of the city of Homs.
Television channels showed dozens of bodies and scenes of chaos
Thirteen countries voted for the UN Security Council resolution proposed by European and Arab nations to give strong backing to an Arab League plan to end the crackdown.
But Russia and China made a repeat of a rare double veto on October 5 that struck down an earlier condemnation of the Syrian government.
“I would like to express our great regret and disappointment” at the veto, said Morocco’s UN ambassador Mohammed Loulichki, whose country is the Arab member of the 15-member council.
While Western diplomats insisted on the vote going ahead, Russia announced that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to Damascus on Tuesday to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a political solution.
Despite earlier objections from Moscow, Lavrov had said after a meeting in Germany with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that a consensus on condemning the violence in Syria was possible.
The Damascus government, meanwhile, denied involvement in the pre-dawn assault on Homs that sparked international outrage, charging it was the work of rebels trying to swing the Security Council vote in their favour.
US President Barack Obama denounced the “unspeakable assault” and demanded that Assad “step aside”.
“Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately,” Obama said in a statement.
France condemned this “further step in savagery,” calling it a “crime against humanity,” while Britain’s foreign minister William Hague denounced the “chilling” violence in Homs.
As news of the Homs killing spread, protesters stormed Syrian embassies in Athens, Berlin, Cairo, Kuwait and London, as Tunisia announced it was expelling Syria’s ambassador and withdrawing its recognition of the Assad regime.
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said it took over the embassy in Tripoli.
“Assad forces randomly bombed residential areas in Homs, including Khalidiyeh and Qusur, which resulted in at least 260 civilians killed and hundreds of wounded,” the SNC said earlier.
The “Assad regime committed one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria” that has cost more than 6,000 lives since it broke out in mid-March, it said.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP at least 237 were killed, including 99 women and children, and several hundred others wounded.
Assad’s forces also “bombed” the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur near the Turkish border, and suburbs of Damascus, the Britain-based Observatory said.
Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya television channels showed dozens of bodies and scenes of chaos, as Tweets claiming to be from residents said Homs was “bleeding” under the bombardment.
AFP was not able to verify the authenticity of videos or of opposition and resident accounts because of restrictions on reporting in Syria.
Church bells rang out and Muslim prayers were recited in Homs mosques for those killed, activists said. Thousands took part in funeral processions across the city.
“Nearly 200 martyrs will be buried in Freedom Park,” activist Hadi Abdullah of the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution told AFP in a telephone call from Khalidiyeh, the Homs district which bore the brunt of the bombing.
Elsewhere yesterday, the civilian death toll rose to 21, the Observatory said, including 12 people killed when security forces opened fired on a funeral procession in Daraya, outside Damascus, the Observatory’s Abdel Rahman said.
Russia had balked at any resolution that could be used to justify foreign military intervention, calling for Assad to quit or that would impose an arms embargo on Syria.
But Moscow announced that Lavrov and the head of Russia’s intelligence service would go to Damascus and press Assad for a political solution.
“The visit by minister Lavrov and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (Mikhail) Fradkov to Damascus confirms the firm intention of obtaining a political solution to the conflict,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov wrote on Twitter.