France will propose giving the United Nations the power to enforce Kofi Annan’s Syrian peace plan, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, adding a no-fly zone was an option under consideration to stem what was now a civil war.

The conflict in Syria is now a civil war, according the UN's peacekeeping chief.

UN monitors said Syrian helicopters fired on rebel strongholds north of Homs yesterday and called for “immediate and unfettered access” to conflict zones where they had heard many women and children were trapped.