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March 1st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
“All the signs out of Homs are that they’re trying to finish it off,”
a senior Western diplomat said.
A motley band of army deserters and desperate insurgents who call themselves
the Farouq Brigade of the Free Syrian Army have sworn to fight to the last
man, one activist from Baba Amro told Reuters. Others, though, said some of
the unit’s leaders had already made their escape from the shattered
neighbourhood.
Rumaid admitted the rebels were far outgunned, armed with machineguns and
mortars against armoured forces backed by heavy artillery and rockets but
said they were holding out.
“Infantry fighting goes on. The men are still resisting and Assad’s army
is shelling Baba Amro but it has not gone deep beyond its parameters,”
said Rumaid, a member of the Higher Military Council overseeing the Free
Syrian Army.
Activists say hundreds of civilians have been killed in besieged opposition
districts of Homs. Shells and rockets have been crashing into Baba Amro
since Feb. 4. Army snipers pick off civilians who venture out.
Reports from the city could not immediately be verified due to tight
government restrictions on media work in Syria, where Assad is facing the
gravest challenge of his 11-year rule.
Western and Arab governments, which have already called on Assad to step down
and end the bloodshed, expressed mounting concern for the fate of civilians
trapped in Homs.
“I am appalled by reports that the Assad regime is preparing a full-scale
land assault on the people of Homs,” Foreign Secretary William Hague
said, calling for immediate access for aid.
The 4th Armoured Division commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger
brother, has won a reputation for ruthlessness during the past year of
revolt against the government.
Drawn from the Alawite sect to which the Assads belong, it is hated by many in
the Sunni majority who recall the role its predecessor units played in
massacring many thousands of Sunni Islamists at Hama in 1982 on the orders
of Assad’s father Hafez.
The United Nations says Assad’s security forces have killed more than 7,500
civilians since the revolt began last March. Syria’s government said in
December that “armed terrorists” had killed more than 2,000
soldiers and police during the unrest.
The opposition Syrian National Council made a new appeal for international
help on Wednesday evening, urging the U.N.-Arab League envoy on Syria, Kofi
Annan, to go to Baba Amro “tonight”.
Annan said in New York he expected to visit Syria “fairly soon” and
urged Assad to engage with efforts to end the turmoil.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hicham Hassan,
said the violence in Homs was making the humanitarian situation more
difficult.
“This makes it even more important for us to repeat our call for a halt
in the fighting,” he told Reuters in Geneva.
The ICRC said its Syrian Red Crescent affiliate had established 10
distribution and first aid points in Homs, but had been unable to operate in
Baba Amro because of the violence.
UN humanitarian chief Amos said she was “deeply disappointed” Syria
refused to let her visit the country, where she had hoped to assess the
emergency relief needs in besieged towns.
“Given the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, with an
increasing need for medical assistance, food and basic supplies, improving
access, so that assistance can reach those in urgent need, is a matter of
the highest priority,” she said.
The United States has outlined a new UN Security Council resolution on Syria,
to demand access for relief workers and an end to violence, Western envoys
said on Tuesday.
They said the draft focused on humanitarian problems to try to win Chinese and
Russian support and isolate Assad, but that it would also suggest Assad was
to blame for the crisis, a stance his longtime ally Russia has opposed.
Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution on Feb 4 that would have backed an
Arab League call for Assad to step down, but both nations have signalled
support for humanitarian action.
Spanish reporter Javier Espinosa, one of several Western journalists trapped
in Baba Amro for a week, crossed to Lebanon on Wednesday, an activist said,
following the escape on Tuesday of wounded British photographer Paul Conroy.
Still in Homs were French journalists William Daniels and Edith Bouvier, who
was wounded in a Feb 22 bombardment which killed veteran Sunday Times war
correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. Their bodies
remain there.
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