Syrian forces bombard Homs, 50 killed

Syrian forces bombarded Homs on Monday, killing 50 people in a sustained assault on several districts of the city which has become a centre of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian National Council opposition group said. Western countries seeking Assad's downfall were scrambling to find a new diplomatic strategy after failing to enact a UN Security Council resolution that would have backed an Arab League call for Assad to stand aside.
The United States shut its embassy in Damascus and said all staff had left the country due to worsening security. Britain said it withdrew its ambassador from Syria, and would seek further European Union sanctions against Syria. Russia fought back against blistering criticism from the West for vetoing the resolution on Saturday. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is due in Damascus on Tuesday, said condemnations of Moscow's veto had verged on "hysteria". US President Barack Obama said that, however hard Western countries are prepared to lean on Assad diplomatically, they still have no intention of using force to topple him, as they did against Muammar Qadhafi in Libya last year.
"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," he told NBC's Today show. Catherine al-Talli of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) told Reuters bombardment of Homs resumed early on Sunday, killing 50.
Assad's opponents say his tanks and artillery killed more than 200 people in the city on Friday night in the bloodiest incident of the 11-month-old uprising against his rule. That attack, branded a "massacre" by France and "unspeakable" by Obama, had set the stage for intense efforts over the weekend to lobby Moscow not to block the UN Security Council resolution.
But Russia has argued that the resolution was one-sided and would have amounted to taking the side of Assad's opponents in a civil war. China also vetoed the measure, by most accounts following Russia's lead. "It is sad that the co-authors decided to hastily put the resolution to a vote, even though we appealed to them with a request to give it a few more days" until after his own planned trip to Damascus, Lavrov said.
"Some of the voices heard in the West with evaluations of the results of the vote in the UN Security Council on the Syria resolution sound, I would say, improper, somewhere on the verge of hysteria," Lavrov told reporters after meeting the foreign minister of Bahrain, one of the Arab states that has sought a tougher stance against Assad.
Lavrov has said Russia favours a peace dialogue in Syria that is free of outside interference and preconditions. He repeated the message in a phone conversation with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had the names of 43 people killed in Monday's bombardment of Homs. Television footage showed smoke rising from buildings, with explosions echoing in the background.
"This is the most violent bombardment in recent days," said one activist in Syria who was in touch with Homs residents. Another activist said government troops were using multiple rocket launchers in the attack. State media said on Monday "armed terrorist groups" were firing mortars in the city, setting fire to tyres and blowing up empty buildings to give the impression that Homs was under fire from Assad's forces.
State news agency SANA described attacks in the city by "terrorists" who it said killed a textile factory worker. It said they also killed three officers and abducted several soldiers in Jabal al-Zawiya in the northern Idlib province. Condemnation of Russia's veto in the West has been extraordinarily strong by diplomatic standards. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the veto a "travesty".
A chorus of European and American officials said Russia and China would bear responsibility for future bloodshed. French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said on Monday: "There are political cultures which deserve a kick in the ass ... To accept that a dictator can operate freely is disgraceful for governments that accept it." The Syrian National Council said the Russian and Chinese vetoes of the resolution had given Assad a "licence to kill".