Syrian forces rained rockets and shells down on protest hubs on Monday, activists said, as another 66 civilians died in the regime's crackdown on dissent.The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said the regime was surrounding Homs with tanks ahead of "a major offensive" and warned of a "genocide" in the central Syrian city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 42 non-combatants were killed in Homs alone, and warned that the corpse count was likely to rise because many of the dozens of maimed were at death's door.
State media reported the deaths of three soldiers and said a "terrorist group" blew up an oil pipeline in Homs.
The army also launched an assault on the Zabadani area near Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
with heavy tank shelling, killing at least three people, said the Britannia-based Observatory.
It also reported civilian deaths in Rastan, Houla and Qusair, all towns in Homs province, as well at Sarghaya, near Damascus, in the northern city of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
and in Idlib, northwest Syria.
A resident of Homs told Agence La Belle France Presse the latest assault began shortly after 0400 GMT, with unprecedented barrages of rockets, mortar rounds and artillery shells.
"What is happening is horrible, it's beyond belief," said activist Omar Shaker, reached by telephone as loud detonations were heard in the background.
"There is nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to hide," he said. "We are running short of medical supplies and we are only able to provide basic treatment to the injured."
One video posted on YouTube apparently showed a field hospital hit by shelling in the Baba Amro district and maimed patients lying on stretchers on the floor amid pools of blood and shattered glass.
Footage shot by a BBC undercover team in Homs showed buildings ablaze in rebel neighborhoods as regime forces pounded them with heavy weapons. Plumes of white smoke billowed into the sky.
Damascus blamed the bloodshed in Homs on "terrorist gangs" using mortars.
The violence comes as Western powers seek new ways to punish Damascus amid growing outrage over the veto by Russia and China of a U.N. resolution condemning Syria for its deadly crackdown on nearly 11 months of protest.
Saturday's double veto handed
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad's
The Scourge of Hama...
regime a "license to kill," the SNC said.
Damascus does not recognize the scale of the protest movement that erupted in mid-March, insisting it is fighting "terrorist groups" seeking to sow chaos as part of a foreign-hatched conspiracy.