Baba Amr in Homs A Syrian Red Crescent team finally entered the battered Baba Amr district of Homs on Wednesday after negotiating for access since the area fell to the army last week. Activists claim the authorities have been trying to

clear the area for the worst signs of the army\'s assault. The visit only lasted 45 minutes.
The UN\'s humanitarian chief Valerie Amos was also allowed to inspect Baba Amr as part of a three-day mission to urge the Syrian government to grant access to the worst hit areas. Earlier she had a meeting with Syria\'s foreign minister Walid Al-Muallem.
The death toll in Syria since protests erupted against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad last March has reached 8,458, a rights group said on Wednesday.The toll consistsof 6,195 civilians, 1,835 soldiers and police, and 428 rebel troops, the head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP.
Muallem said earlier that Syria was ready to cooperate with the UN humanitarian delegation.
The state SANA news agency said that Muallem, in his meeting with Amos, \"underlined Syria\'s commitment to cooperate with the delegation within the framework of the respect, sovereignty and independence of Syria and in coordination with the foreign ministry.\"
Amos\'s two-day visit comes after an international outcry over the previous refusal of Assad\'s regime to let her in despite mounting concern about the plight of trapped civilians.
 Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama insisted military intervention would be a \"mistake\".
The five major UN powers discussed on Tuesday new efforts to press for a halt to the violence in Syria, which Obama called heartbreaking, as regime forces pounded rebel towns and the death toll rose.
However Obama cautioned that there was no simple solution in Syria, and warned that unilateral military action would be a mistake.
He was speaking after top Republican Senator John McCain called for US air strikes on Syrian forces to protect population centres and create safe havens for opponents of the regime
\"What\'s happening in Syria is heartbreaking, and outrageous, and what you\'ve seen is the international community mobilise against the Assad regime,\" Obama told a White House press conference.
\"On the other hand, for us to take military action, unilaterally, as some have suggested, or to think that somehow there\'s some simple solution, I think is a mistake.\"
 President Assad has showed no signs of relenting in his crackdown on anti-regime elements, despite growing diplomatic pressure.
The United Nations says the regime\'s crackdown has already cost over 7500 lives in the past year, but Assad vowed to press ahead with his campaign to crush \"terrorism.\"
The United States, championing the diplomatic track, is leading work on a text for the badly divided UN Security Council, where Russia and China have twice used their powers as permanent members to veto Syria resolutions.
A new draft obtained by AFP on Tuesday calls on the Syrian government to immediately cease all violence, withdraw security forces from protest cities and release prisoners held over the protests.
It then calls on the opposition to \"refrain from all violence\" once these conditions are met.
Ambassadors from permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US held talks along with the envoy from Morocco, the current Arab member of the council, but none said a vote was expected.
Several diplomats said that there would be no developments until UN-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan and Amos have finished their missions to Syria this week.
Annan is to go to Damascus on Saturday to press the humanitarian case and start efforts to persuade Assad to halt the deadly offensive.
 At least 16 people were killed on Tuesday as Syrian forces launched a major assault on Herak, a town in the southern province of Daraa, a monitoring group said.
\"Large military forces, including tanks and armoured troop carriers, launched an assault on Herak,\" the Britain-based monitoring group added, citing residents.
After fleeing the battered Baba Amr district in the flashpoint central city of Homs on Thursday, rebels regrouped in nearby Rastan, which has been bombed intermittently since February 5 and which the Observatory and activists said came under artillery fire on Sunday and Monday.
Qusayr, another town in Homs province that has fallen mainly under rebel control, was also targeted by heavy bombardment, according to Anas Abu Ali, an official with the FSA.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP in Beirut that Syrian forces bombed a bridge used to evacuate the wounded and refugees to Lebanon from Homs province, and  fleeing refugees have given terrifying accounts of atrocities committed by government troops.
 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was to meet his Arab counterparts on Saturday in Cairo to discuss Moscow\'s ally Syria.
Earlier Tuesday Russia told the West not to expect Moscow to change its stance on the Syria crisis following Vladimir Putin\'s presidential election victory.
\"The Russian position on Syria was never shaped by electoral cycles, in contrast to (that of) some of our Western colleagues,\" a foreign ministry statement said.
China\'s former ambassador to Damascus, Li Huaxin, is due in Syria on Wednesday for meetings with the government and other parties.
China on Wednesday was reportedly bringing workers home from Syria in an apparent attempt to avoid a repeat of last year\'s eleventh-hour rescue of Chinese nationals from Libya.
China\'s commerce minister Chen Deming said only about 100 Chinese workers will be left behind to guard work camps and equipment.
Nearly 36,000 Chinese nationals exited the country last year, some by hastily chartered ships, while others fled by foot or by bus into Egypt.