128 killed and defectors form higher military council

The Syrian military has bombarded the city of Homs with rockets and mortars Washington, Cairo, Damascus – Adel Salama/ Akram Ali/ Agencies The General Authority of the Syrian Revolution announced that the death toll resulting from the shelling of Assad’s army to a number of cities using heavy artillery reached 128, including 19 children and 15 women. Most of the victims were in Homs.
Secretary General of the Arab League Nabil el-Arabi denounced the shelling, whereas Syrian officials stated that “terrorist” attacks killed 3 soldiers from the Syrian Army. Meanwhile, the United States pulled out its employees from the US embassy in Damascus and froze its business. US Ambassador Robert Ford and several employees left Syria fearing armed attacks that may target the embassy.
In the mean time, the Free Syrian Army announced, Monday, the formation of a Higher Military Council to be called the “Higher Revolutionary Council” designed to supersede the Free Syrian Army.
The Syrian military has bombarded the city of Homs with rockets and mortars, leaving scores of victims. 12 separate areas had come under attack, but the main focus of the offensive was the Baba Amr district.
Syrian forces shelling the city have hit a makeshift medical clinic and residential areas, killing and injuring many people including hospital staff, according to activists.
Images of Homs showed plumes of smoke billowing into the sky as calls to pray went out from mosques across the battered central city.
The bombing and shelling was non-stop, as tens of bombs fell continuously - there were at least 100 bombs in the first half an hour,” said an eyewitness.
He added: "Even if you stay at home and you don't protest, you will get killed."
According to unconfirmed reports from a witness who called into a local radio station, some 78 tanks, 40 buses loaded with militia and 150 armed vehicles were all on the outskirts of Baba Amr.
The government has denied shelling the city, saying "armed terrorist groups" were attacking civilians and police in several neighbourhoods.
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is due to visit Damascus on Tuesday to press President Bashar al-Assad to implement democratic reforms after Russia and China vetoed any UN-backed measures against the Syrian government over its crackdown on the 11-month uprising.
Ahead of his visit, Lavrov said condemnation of Moscow's veto had verged on "hysteria"
He said Moscow sought "the swiftest stabilisation of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come".
The Russian initiative comes a day after the United States shut its embassy in Damascus and Belgium and Britain recalled their ambassadors.  
US President Barack Obama said that while the West was prepared to lean hard on President Bashar al-Assad diplomatically, they still had no intention of using force to topple him.
"I think it is very important for us to try to resolve this without recourse to outside military intervention. And I think that's possible," Barack Obama told NBC's Today show.
Activists and witnesses said the Syrian army had stepped up its attacks on opposition fighters after the UN resolution was blocked by Russia and China.
The army also launched a fierce assault on the town of Zabadani, northwest of the capital and near the border with Lebanon, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"Troops backed by hundreds of armoured vehicles have launched an assault on the town of Zabadani... which is undergoing heavy tank shelling," it said.
A local wing of the Free Syrian Army warned it would start attacking "sensitive and strategic (targets) of the regime" unless it pulled back from the town by Tuesday morning.
The country's official news agency, Sana, said gunmen have killed three soldiers and captured others at a checkpoint in the Jabal al Zawiyah region in the country's north.
The violence has reinforced opposition fears that Assad will unleash even greater firepower to crush dissent now that protection from China and Russia against any UN-sanctioned action appears assured.
After the UN veto, the commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, Col Riad al-Asaad, said “there is no other road” except military action to topple Assad.
With diplomacy at an impasse, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for “friends of democratic Syria” to unite and rally against Assad’s regime, previewing the possible formation of a group of like-minded nations to coordinate assistance to the Syrian opposition.
Expanding on the idea Monday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. would seek to work outside the UN to “strengthen and deepen and broaden the international community pressure on Assad… to work with as many countries as we can to increase both regional sanctions and unilateral national sanctions on the Assad regime.”
Arab League chief Nabil el-Arabi said the Syrian army’s use of heavy weapons against civilian areas amounted to an escalation that took the country closer to civil war.
Meanwhile, Syrian army defectors announced on Monday the formation of a higher military council to "liberate" the country from President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
The council, named "The Higher Revolutionary Council" and designed to supersede the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said its head was General Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, the highest ranking deserter who had fled to Turkey. The council's spokesman is Major Maher al-Naimi, previously the FSA spokesman, according to a statement sent to Reuters.
The announcement of the council's formation came hours after Assad's forces launched the heaviest bombardment to subdue the rebel city of Homs.
"After consultations with defectors across the homeland and after careful organization of their ranks the formation of a Higher Revolutionary Council to Liberate Syria has been agreed in response to the call of freedom and ahead of freeing Syria from this gang," the statement said.