Child killed in Syrian crackdown

Gunfire and shelling rattled a city in central Syria today killing a 12-year-old boy, as President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime expanded its military crackdown on a seven-week-old uprising, activists said.

The exact circumstances of the boy’s death in the city of Homs were unclear. Like several other trouble spots, the government has answered protests there by sending in tanks and soldiers to seal it off and cutting phone service to leave it further isolated.