13 killed in Syria's flashpoint Homs: Activists

Dec 26, 2011 |

Nicosia

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Heavy gunfire in Syria's flashpoint central city Homs killed 13 people on Monday in the Sunni district of Baba Amro, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.

"The rounds fired from heavy machineguns in the Baba Amro district caused 13 deaths on Monday morning and dozens of injuries. The situation is frightening and the shelling is the most intense of the last three days", the group said, citing activists on the ground.

The Britain-based Observatory renewed its call for Arab League observers, the first 50 of whom were due to arrive in Syria on Monday evening, to head immediately to Homs, which has become of a focal point of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"The observers must head immediately to the martyrs' district of Baba Amro to stop the assassinations and meet with the Syrian people so that they witness the crimes being perpetrated by by the Syrian regime," the group said.

A nine-member advance team of Arab monitors arrived on Thursday to pave the way for the observer mission to oversee a deal aimed at ending the crackdown, which the UN estimates has killed more than 5,000 people since March.

Syrian opposition groups have said that the observers must stop their work if they are blocked by the authorities from travelling to protest hotspots like Homs.

General Mohammed Ahmed Mustapha al-Dabi, who is heading the League's observer mission, arrived in Damascus on Sunday evening, a source told AFP.

The mission is part of an Arab plan endorsed by Syria on November 2 that calls for the withdrawal of the military from towns and residential districts, a halt to violence against civilians and the release of detainees.

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