By Andrew Watson
Human rights activists say that armed forces in Syria killed more than 217 people in the city of Homs as violence surged in Friday, while the United Nations prepares to vote on a resolution to curb the turbulence.
On Friday, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said that hundreds of people have been further wounded, while dozens of buildings have been destroyed. The Khalidiya neighborhood of Homs has received much of the shelling, as the locality harbors a strong anti-government sentiment. Located in western Syria near the Lebanese border, the city has been one of the main highlighted spots of opposition to the regime during the uprising.
The U.N. Security Council said amidst the rising death toll that it would vote on a draft resolution on Syria on Saturday. Russia has threatened to veto earlier versions of the resolution, whereas the U.S.A. has been pressing the council to back a softened version condemning the violence in Syria.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the telephone on Friday regarding the resolution. Clinton and Lavrov are scheduled to meet in person Saturday in Munich, where they both are attending a security conference.
Opposition activists in Syria have said that tens of thousands of people resorted to the streets in cities and towns nationwide this week to mark the 30th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on the city of Hama. According to Amnesty International, between 10,000 and 25,000 people were killed in the February 1982 siege that was ordered by the father of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Videos posted on the Web seem to show that yesterday's marches rallied in to Homs and Damascus, and even in the Idlib region. A mortar round as exploding can be seen in a residential area of Homs Thursday.
In just the last week, over 300 people were killed in Syria, with most of the violence erupting near Damascus as government troops drove out the rebel Free Syrian Army from the city's eastern suburbs over a number of days that saw heavy fighting.
The government of Syria has accuses armed terrorists of driving the anti-Assad revolt and causing the deaths of about 2,000 security personnel. According to estimates by the United Nations, the death toll from the eleven-month-long uprising and the government crackdown touched 5,400 in January. The UN stopped updating the number owing to difficulties in obtaining information.
