Syria pursues shelling of Homs

Feb 23, 2012, 10:35 GMT

Beirut - Syrian forces on Thursday shelled opposition areas in the central city of Homs, activists said, as Britain vowed to increase diplomatic pressure and tighten economic sanctions on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the international community would tighten the 'diplomatic and economic stranglehold' on Syria to force al-Assad to step down and end the bloodshed.

'Time is against the Assad regime,' Hague said in London on the sidelines of a conference on Somalia. Hague added that a conference in Tunisia on Friday of the so-called Friends of Syria group would seek to bolster sanctions against the al-Assad regime.

Ignoring a United Nations General Assembly resolution last week that called on al-Assad to step down and urged an end to the violence, Syria has intensified a crackdown on Sunni Muslim opposition neighbourhoods in Homs, Hama, Idlib and Daraa.

The opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said 97 people were killed in Syria on Wednesday, including 60 in Homs.

Mortar shells rained down on Thursday on the neighbourhoods of Inshaat, Karam al-Zeitoun and Baba Amr Omar Homsi in Homs, activists said. Government forces have been besieging the city for 20 days, raising fears of a ground invasion.

Two Western journalists were killed in shelling attack in Baba Amr, which is controlled by Free Syrian Army rebels.

Activists have dubbed Homs, which has been the target of sustained shelling attacks, as the 'capital of the Syrian revolution.'