Syrian Army attacks flashpoint city, kills 260

DAMASCUS: The Syrian Army unleashed a massive attack on the city of Homs on Saturday morning, bombing the protest hub and killing at least 260 people in a bloody “massacre,” activists and witnesses said.

The Syrian government denied involvement in the violence, blaming “armed gunmen,” as television stations showed images of bodies on the ground and buildings destroyed in a city turned into a war zone.

The grim toll, if confirmed, would mark the bloodiest day of the 10month uprising against President Bashar al-assad’s regime, with the United Nations (UN) Security Council set to vote on Saturday on a resolution condemning the repression.

Protesters stormed Syrian embassies in Berlin, Cairo, Kuwait and London as the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) called on the world to act in ending a brutal campaign that activists say has killed at least 6,000 people since March.

“Assad forces randomly bombed residential areas in Homs, including Khaldiyeh and Qusur, which resulted in at least 260 civilians killed and hundreds of wounded, including men, women, and children,” the SNC said in a statement sent to Agence France-presse.

The “Assad regime committed one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria,” it added.

The Al-jazeera and Al-arabiya television channels showed footage of dozens of bodies and scenes of chaos as tweets claiming to be by residents said that the city “is bleeding” under heavy bombardment, with one counting “366 explosions tonight so far.”

Al- Jazeera said that witnesses spoke of nail bombs raining down and incessant shelling, while one resident, Danny Abdul Ayem, reported “non-stop bombardment . . . by tank shells and mortar bombs.”

A medical student told AlJazeera that the local hospital was struggling to cope.

“There is a lack of blood, a lack of oxygen . . . there is danger in the streets,” he said.

“We are overwhelmed. We have opened the mosque next door” to receive wounded people, the student added.

Agence France- Presse was not immediately able to verify the authenticity of the videos or of the opposition and residents’ accounts because of restrictions on reporting in Syria.

“It’s a real massacre,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France-presse, calling for the “immediate intervention” of the Arab League to end the killing.

The Observatory said that 138 of the fatalities were caused by mortar fire in the Al-khalidiya district of Homs, a flashpoint of the Syrian uprising that follows others in the Arab Spring revolt that began more than a year ago.

But the Syrian government denied that its Army had shelled Homs and accused television stations of “inciting” violence, the official Syrian Arab News Agency said.

“The civilians shown by satellite television stations are citizens who were kidnapped and killed by armed gunmen,” it added. It accused the gunmen of “wanting to use that information to [pressure] the Security Council.”

Hours before the UN Security Council was to vote on Saturday on a resolution condemning the violent repression in Syria, Russia reiterated that the text “does not suit us at all.”

The SNC demanded that Russia change its position and “clearly condemn the regime and hold it responsible for the massacres, to stop the killing in Syria.”