Syrian troops muscle in on rebel bastion

BEIRUT: Syrian tanks and troops massed outside the resistance stronghold of Homs yesterday for a possible ground assault that one activist warned could unleash a new round of fierce and bloody urban combat even as the Red Cross tried to broker a ceasefire to allow emergency aid in.

A flood of military reinforcements has been a prelude to previous offensives by President Bashar al-assad’s regime, which has tried to use its overwhelming firepower to crush an opposition that has been bolstered by defecting soldiers and hardened by 11 months of street battles.

“The human loss is going to be huge if they retake Baba Amr,” said Rami AbdulRahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Russia would put forward a proposal at the UN Security Council in the coming days regarding humanitarian aid to Syria. Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning the state crackdown.

The central city of Homs has become a critical ground for both sides. The opposition calls it “Syria’s Misrata” after the Libyan city where rebels fought off a brutal state siege. Assad’s regime wants to erase the embarrassing defiance in Syria’s third-largest city after weeks of shelling, including a barrage of mortars that killed up to 200 people earlier this month.

At least nine people were killed in shelling yesterday, activists said.

Another massive death toll would only bring further international isolation on Assad from Western and Arab leaders.

“The massacre in Syria goes on,” said US Senator John Mccain during a visit to Cairo, where he urged Washington and its allies to find ways to help arm and equip Syrian rebels.

Mccain, a senior member of the Senate Armed Service Committee, said he did not support direct US weapons supplies to Syrian opposition forces, but has suggested that the Arab League or others could help bolster the fighting power of the antiAssad groups. The US, he said, could assist with equipment such as medical supplies or global positioning devices.

Assad’s fall also would be a potentially devastating blow for Iran, which counts on Syria as its most reliable Arab ally and a pathway for aid to Tehran’s patron Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“For us to sit back and do nothing while people are being slaughtered… is an affront to everything America stands for and believes in,” said Mccain. – Sapa-ap