128 killed and 150 wounded as Syrian forces bombard Homs Washington, Cairo, Damascus – Adel Salama with Akram Ali Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in Syria for talks with President Bashar Al-Assad amid an increase in violence in the city of Homs. Lavrorv's visit comes after Russia and China vetoed the Western -backed UN resolution criticising the crackdown in Syria.
The Assad regime has meanwhile signalled that it plans to continue to attack the central city of Homs.
Numerous accounts from residents, backed by some international journalists now embedded with the Free Syrian Army, have reported that the city has been shelled by the Syrian army since Friday.
But a statement from the Syrian ministry of the interior blamed the violence in the city on "armed terrorist groups".
The General Authority of the Syrian Revolution announced that the death toll resulting from shelling reached 128, including 19 children and 15 women. Most of the victims were in Homs.
Twelve separate areas of Homs had come under attack, but the main focus of the offensive was the Baba Amr district.
Syrian forces shelling the city also 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."
Secretary General of the Arab League Nabil Al-Arabi denounced the shelling, whereas Syrian officials continued denying they were responsible for the attacks, instead blaming "armed terrorist groups".
Government officials also stated that “terrorist” attacks killed three 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. Belgium and the UK soon followed suit, with Britain announcing that it was withdrawing its ambassador from Syria, as well as summoning the Syrian ambassador to the Foreign Office to express how "appalled' they were by the violence.
The Free Syrian Army announced on Monday the formation of a higher military council to be called the “Higher Revolutionary Council” designed to supersede the Free Syrian Army.
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, Ramsay reported.
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".
US President Barack Obama said that while the West was prepared to lean hard on 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 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.