Syria pounds Homs; Russia backs cease-fire

HOMS, Syria, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Syrian forces struck Homs for a 20th day Thursday as regime ally Russia backed a call for an emergency cease-fire a day after more than 80 people were killed.

Tanks, heavy artillery, rockets and mortars pummeled residential areas of Homs, a center of the resistance in central-western Syria, shortly after dawn, residents and activists said. Especially targeted was Homs' embattled Baba Amr neighborhood, which the regime of President Bashar Assad has been bombarding daily since Feb. 4, they said.

There was no immediate report on casualties.

Among the more than 80 killed Wednesday were Marie Colvin, 56, a U.S.-born correspondent with the Sunday Times of London, and 28-year-old French war photographer Remi Ochlik.

At least seven Syrians were killed and two other journalists were injured in the attack that killed Colvin, the activists said.

Syrian authorities said they had no information about the journalists and asked Homs officials to look for them, The Wall Street Journal reported.

More than 100 videos posted on YouTube Wednesday showed bodies appearing to be of both rebel fighters and civilians strewn on the streets, buildings reduced to rubble, doctors lamenting their lack of supplies -- and many scenes of people crying in despair.

At least 104 people were killed in Syria Tuesday, with 46 dead accounted for in Homs' Baba Amr neighborhood, activists reported.

"This is the first YouTube war," Rami Jarrah, co-director of Cairo's Activists News Association, which collects information from within Syria and distributes it, told The New York Times.

The brutal offensive escalated as Russia joined the United States and Western allies in calling for a temporary daily humanitarian cease-fire in Syria.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Wednesday Moscow was "seriously concerned" about the civilian plight in Homs.

He said the Kremlin was using its contacts with both the Assad regime and the opposition to promote a truce proposal by the International Committee of the Red Cross for a 2-hour daily suspension of hostilities so emergency supplies and other humanitarian aid could be delivered to devastated Syrian areas.

Red Cross spokeswoman Carla Haddad said the agency, based in Geneva, was negotiating with Syrian authorities and rebels in the hope of gaining the truce.

The ICRC, the only international agency with aid workers in Syria, has been cooperating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

Washington supports the cease-fire "to allow for the provision of humanitarian supplies to Syrians who desperately need it," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The United Nations said Wednesday it would soon send its top humanitarian official to Syria to secure humanitarian-aid access, but it announced no date for the mission.

Lukashevich said Russia had asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send a representative Syria to negotiate with all sides for the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.

The violence and negotiations came a day before a newly created Syria contact group known as "Friends of Syria" was to meet for the first time in Tunis, Tunisia, to forge an international consensus to bring a halt to the bloodshed.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to join foreign ministers and other officials from about 80 nations Friday, along with representatives of international organizations. The group was created after Russia and China vetoed Security Council resolutions calling on Assad to step down.

The United Nations said it documented 5,400 deaths as of January, when it said it was no longer able to safely gather information. Saudi Arabia says the death toll is now at least 7,000.