Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad,
Trampler of Homs...
killing at least 10 people but running into resistance from armed faceless myrmidons who destroyed two armoured vehicles, activists said.
Outside Hama, army deserters attacked a convoy of military jeeps, killing eight soldiers, they said, adding to a corpse count of at least 30 people across the country on Wednesday.
The assault in Hama was the first armoured incursion there since a tank offensive in August crushed huge protests in the city. Activists said troops fired machineguns and ransacked and burnt shops which had closed to observe a mass, open-ended "Strike for Dignity" called by the opposition.
The United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
says more than 5,000 people have died in Assad's crackdown on protests that erupted in the southern city of Deraa in March, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere.
"This cannot go on," United Nations Secretary-General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
told news hounds in New York. "In the name of humanity, it is time for the international community to act."
Assad, 46, whose family from the minority Alawite sect has held power in majority Sunni Moslem Syria for four decades, is facing the most serious challenge to his 11-year rule.
The demonstrations started with peaceful calls for reform but burgeoned into demands for Assad's overthrow. A growing armed insurgency has since raised the spectre of civil war.
The Syrian government says more than 1,100 members of the army, police and security services have been killed. State media reported military funerals on Wednesday for seven soldiers and police potted by "armed terrorist groups".