US condemns heavy Syrian attack on Homs

Washington has condemned Syrian President Bashar Assad’s massive offensive on the western city of Homs, and called on Damascus to allow humanitarian aid into the beleaguered city.

“The United States denounces the Assad regime’s continued attacks against the innocent civilian populations of Homs and the Damascus area,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement Sunday.

“We call on all members of the international community to make clear to the Assad regime that it must cease these attacks and immediately allow humanitarian organizations, including UN agencies and the Red Cross, safe access to evacuate the wounded and provide life-saving medical treatment and supplies, and comply with international human rights and humanitarian law,” Ventrell said.

On Sunday, Syrian warplanes shelled the old quarters of Homs, killing one woman and two children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and two activists who spoke to The Associated Press on Skype.

“They have wiped half the city off the map,” said an activist who uses the name Abu Bilal. He and activist Tariq Badrakhan said it was the heaviest shelling of Homs since rebels seized control of parts of the city over a year ago.

Syrian forces also tried to push into the city from the Babout quarter, but fighters of the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra pushed them back, Abu Bilal said. The activists said at least five Syrian soldiers and fighters for the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah were killed.

A city of about 1 million, Homs has been a flashpoint since the early days of the uprising, and many residents have sided with the rebels. It is Syria’s third largest city and capital of its largest province, which carries the same name and stretches from the Lebanese border to the frontier with Jordan and Iraq.

Ventrell also denounced “the continued attacks on Syrian cities” by Hezbollah, and called on “Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed fighters to immediately leave Syria.”

“In the face of the Assad regime’s unrelenting attacks and its unconscionable use of chemical weapons, the United States continues to stand firmly on the side of the Syrian people in their fight for freedom,” he said. “We are expanding assistance to the civilian opposition and have expanded our assistance to the Supreme Military Council to strengthen its effectiveness on the ground.”

In the wake of revelations that Assad has been deploying chemical weapons, the United States recently announced that it would provide arms to the opposition — despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to send heavier weapons for fear they might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. Russia, Assad’s staunch supporter, has been providing his army with weapons.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll in the conflict through a network of activists in Syria, says over 100,000 Syrians have died over the 27 months of the conflict. Of those, over 36,000 are civilians, the group says.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.