DAMASCUS: Syrian forces Monday pounded powderkeg Homs with rockets and mortars and shelled another protest hub, activists said, as outrage grew over a Russia-China veto of a UN resolution to stop the violence.
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said the regime had encircled the central city of Homs with tanks ahead of "a major offensive," and urged the international community to act quickly to prevent a new massacre.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 17 people were killed in Homs, but added that the death toll was likely to rise as many of the dozens wounded had sustained critical injuries.
It said Syrian forces on Monday also launched an assault on the town of Zabadani, near the capital Damascus, killing at least one person.
"Troops backed by hundreds of armoured vehicles have launched an assault on the town of Zabadani... which is undergoing heavy tank shelling," the Britain-based group said.
Syria's authorities blamed Monday's unrest in Homs on "terrorist gangs" which it said were targeting several neighbourhoods with mortars.
The official SANA news agency also reported that a "terrorist group" blew up an oil pipeline on Monday in Homs.
A resident of the battered city told AFP that Monday's assault began shortly after 6:00 am (0400 GMT), with government troops firing off relentless barrages of rockets, mortar rounds and artillery shells.
"What is happening is horrible, it's beyond belief," said Omar Shaker, an activist reached by telephone. The sound of gunfire and loud explosions could be heard in the background as he spoke.
"There is a large number of martyrs," he said.
Shaker said activists were transporting the wounded to the city's mosques.
"There is nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to hide," he said. "We are running short of medical supplies and we are only able to provide basic treatment to the injured."
The new raids, which were concentrated in the neighbourhoods of Khaldiyeh, Baba Amro, Inshaat and Bab Sbaa, followed what activists said was a "massacre" in the city overnight Friday and a weekend of further shelling.
A video posted by activists on YouTube apparently showed a field hospital hit by the shelling in Baba Amro, one of the main targets of Monday's assault.
Wounded patients could be seen lying on stretchers on the floor amid pools of blood and shattered glass. The video's authenticity could not immediately be verified.
Arabic satellite channels broadcast footage from Homs that showed plumes of smoke billowing skywards as calls to prayer went out from mosques across the battered city.
The violence comes as Western powers vow to seek new ways to punish Damascus amid growing outrage over the veto by Russia and China of a UN resolution condemning Syria for its deadly crackdown on nearly 11 months of protest.
Saturday's double veto had handed President Bashar al-Assad's regime a "licence to kill," according to the SNC.
The second UN double veto in four months also fuelled angry reaction from Washington, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling it a "travesty" and vowing to push for new sanctions on Damascus.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would call Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss the international community's response to the crisis.
Neither France nor Germany, he said, would accept the "blocking" of international action on Syria.
Britain, meanwhile, said it is seeking new ways of applying pressure on Syria through the UN General Assembly.
"Russia and China are protecting a regime that is killing thousands of people. We find their position incomprehensible and inexcusable," Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said in London.
Syria's Muslim Brotherhood accused Russia, China and Iran of being complicit in what it said was a "massacre" being carried out by Syria's regime, which it likened to the Nazis.
"Some comments from the West on the UN Security Council vote, I would say, are indecent and bordering on hysteria," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.
"Such hysterical comments are aimed at suppressing what is actually happening."
Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov are to visit Damascus on Tuesday, as news reports said the mission could try to push Assad to quit.
China also rejected criticism while calling on both sides to the conflict to halt the violence that has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people since March, according to rights groups.
"China does not accept the accusations" of the United States on the Syrian veto, foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters.
"China does not have its own selfish interest on the issue of Syria. We don't shelter anyone. We uphold justice on the Syrian issue."
In other violence on Monday, one person was reported killed by gunfire in the northern province of Aleppo and two civilians, including a child, died when their car came under fire from security forces at Sarghaya, near Damascus.
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