Syria: shelling of Homs continues

Syrian troops bombed residential neighborhoods in the central city of Homs for the fifth straight day today, killing scores of people in what activists say is the regime's final push to retake areas controlled by the rebels. The violence comes as President Bashar Assad's regime is becoming increasingly isolated over its bloody crackdown on dissent. Five European countries and six Arab Gulf nations have pulled their ambassadors out of Damascus, and the U.S. has closed its embassy in Syria. Germany, whose whose envoy Syria this month, also said he would not be replaced. Opposition activist Abu Abdo Alhomsy described the violence in Homs to journalists with Aljazeera. “We are waiting to be killed here,” he said.

Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad was bolstered Tuesday by a visit from Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was accompanied by Russia’s chief intelligence officer, Mikhail Fradkov. In the talks in Damascus, the Russians pushed for a solution to the Syrian crisis that would include reforms by the regime and a dialogue with the opposition - but not for Assad to step down. The U.N. estimates the government crackdown has killed more than 5,400 people since March. Hundreds more people are believed to have been killed since the U.N. released that figure last month, though the ongoing violence has made it impossible to collect and verify reliable data for an updated casualty estimate. Listen