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February 21st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The central city of Homs – and in particular the opposition district known as
Baba Amr – has become a critical ground for both sides.
The opposition has lionised it as “Syria’s Misurata” after the
Libyan city where rebels fought off a brutal government siege. Assad’s
regime wants desperately 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 Monday, 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 Sen John McCain during a
visit to Cairo, where he urged Washington and its allies to find way 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 the Arab League or others could help bolster the fighting power of
the anti-Assad groups. The US, he said, could assist with equipment such as
medical supplies or global positioning devices.
“It is time we gave them the wherewithal to fight back and stop the
slaughter,” he said.
Assad’s fall also would be a potentially devastating blow for his close ally
Iran, which counts on Syria as its most reliable Arab ally and a pathway for
aid to Tehran’s patron Hizbollah in Lebanon. But McCain urged for “like-minded”
Western and Arab nations also to guard against attempts by al-Qaida or other
extremists to exploit a leadership vacuum if the regime crumbles.
“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, suggesting that the Republicans could seek to make Syria a
central campaign issue in this year’s U.S. presidential election.
But US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit to Mexico on
Monday, dodged a question about whether the US could accept Arab countries
or others arming the Syrian rebels.
We are all working for the planned friends of Syria meeting at the end of this
week, which we think will give us a chance to come together and chart a way
forward,” she said.
She said the meeting in Tunisia “will demonstrate the Assad regime is
increasingly isolated and that the brave Syrian people need our support and
solidarity.”
But she said that should be expressed through humanitarian help and
encouragement to the Syrian opposition to promise that everyone they will be
represented in a new Syria.
In Cairo, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby suggested at a news
conference that Russia and China – two countries that recently supported
Damascus by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s
regime – may be shifting their positions.
“There are some indications, especially from China and to some degree
from Russia that there may be a change in their stance,” he said,
without elaborating.
Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso told The Associated Press that Assad’s
military should face strong resistance as residents plan to fight until “the
last person.” He added that Homs is facing “savage shelling that
does not differentiate between military or civilians targets.”
The Baba Amr neighbourhood on Homs’ southwest edge has become the centrepiece
of the city’s opposition. Hundreds of army defectors are thought to be
taking shelter there, clashing with troops in hit-and-run attacks each day.
Amateur videos posted online showed what activists said were shells falling
into Baba Amr. Black smoke billowed from residential areas. Phone lines and
Internet connections have been cut with the city, making it difficult to get
firsthand accounts from Homs residents.
In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said
the group has been in talks with Syrian authorities and opposition groups to
negotiate a ceasefire in some of the most violence-torn areas.
“We are currently discussing several possibilities with all those
concerned, and it includes a cessation of fighting in the most affected
areas,” the spokeswoman, Carla Haddad, told the AP.
She said the talks weren’t aimed at resolving any of the entrenched political
differences.
“The idea is to be able to facilitate swift access to people in need,”
Haddad said.
Clashes between military rebels and Syrian forces are growing more frequent
and the defectors have managed to take control of small pieces of territory
in the north as well as parts of Homs province, which is Syria’s largest
stretching from the border with Lebanon in the west to Iraq and Jordan in
the east. Increasingly, Syria appears to be careening toward an all-out
civil war.
Activists believe Assad may be trying to subdue Homs – an important stronghold
for anti-Assad groups – before a planned referendum Sunday on a new
constitution. The charter would allow a bigger role for political opposition
to challenge Assad’s Ba’ath party, which has controlled Syria since a 1963
coup.
But the leaders of the uprising have dismissed the referendum as an attempt at
superficial reforms that do nothing to crack the regime’s hold on power.
“We have called for a boycott of the referendum which cannot be held
while parts of Syria are a war zone,” said Omar Idilbi, a Beirut-based
member of the opposition Syrian National Council.
The U.N. last gave a death toll for the conflict in January, saying 5,400 had
been killed in 2011 alone. But hundreds more have been killed since,
according to activist groups. The group Local Coordination Committees says
more than 7,300 have been killed since March of last year. There is no way
to independently verify the numbers, however, as Syria bans almost all
foreign journalists and human rights organisations.
In the western Hama province, troops backed by armoured personnel carriers and
military buses stormed several villages, conducting raids and arrests. A
32-year-old man was killed by gunfire from a security checkpoint in the
area, activists said.
Source: agencies
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