The Guardian reports: Scores of people have been killed in the fifth straight day of shelling in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, according to opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The continuing bombardments of the districts of Bayadah, Baba Amr, al-Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun caused many deaths, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Omar Shaker, an activist in Baba Amr, said the district was under “very intense shelling” by tanks, mortars, artilleries and heavy machine guns. He said he had counted five bodies.

Other reports suggest 47 civilians died early on Wednesday in the government’s continuing attempts to subdue opposition areas. At least 150 people have died in the last two days, activists and oppostion sources have told Reuters.

One activist, Muhammad Hassan, said by satellite phone: “Electricity returned briefly and we were able to contact various neighbourhoods because activists there managed to recharge their phones. We counted 47 killed since midnight.” Hassan said the bombardment had intensified in Sunni Muslim neighbourhoods that have risen up against Assad.

Nicholas Noe writes: Almost one year after anti-government protests began in Syria, a disaster of enormous moral and strategic proportions is fast approaching. Full-scale civil war is now likely. And a multifront, conventional and possibly unconventional war ignited by events in the Levant is also increasingly plausible.

However, many in the West, in some Arab governments and even in the Syrian opposition still think a “controlled collapse” of Bashar al-Assad’s government is possible.

According to this view, increasing pressure from all around will, at some point, fracture the government and its supporters both at home and abroad. Any resulting death and destruction, as well as regional blowback, will be within acceptable limits.

Unfortunately, there are at least three problems that make a controlled collapse unlikely.

First, the Assad government, which still enjoys substantial support from the army, the elite and other segments of the population, may be able to prolong its bloody denouement, with help from outsiders. Russia, which sees Syria as an indispensable strategic asset, joined China on Saturday in vetoing a United Nations resolution against the Assad government.

Iran has staked its own vital interests on Mr. Assad’s regime, which is a crucial conduit for Tehran’s support for the militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah in their common struggle against Israel.

Second, the violence from any drawn-out collapse will most likely exceed the limits of moral or strategic acceptability for the West and its allies — not to mention the Syrian people. Sectarian conflicts that divide the Alawites and other minority communities from the majority Sunni population will accelerate, compounding tensions in neighboring Lebanon, where Sunni fighters are now staging attacks into Syria, and also in Iraq, where sectarian violence has sharply increased in recent weeks.

Third, the resulting movement of refugees will add yet another destabilizing element to a humanitarian crisis. After all, Syria already hosts millions of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees who are likely to experience further anguish and loss. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Syria’s opposition is struggling to respond to the intensifying crackdown by the regime and the failure of international efforts to secure a peaceful outcome.

The proliferation of different groups, personal rivalries, incompatible agendas and failing strategies is making it hard for western and Arab governments, who would like to see the sort of unity the Libyan rebels displayed last year.

On the ground, the activists of the Local Co-ordination Committees are finding it harder to function because of arrests and killings. The LCCs operate all over the country and play a key role in filming protests and regime violence to ensure information reaches the wider world. Their most effective weapons are laptops and mobile phones. The casualty figures they collate are considered to be reliable.

Close links exist between the LCCs and the fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), composed of local men and defectors from the army and security forces. It is a prime target for the government, which calls them “armed terrorist groups”.

The FSA commander is in Turkey and there is little co-ordination with local units. Communications are difficult. Political control of the FSA is a key question for the main opposition grouping, the Syrian National Council (SNC), which is based in Turkey and referred to dismissively by the regime as the “Istanbul council”. Reports about the creation of a High Military Council led by a former army general have added to confusion about who is in charge.

Wadah Khanfar writes: While Russia and China were using their veto to abort a UN security council resolution against the Syrian regime, the news of a massacre in Homs came thick and fast. In an unprecedented escalation, the Syrian regime sought to exploit the international hesitancy to have a bloody showdown with its opposition.

This came after Syrians had observed for the first time in 30 years the anniversary of the massacre carried out in Hama in February 1982. It is regarded as one of the most gruesome events in Syria’s modern history. On that occasion, former president Hafiz al-Assad decimated most of the city of Hama with aerial bombings and tanks. About 30,000 inhabitants perished, while a similar number were detained, tortured and many killed in prisons. All this occurred in the shadow of the cold war and with the cover of the Soviet Union, which was then allied to Hafiz al-Assad’s regime.

Last Friday, Syrian protesters rallied under the slogan “forgive us Hama, we apologise”; a clear reference to the abject silence that has overshadowed that massacre throughout the last three decades. Although Hama was an ever-present bleeding wound in the Syrian popular conscience, and a humiliating disgrace that shook their souls, people were prohibited from remembering or mentioning it throughout the entire period of Hafiz al-Assad’s rule. When his son assumed power in 2000, many were optimistic that he would at least give some consideration to the victims or reveal the fate of the thousands who were swallowed up in the prisons. But the young president chose to follow in his father’s footsteps; he perpetrated another massacre in Hama and many others in Homs and other Syrian cities and towns. However, this time Bashar al-Assad has miscalculated. The Syrian revolution, which has so far sacrificed more than 7,000 dead, will not end unless the regime is overthrown.

Bloomberg reports: Failure by the United Nations Security Council to deliver global condemnation of Syria gives President Bashar al-Assad room to continue his 11-month crackdown on protesters.

While 13 countries in the 15-member Security Council voted yesterday to adopt a proposal by Western and Arab countries to end the bloodshed, Russia used its veto to block the draft resolution against its top Mideast ally. Taking Russia’s lead, China also cast a veto.

Assad stands to benefit from the collapse of the resolution a day after reports that security forces killed 330 people in the city of Homs, one of the bloodiest attacks since protests began last March. This is the second time Russia has blocked attempts at the UN to hold Assad accountable for a conflict that the UN says has killed more than 5,400 people.

The veto gives Assad a “license to kill,” Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid Al Attiyah said today at a security conference in Munich. “Yesterday was a sad day,” he said. “This is exactly what we feared.”

Syrian Ambassador Bashar al-Jafari told the council after the vote that the “killing was carried out by terrorist opposition to send you a misleading message in an attempt to influence the vote.”

Tony Karon notes: [T]he willingness of Beijing and Moscow to break with their Western counterparts among the Permanent Five (veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council) on Syria also casts a shadow over the Obama Administration’s efforts to isolate and pressure Iran over its nuclear program.

Russia and China have long made clear that their perception of the Iran issue is quite different from that of the Western powers — while they believe Iran is required to comply with its NPT obligations, they don’t believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons or that it’s program poses a threat to international security, and they have demanded a greater emphasis on dialogue with Tehran in resolving the issue and addressing its underlying strategic rivalry.

The Obama Administration has worked hard to win Russian and Chinese support for a limited set of Security Council sanctions, even though both countries have bluntly rejected compliance with the unilateral measures against Iran’s energy sector adopted by the U.S. and its European allies.

The Syria vote served up a reminder of just how unlikely it is that the Security Council will pass any significant escalation of sanctions against Iran, much less provide legal authorization for the military option President Obama insists has not been taken off the table.

Anthony Shadid reports: The United States closed its embassy in Syria on Monday and withdrew all staff there in response to escalating mayhem in the country and what American officials called the Syrian government’s unbridled repression of an 11-month-old uprising that has become the bloodiest conflict in the Arab Spring revolts.

Clearly laying the blame on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, the State Department said in a statement on its Web site that the United States had “suspended operations of our Embassy in Damascus,” and that Ambassador Robert S. Ford “and all American personnel have now departed the country.” It said the closure reflected “serious concerns that our Embassy is not protected from armed attack.”

The announcement did not signal a formal break in American diplomatic relations with Syria but was considered a strong signal that Obama administration officials believe there is nothing left to talk about with Mr. Assad. His government has been emboldened since an Arab League peace proposal for Syria appeared to collapse in a diplomatic failure over the weekend at the United Nations, where both Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution to endorse it.

Word of the embassy closure came as opposition groups reported that Syrian government forces shelled the battered city of Homs for another day striking a makeshift clinic and killing at least 17 people in a mounting toll that has made the city the epicenter of the uprising, which began last March. The city, Syria’s third-largest, has emerged as an arena of some of the revolt’s worst violence, with scores dead there in just the past few days.

The Daily Telegraph reports: In his first full-length newspaper interview, General Mustafa al-Sheikh, who has taken refuge in Turkey, gave an apocalyptic insider’s view of the state of the regime – despite its attempt to reassert control this weekend.

He said only a third of the army was at combat readiness due to defections or absenteeism, while remaining troops were demoralised, most of its Sunni officers had fled, been arrested, or sidelined, and its equipment was degraded.

“The situation is now very dangerous and threatens to explode across the whole region, like a nuclear reaction,” he said.

The failure of President Assad to keep a tight grip even on the towns and suburbs around Damascus, some of which have driven out the army for periods in recent weeks, has led to a reassessment of his forces’ unity.

When Gen Sheikh fled over the border from his town in the north of the country in the second half of November, he thought the army could hold out against a vastly outnumbered opposition for a year or more. Now, he said, attacks by the rebels’ Free Syrian Army were escalating as the rank and file withered away due to lack of belief in the cause.

Reuters reports: Syrian demonstrators ransacked their country’s embassy in Cairo and broke into the missions in London and Kuwait, part of protests around the world against the worst bloodshed of the 11 month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Cairo crowd smashed furniture and equipment and set fire to parts of the embassy building overnight.

In London, about 150 people hurled stones at the Syrian embassy, smashing windows and shouting slogans. Five men were arrested after breaking into the building and another was held for assaulting police, London police said.

Syrian residents in Kuwait broke into the embassy there at dawn on Saturday, tearing down the flag and injuring several security guards, state news agency KUNA reported.

Rallies also broke out outside Syrian embassies in Germany, the United States and Greece after human rights activists reported more than 200 people were killed in shelling by government forces in the city of Homs.

The Guardian reports: More than 200 people were reported to have been killed yesterday in the Syrian city of Homs as security forces continued their efforts to take back opposition-held areas on the eve of a vote by the UN security council on a much-disputed resolution on the country.

Hundreds more were killed in shelling of the city, according to the the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which cited witnesses.

Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the campaign group, said that women and children were among 217 people killed, many of them in the Khalidya district of the city.

“Syrian forces are shelling the district with mortars from several locations, some buildings are on fire. There are also buildings which got destroyed,” Abdulrahman told Reuters.

The UN Security Council is expected to meet on Saturday morning to vote on a European-Arab draft resolution endorsing an Arab League plan calling for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to give up power, council members announced.

The Los Angeles Times reports: Syrian tanks and troops moved Sunday to crush resistance in the rebellious suburbs of Damascus, opposition groups reported, bringing the bloody battle that has ravaged the nation for months to the doorsteps of the nation’s capital.

The fierce fighting reported outside Damascus was the latest sign that Syria’s armed insurgency — long concentrated in provincial hotbeds of revolt like Homs, Hama and Dara — has now reached the edge of the city from which the Assad family has ruled Syria in autocratic fashion for more than 40 years. That reign now appears threatened as never before, raising the prospect of a revamped geopolitical alignment in the heart of the volatile Middle East.

More than 250 people have been killed in clashes nationwide since Thursday, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition coalition. The group reported at least 64 deaths on Sunday alone.

The upsurge in violence near Damascus and elsewhere comes as leaders of the Arab League, a 22-member regional confederation, left for New York with hopes of persuading the United Nations Security Council to throw its weight behind a league plan calling on President Bashar Assad to relinquish power. Russia, an ally of Syria that wields veto power on the U.N. Security Council, has said it opposes any international move toward a change in leadership.

Ian Black reports: Sipping tea in a smoky Damascus cafe, Adnan and his wife, Rima, look ordinary enough: an unobtrusive, thirtysomething couple winding down at the end of the working day in one of the tensest cities in the world.

But like much else in the Syrian capital, they are not what they first seem: normally, he is a software engineer and she a lawyer; now, they are underground activists helping organise the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

It is dangerous work. Over the past 10 months, thousands of Syrians have been killed – perhaps twice the 5,000 figure given by the UN – as Assad has pursued a ruthless crackdown that shows no sign of ending. But his opponents are equally determined to carry on.

Adnan and Rima are unable to work or contact their families. They have false identities. Adnan changes his appearance regularly. He has just shaved off his beard. It clearly works: a friend at a nearby table fails to recognise him.

Most of their friends are on the run from the mukhabarat secret police. “It used to be scary but we’ve got used to it,” said Adnan. The revolution destroyed the wall of fear. At school, we were taught to love the president – Hafez – first. And it didn’t get any better when Bashar took over. Now, everything has changed. Assad’s picture is defaced everywhere and we are certain that at some point we will topple the regime.”

On the face of it, Damascus is calm. The bloodiest frontlines of the revolution may be in Homs, Hama, Idlib and Deraa, but the appearance of normality in the capital is deceptive. Intrigue, fear and anger are just below the surface.