Syrian rebels were holding out in the central city of Homs on Thursday more than 24 hours into an all-out assault by regime forces as international envoy Kofi Annan said he hopes to go to Damascus with a clear message — the “violence must stop.”
The opposition Syrian National Council said it wants to take charge of organising arms deliveries to the rebels as the UN Human Rights Council called on Damascus to end all rights abuses and allow relief supplies in to besieged protest cities such as Homs. Gulf states, which have been at the forefront of international calls to arm the rebels, said they will hold talks next week with key Damascus ally Moscow, which has so far blocked Arab and Western efforts to take action through the UN Security Council.
Britain announced that it was following the United States in closing its embassy and pulling out its remaining diplomats in response to the “deterioration of the security situation in Damascus.” Rebel fighters in the Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr kept up their dogged resistance as regime ground troops pressed a ground offensive, activists and a human rights group said, even as state television aired footage of what it said were abandoned defences.
“The Free Syrian Army has succeeded in stopping the attempt to attack Baba Amr, and it continues to resist,” activist Hadi Abdullah told AFP from Syria’s third largest city. He said that troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad “have not entered the district,” which has become a symbol of the Syrian uprising after 27 straight days of bombardment.
The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said: “The fighting between deserters and the army continues on the edges of Baba Amr, not inside.” A Damascus-based security source told AFP on Wednesday that regime forces had launched a ground assault on Baba Amr late on Tuesday and that the neighbourhood was “under control.” “There remain only few pockets” of resistance, the source added, after reinforcements from the feared Fourth Armoured Division, led by Assad’s brother Maher, arrived in Homs. State television aired footage it said was filmed inside Baba Amr, including interviews with people it said were residents angry with the rebels.
