Dozens dead as Syria regime pounds Homs

Syrian forces pressed a relentless assault on the protest city of Homs yesterday reportedly killing 50 civilians, hours after President Bashar al-Assad said he was committed to ending the bloodshed.

The barrage of gunfire, mortars and shells was launched at dawn and continued all day. State television said a car bomb ripped through the central city, killing and wounding civilians as well as security officers.

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insisted any outside intervention to stop the violence would have the destructive effect of “a bull in a china shop.”

But France and Britain dismissed Moscow’s efforts to end nearly 11 months of bloodshed in Syria and urged Russia to use its influence with its Middle East ally to stop the violence.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 69 people were killed across the country on yesterday, including 50 in Homs alone.

Among those killed in the beleaguered city were three entire families slain overnight by ‘shabiha’ armed regime supporters, he said. The dead included at least three children aged five, seven and 15.

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, Abdel Rahman said.

Activists in Homs said the widespread shelling was a clear bid to pave the way for a ground assault on Syria’s third city.

“Since dawn the shelling has been extremely intense and they are using rockets and mortars,” Omar Shaker, reached by satellite telephone from Beirut, told AFP.

“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.”

Ali Hazouri, a doctor in Baba Amr, said a field hospital had been hit and several physicians were wounded, some critically. “One rescuer from the Red Cross had both legs blown off in the shelling.”

As the regime forces tightened their grip, severing power, communications and other supplies, state media reported “terrorists” attacked Homs’ oil refinery.

The authorities frequently blame “terrorists” for attacks on infrastructure, while its opponents accuse the regime of carrying them out to punish centres of resistance.

The Observatory has reported 400 civilians killed since the onslaught on Homs was launched overnight Friday.

It reported a similar deadly onslaught in Zabadani, a restive town near Damascus that has been targeted for seven consecutive days and said 19 people were killed elsewhere in Syria.

In southern Syria, troops used heavy gunfire after an army officer and 17 soldiers defected in Daraa province, cradle of the uprising against Mr Assad’s 11 years of iron-fisted rule.

Rights groups estimate more than 6,000 people have died in the regime crackdown on protests since mid-March.

Western and Arab efforts to address the violence have met resistance from Russia, whose foreign minister said after meeting Assad that the Syrian leader was “fully committed” to ending the bloodshed.