Syrian army pounds Homs as fighting rages in other cities

Mass exodus from Syrian attacked cities Damascus – Agencies Syrian forces pounded the battered city of Homs with tank and mortar fire and troops pummelled several other rebel strongholds on Saturday, as the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, flew to Moscow, seeking Russian backing for his efforts to secure a ceasefire, while Syrian opposition factions will meet in Istanbul on Monday.As many as 54 people have been killed for the fire of Syrian forces across the country, Syrian activists said. Heavy clashes were reported between the government forces and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) troops in Duma in Damascus suburbs, activists said.
Ali Hassan, spokesperson for the Sham News Network, said that the Syrian regime is targeting Duma as it shelters a huge number of army defectors, as well as its strategic location.
With the bloodshed showing no signs of abating, the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, flew to Moscow, seeking Russian backing for his efforts to secure a ceasefire.
Western and Arab states want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stand down but Russia, a long-time ally of Syria, has put the onus on the armed rebels and their foreign backers to make the first move.
In a statement ahead of Sunday’s meeting between Annan and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin said it would be hard to enforce a halt to the violence “until external armed and political support of the opposition is terminated,” according to Reuters.
An adviser to Medvedev said Saturday the country seeks a political solution, The Associated Press reported.
Sergei Prikhodko said Moscow’s top priority for Syria is to halt to the violence and persuade the opposition “to sit at the negotiating table with government representatives and reach a peaceful resolution of the crisis.”
More than a year after the start of the uprising against Assad, the prospect of a negotiated peace seemed more remote than ever, with clashes reported in numerous locations.
Scores of people were killed by explosions and sniper fire in Homs, the epicentre of the anti-Assad revolt, said activists who accused Syrian forces of shelling residential areas in the centre of the city indiscriminately.
“The shelling started like it does every morning, for no reason. They are using mortar and tank fire on many neighbourhoods of old Homs,” an activist in Homs’ Bab Sbaa district told Reuters via Skype.
He said most residents in the area had fled to safer districts and many were trying to escape the city altogether.
The Syrian government says rebels have killed about 3,000 members of the security forces and blames the violence on “terrorist” gangs. The official SANA news agency said the bodies of 18 “army martyrs,” killed in various clashes, were buried on Saturday.
Syrian troops have repeatedly targeted Homs, Syria’s third largest city, and said last month they had regained control of Baba Amr, a large neighbourhood held by rebels for several months. However, a surge in violence in other neighbourhoods this week suggested the army was struggling to keep control.
The Homs activist, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said the opposition FSA had also not been able to re-establish its hold on parts of the city.
“The Free Syrian Army had been in Bab Sbaa when the army started shelling the area four days ago and they weren't able to block the army raids because they were getting hit by mortars at the same time that armoured vehicles were coming in,” he said.
“We only have a few rebels here left. There is nothing they can do,” he added.
It was impossible to verify the reports independently. Syrian authorities have prevented foreign journalists and human rights workers from entering affected areas.
Further to the north, security forces killed and wounded dozens of people in raids on Saraqib, which lies in Idlib province bordering Turkey, activists said.
“There are dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles storming Saraqib now and there is heavy artillery fire,” an activist called Manhal said via Skype.
Mortars and heavy artillery fire also hit the city of Qusair, in Homs province, killing three civilians.
In the southern province of Deraa, birthplace of the revolt, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a man was shot dead at a checkpoint in an area where a soldier had been gunned down. Three other soldiers were killed in an attack in the north-eastern province of Hasaka, it said.
Regarding the opposition groups, the Syrian National Council invited all the various Syrian opposition factions to meet in Istanbul on Monday. This meeting has been convened in preparation for the second summit of the ' Friends of Syrian People' to be held in Istanbul on April 1st. A Council spokesperson indicated that the initiative has been sponsored by Turkey and Qatar, and that an invitation has been extended to those who splintered from the Council leadership. The goal, the spokesperson stated, is to form a 'National Pact for the New Syria'.
On the other hand, Syria's British-born first lady could lose her British citizenship, following the EU’s new raft of sanctions on the Assad family: freezing all of their assets in Europe and banning the members of the family from travelling to EU countries as well.
Asma al-Assad, 36, Born Asma Akhras to a prominent Syrian family living in Britain, has dual British-Syrian citizenship, so the British Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State William Hague had to state earlier that Asma al-Assad still has the right to enter Great Britain – despite the EU sanctions.
British immigration legislation has the means to strip a person of their British citizenship in case the individual “constitutes a danger” to British society, which is definitely not the case with Asma Assad. That is why Britain’s Ministry of Interior is preparing a plan how to act if Mrs. Assad decides to visit her motherland, The Daily Telegraph reports.
On Friday, the EU added Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife, mother and sister-in-law to the list of people prohibited from entering the EU member states.
Bashar Assad and Asma Akhras married in 2000, the same year Bashar inherited governmental power from his father, Hafez Assad. The couple has three children: Hafez, 10, Zein, eight, and Kareem, seven.