Barrage on Syria's Homs renewed
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighbourhoods of the city of Homs, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.
The barrages marked an intensification of a nearly three-week offensive to crush resistance in Homs, one of the focal points of a nationwide uprising against Assad's 11-year rule, and prompted further international condemnation.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy described the deaths of the two journalists, French photographer Remi Ochlik and American Marie Colvin of Britain's Sunday Times, as an assassination and said the Assad era had to end.
"That's enough now," Sarkozy said. "This regime must go and there is no reason that Syrians don't have the right to live their lives and choose their destiny freely. If journalists were not there, the massacres would be a lot worse."
France and Britain demanded that three other Western journalists wounded in the strike on a house in Homs be given the medical care they urgently needed.
More than 60 bodies, both rebel fighters and civilians, were recovered from one area of Homs' Baba Amro, a Sunni Muslim district opposed to Syria's Alawite ruling class, after an afternoon bombardment on Wednesday. Some 21 were killed earlier in the day, activists said.
"Helicopters flew reconnaissance overhead then the bombardment started," Homs activist Abu Abei told Reuters.
Videos uploaded by opposition activists showed smashed buildings, deserted streets, and doctors treating wounded civilians in primitive conditions in Baba Amro, the main target of Assad's wrath.
DAILY BOMBARDMENTS
Several hundred people have been killed in Homs in daily bombardments by the besieging forces using artillery, rockets, sniper fire and Soviet-built T-72 tanks.
Residents fear Assad will subject the city to the same treatment his late father Hafez inflicted on the rebellious town of Hama 30 years ago, when 10,000 were killed.
The army is blocking medical supplies and electricity is cut off 15 hours a day, activists say. Hospitals, schools and shops are shut and government offices have also closed.
In an effort to bring relief to hungry and bloodied civilians in Homs, the International Committee of the Red Cross was in talks with the Syrian government and opposition figures to seek agreement on a daily two-hour cessation of hostilities.
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos will head to Syria soon in an attempt to secure access for aid workers.
The worsening humanitarian situation in Homs and other embattled towns will dominate "Friends of Syria" talks in Tunis on Friday involving the United States, European and Arab countries, Syria's neighbour Turkey and other nations clamouring for Assad to halt the violence and relinquish power.
Assad has called a referendum for Sunday on a new constitution, to be followed by multi-party elections, which he says is a response to calls for reform. The plan is supported by Assad's allies Russia and China, but Western powers have dismissed it and the Syrian opposition has called for a boycott.