UN: Syrian helicopters firing on rebel towns

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.

International mediator Kofi Annan also said he was gravely concerned about violence in Homs and in Haffeh, a mainly Sunni Muslim town, where the US state department said it feared a “potential massacre”.

The UN observers, tasked with monitoring Annan’s April ceasefire deal, have instead been cataloguing mass killings, bombings and clashes in which many hundreds of Syrians have died.