KavkazCenter :: Umma

Scores of people have reportedly been killed in the Syrian city of Homs, as Akawite government forces continued a relentless assault on the central city for a sixth day.

Activists said on Thursday that the bombardments centered on the neighborhoods of Bab Amr, Khaldiyeh and al-Bayada.

Activist Hadi al-Abdallah said 12 homes were targeted in Bab Amr, including three inhabited buildings.
 
"Three families were killed when buildings were shelled. The martyrs are women, men and children. The bodies are badly mutilated," he said.

In Khaldiyeh, Abdallah said one person was killed after government forces shelled the neighbourhood.

Activists say that hundreds of people have been killed and at least 570 injured since the army started its assault on the city last week.

"They targeted my neighbour's house with rockets. I saw it with my own eyes," Omar Shakir, a resident in Bab Amr, said.

"This is the sixth day in a row we are being shelled by rockets, by mortars, by every weapon," he said.

"Bashar al-Assad is not a human...We are begging the world, please do something".

Shakir said residents of the neighborhood were seeking safety on the ground floor of buildings as there were no underground shelters.

Homs, Syria's third-largest city, has become the focus of both resistance and reprisal in the 11-month uprising as many areas have fallen under the control of increasingly bold opposition fighters who want to bring down the Alawite government.

In other parts of the country, activists reported clashes between Syrian troops and army defectors in Idlib, near the border with Turkey.

In eastern Deir al-Zor province, machinegun fire wounded dozens of people including women and children in Koriyeh, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that army reinforcements were being sent into the town.

Russia used their veto powers on Saturday to block a Security Council resolution backing an Arab League peace plan that called for Assad to step aside.

Source: Agencies