WarSclerotic

Armored forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad moved into the rebel district of Baba Amro in Homs on Thursday after 20 days of sustained bombardment, opposition sources said.

“Tanks have entered the Jobar area in the south of Baba Amro,” activist Abu Imad told Reuters from the city.

	A Syrian army tank is seen in the neighbourhood of Erbeen, near Damascus, February 20, 2012.
	Photo by: Reuters

Earlier this week activists said that Syrian military sent columns of tanks and other reinforcements toward Homs.

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.

“Most of the deaths occurred in the province of Homs. Others were killed in the provinces of Idlib and Hama,” Omar Idlibi, the LCC spokesman in Beirut, told dpa.

Wednesday’s violence followed shelling by Syrian forces on Tuesday that killed at least 65 people in Homs, activists said, describing the attacks as the heaviest since the start of an assault on the restive city early this month.

	Syria security forces shell the Baba Amro district of Homs.
	Photo by: AFP

Activist Omar Homsi told DPA that more than thirty people were also wounded in the city’s besieged neighborhoods of Baba Amr, Al-Khalidiyeh, and Inshaaat and the region of al-Kussair.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Red Cross called for a daily two-hour cease-fire in Syria so that it can deliver emergency aid and reach people who are wounded or sick.