Syria, Homs | featured news

U.N. ceasefire monitors visited the battered Syrian city of Homs and met its governor on Saturday, hours before the U.N. Security Council was to vote on a draft resolution to authorize the deployment to Syria of up to 300 unarmed military observers.

Syrian forces pounded the central city of Homs with mortar fire while troops backed by heavy armor stormed rebellious towns across the country on Saturday, leaving six civilians and four soldiers dead, opposition activists said.

As bloody month after bloody month goes by, the United States grows ever more committed to overthrowing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The cause is undoubtedly a just one: Avaaz, the human rights group that has been most deeply involved in the Syria crisis, reported Thursday morning that "17 civilians were beheaded or partially beheaded by regime security forces" outside of Baba Amro, the besieged Homs district that will likely soon fall to al-Assad's tanks, if it hasn't already.

Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs as President Bashar al-Assad's government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

As U.N. diplomats make another attempt to condemn Syria's massacre of civilians, one resident in the besieged city of Homs pleaded for President Bashar al-Assad's regime to have mercy.

The bodies begin coming in before the sun rises to the sky. Some arrive with heads decapitated or their torsos split open like animals after slaughter. Or their limbs are mangled under the crush of rubble.

Russia and China veto a draft resolution calling for Syria's president to leave power. The move came as activists said more than 200 people were killed in the city of Homs.

Syria's leading opposition movement warned Friday of an impending government "massacre" designed to crush activists in the city of Homs, a metropolis that has emerged as a center of anti-regime unrest.

"They're asking for RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) in al Bayadah," said the young fighter, naming another district in Homs. "Assad's armoured vehicles are coming and they have nothing to stop them." "Give them five or six of ours. God willing we will find some more," replied the man in charge, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Syrians in the restive region of Homs performed special prayers for a major Muslim holiday to the sound of explosions and gunfire as government troops pushed forward their assault on the area, killing at least 11 people Sunday, residents and activists said.