Artillery barrage of Homs continues

Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs yesterday as President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

A Syrian activist group said yesterday that 135 people have been killed across the country, including 64 who died while fleeing an embattled area in the central city of Homs.

The Local Coordination Committees activist group did not say whether all 135 died yesterday or were killed over the past few days.

While foreign powers argued over whether to arm the rebels, the Syrian Interior Ministry said the reformed constitution, which could keep Assad in power until 2028, had received 89.4% approval from more than 8 million voters.

Syrian dissidents and Western leaders dismissed as a farce Sunday’s vote, conducted in the midst of the country’s bloodiest turmoil in decades, although Assad says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

Officials put national voter turnout at close to 60%, but diplomats who toured polling stations in Damascus saw only a handful of voters at each location. On the same day, at least 59 people were killed in violence around the country.

Qatar joined Saudi Arabia in advocating arming Syrian rebels, given that Russia and China have twice used their vetoes to block any action by the UN Security Council.

“I think we should do whatever is necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Oslo.

Arab countries should help lead a military force to provide a safe haven foranti-Assad forces inside Syria, he added.

Assad says he is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups” and his allies — Russia, China and Iran — oppose any outside intervention intended to add him to the list of Arab autocrats unseated by popular revolts in the past year.

China called US policy in the region “super-arrogant” and Russia’s Vladimir Putin warned against any action that bypassed the UN Security Council.

International “impotence” was described by French foreign minister Alain Juppe as “hugely frustrating.” But, accusing the Syrian authorities of “massacres” and “odious crimes,” he said Paris would keep on pressing for action at the Security Council.

Shells and rockets crashed into Sunni Muslim districts of Homs that have already endured weeks of bombardment as Assad’s forces, led by officers from his minority Alawite sect, try to stamp out an almost year-long revolt against his 11-year rule.

— Reuters