Dubai: A Syrian opposition group on Monday called for immediate international intervention to protect more than 250,000 besieged citizens in three residential districts in Homs.
A spokesman for the Coordination Committee in Homs told Gulf News by phone that it will be very dangerous for residents to wait till the outcome of the Arab League meeting in Cairo on Saturday.
He claimed that people will die due to a lack of basic services, including water, electricity and food, even before they are attacked by President Bashar Al Assad's forces.
Obaida Nahhas, member of the Syrian National Council in exile, told Gulf News that the people of Homs cannot wait anymore.
"The brutal massacres carried out by the Al Assad regime against Homs residents for more than two weeks are quite serious. An average of 15 to 20 people are being killed in Bab Amr and Khalidiya districts on a daily basis in addition to 100 to 200 people being arrested daily from the same districts," Nahhas said.
"Anything less than international intervention on humanitarian grounds is not acceptable. Protecting the lives of people in the city has become an international responsibility following the failure of the Arab League's proposal."
The Syrian National Council declared Homs a "disaster area" and called for international protection for civilians and for sending Arab and international observers to the city.
Qatar's Prime Minister Shaikh Hamad Bin Jasem Al Thani has called on Arab states to meet next Saturday to address Syria's failure to implement the League plan.
The Syrian regime has not commented on the Homs offensive but has repeatedly said that "terrorists" were operating in the city.
'Large-scale attack'
The Syrian National Council said the Syrian regime had "launched a large-scale attack" overnight Sunday to Monday on the neighbourhoods of Homs and that "indiscriminate slaughter is being committed by the regime's militias."
The army, which has sought to crush the protest movement that erupted in March through force, was "using heavy artillery, rocket launchers, and warplanes to bomb populated residential neighbourhoods" in Homs, it said.
"For the fifth consecutive day, the Syrian regime imposed a brutal siege on the brave city of Homs, aiming to break the will of its residents, and to brutalise its steadfast people who have dared to reject the regime's authority and mandate, and insisted on demanding their legitimate rights for freedom and dignity," it added.
The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 people have been killed across Syria in a brutal crackdown by the security forces since anti-regime protests erupted in mid-March.
The British Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy artillery clashes erupted overnight between soldiers and presumed defectors in Homs leaving "dozens of dead and wounded in both camps".
"Shooting could be heard in Homs where neighbourhoods came under heavy machine gunfire at dawn," said the Observatory in a statement, adding "more than 40 explosions were heard."
With inputs from Layelle Saad, GCC/Middle East Editor, and agencies
