Syrian forces shell Homs as troops mass

Last Updated 8:44 a.m. ET

BEIRUT - Government troops heavily shelled rebellious districts in the resistance stronghold of Homs Tuesday, compounding fears of a new round of bloody urban combat in a country careening toward all-out civil war.

Activists said the intense shelling of Baba Amr in Homs lasted a few hours but did not seem to be the start of a widely-expected military offensive aimed at retaking rebel-held neighborhoods in the central region.

Al Arabiya reports that 24 people have been killed in today's violence. At least two of those killed were children, activists said.

In the northern province of Aleppo, the government said a Syrian businessman was shot dead in front of his home in what appears to be the latest in a series of targeted that suggest armed factions are growing bolder and more coordinated in their uprising against President Bashar Assad.

An activist inside Homs said the shelling started after repeated attempts by troops to storm the edges of Baba Amr.

"Government troops have been unable to advance because of stiff resistance from defectors inside," he told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, fearing government reprisals.

The military sent columns of tanks and other reinforcements toward Homs on Monday, activists said. A flood of military reinforcements has been a prelude to previous offensives by the authoritarian regime, which has tried to use its overwhelming firepower to crush an opposition that has been bolstered by defecting soldiers and hardened by 11 months of street battles.

"The human loss is going to be huge if they retake Baba Amr," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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On Tuesday, Russia said the United Nations should send a special envoy to Syria to help coordinate security issues and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Twitter that it's proposing that the U.N. Security Council ask the U.N. Secretary General to send the envoy.

Despite the humanitarian activity, activists reported heavy shelling of the Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun districts — all in Homs. It lasted for more than two hours early in the morning, followed by intermittent attacks concentrated on Baba Amr.

Baba Amr on Homs' southwest edge has become the center 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.

Phone lines have been cut with the city, making it difficult to get firsthand accounts from Homs residents.

Activist Omar Shaker, who recently fled from Baba Amr center to the edges, said at one point in the morning the shells were falling at a rate of around 10 per minute. He said he saw thick gray smoke rise from residential areas. Among the 12 dead were two children, he said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, also said 12 people died in the shelling, but added there was no indication yet that a major ground assault to take back Baba Amr had begun.

Shaker called on countries attending a planned "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunisia at the end of this week to find ways of helping the Syrian people.

"People don't care if it's the devil intervening to save us from Bashar, we need the world's help," he said.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Monday the world body should help solve humanitarian issues in Syria.

Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning Assad's crackdown on protests that killed 5,400 in 2011 alone, according to the U.N. Hundreds more have been killed since, activist groups say. One of the groups puts the toll at more than 7,300.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich also said Tuesday that Moscow will not attend the planned "Friends of Syria" meeting, because its organizers had failed to invite representatives of the Syrian government.

Lukashevich said the meeting wouldn't help a dialogue, saying that the global community should act as friends of the entire Syrian people, and not just one part.

"It looks like an attempt to forge some kind of international coalition like it was with the setting-up of a 'Contact Group' for Libya," Lukashevich said.

Russia has said it will block any U.N. resolution that could pave the way for a replay of what happened in Libya. In that case, Russia abstained from a vote, which cleared the way for months of NATO air force attacks that helped Libyans end Muammar Qaddafi's regime.

Bernardino Leon, the EU's representative for the Southern Mediterranean, said Assad's regime missed the opportunity for reforms.

"Syria is definitely not in a transition despite announcements of changes, despite plans for a referendum," Leon told reporters in Jordan.

In Gaza, some 500 Palestinians gathered in a Hamas-authorized demonstration in solidarity with Syrian protesters.

Assad has long hosted and supported leaders of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules Gaza. But as the body count in Syria continues to rise, Hamas has been trying to distance itself of late from its patron.

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 lionized it as "Syria's Misrata" 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.

Another massive death toll would only bring further international isolation on Assad from Western and Arab leaders.

"The massacre in Syria goes on," said U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S., 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.

McCain told "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley on Monday that Iranian involvement shouldn't be a reason preventing the United States from providing support to the rebels. (Click video player above to see interview)