• Bombardment of Homs continues for a fifth day
• US says it won't arm Free Syrian Army
• Russia calls for an Arab solution to the crisis
• Read the latest summary
(all times GMT) Welcome to Middle East Live. The focus continues to be Syria where the accounts and images emerging from the city of Homs get ever grimmer. The Syrian Army's bombardment of the city has entered its fifth day despite a fresh pledge by president Bashar al-Assad to end the violence.
Here's a roundup of the latest developments:
Syria
• Armoured forces loyal to president Assad killed at least 47 civilians as they thrust into Homs on Wednesday, firing rockets and mortar rounds to subdue opposition districts, activists said, Reuters reports. Tanks entered the Inshaat neighbourhood and moved closer to Baba Amr district in the central Syrian city. "We counted 47 killed since midnight," activist Mohammad Hassan said by satellite phone.
• The latest video footage from Homs suggests residential areas are being targeted.
A clip from activists purports to show a residential tower block being hit by a missile.
• Russia has put itself at the centre of efforts to resolve the deepening Syrian crisis, calling for an "Arab solution" to the uprising against the Assad regime. Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, flew to Damascus to hear Assad pledge a referendum on a new constitution and request that Arab League monitors – withdrawn last month – return to Syria. Assad promised to "stop violence regardless of where it may come from". But the regime's actions belied this statement.
• Residents inside Homs claim they are under "genocidal attack" from a Syrian regime apparently deaf to international opinion and determined to "bomb, starve and shoot" them into submission. They said Syrian army tanks had encircled opposition-held suburbs, in preparation for what they feared was a final, deadly ground assault.
• Assad was advised that the "American psyche can be easily manipulated" when he was preparing for a television interview with ABC's Barbara Walters in December, according to leaked emails reported to have come from within the Syrian regime. In an insight into the contempt shown for international public opinion by those advising the Syrian leader, one of his media aides suggested "the American audience doesn't really care about reforms. They won't understand it and they are not interested to do so".
• Arab and western governments scrabbling to find strategies to deal with the crisis in Syria are considering ways to strengthen opposition to the president, Bashar al-Assad, including supporting the Free Syrian Army. But western diplomats and analysts warn that sharp divisions in opposition ranks, the strength of the Assad regime and the difficulty of mounting covert operations all pose serious further problems.
• Arab and Western intervention in Syria would only escalate the killing, argues Seumus Milne.
If the opposition can't shoot its way to power and the regime doesn't implode, the only way out of deepening civil war is a negotiated political settlement leading to genuine elections. To stand any chance of success, that would now need to be guaranteed by the main powers in the region and beyond. The alternative of western and Gulf-dictator intervention could only lead to far greater bloodshed – and deny Syrians control of their own country.
• The Obama administration has insisted it is not planning to arm opposition groups in Syria but said it is looking at how humanitarian aid could be provided to the Syrian people. Asked whether it would arm the Syrian opposition, White House spokesman Jay Carney said:
We are not considering that step right now. We are exploring the possibility of providing humanitarian aid to Syrians and we are working with our partners, again, to ratchet up the pressure, ratchet up the isolation on Assad and his regime. We're seeing a lot of indications of a lack of control over the country by the regime, of interest by senior officials within the military and the government in separating themselves from the regime. So we believe that that pressure is having an impact.
Asked about Lavrov's visit to Damascus, Carney said:
We're not sure what the goals of his visit are. But the point we're making is that Russia must realize that betting everything on Assad is a recipe for failure -- not just for Russia's interests in Syria, but for the stability of the region and for Syria's future. And I would just reemphasize what I said in response to the earlier question.
Western government are anxious to avoid a regional war, he says.
Iran
• The Iranian parliament has taken the unprecedented step of summoning president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to answer a series of questions over the government's handling of the economy and his personal judgements. Earlier this month, representatives of Ahmadinejad had met MPs in an attempt to address their concerns about the president. But Mostafa Reza Hosseini, a spokesman for the MPs, told the semi-official Mehr news agency that they "had not been convinced by the answers", resulting in their summoning the president, in a motion signed by 79 of Iran's 290 MPs.
Bahrain
• The authorities in Bahrain have freed two human rights activists, ahead of planned protest to mark the first anniversary of crushed pro-democracy uprising, the BBC reports. Fadheela al-Mubarak was freed on Monday, nearly a year after she was arrested for listening to what was called "revolutionary music" in a car. The other activist was Naser al-Raas, a Kuwait-born Canadian citizen who was serving a five-year term for breaking Bahrain's illegal-assembly laws.
Danny Abdul Dayem, a Syrian activist who was spent time in Britain, has recorded another video appeal from the Baba Amr district of Homs [warning: graphic content].
Speaking beside the body of a dead infant in a field hospital he said: "This child lost his brains. A bomb landed in his house... is this what the UN is waiting for?"
Activists in Homs continue to broadcast live footage of the city's skyline, via the live streaming site Bambuser.
At the time of writing the scene appeared largely calm, but there are regular sounds of gun fire and explosions.
The opposition Syrian National Council, looks to be in trouble, Ian Black reports.
Its secular leadership, which includes veterans of the old Damascus Declaration group, is allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, some Kurds and others.
Its president, Burhan Ghalioun (pictured) a respected Paris-based political scientist, was forced to step down on Monday after mounting criticism of his abilities and tactics.
Hopes for a more unified political opposition faded in December after an agreement announced between the SNC and the National Co-ordination Bureau, a Syria-based coalition headed by the veteran leftist Hassan Abdel-Azim, fell apart almost immediately amidst angry recriminations. The failure at the UN last weekend seemed to demolish the SNC's strategy of depending on Arab and western diplomacy. The NCB opposes any outside intervention.
The EU is considering a new round of sanctions against the Assad regime, our Brussels correspondent Ian Traynor has been told.
Eu pondering new Syria sanctions by end month. central bank asset freeze, precious metals import ban, air traffic ban all possible
— Ian Traynor (@traynorbrussels) February 8, 2012
Any talk of military intervention is not on the agenda.
Syria is not Libya - senior Brussels official. Military options excluded
— Ian Traynor (@traynorbrussels) February 8, 2012
Turkey is planning an international conference on Syria, according to AFP.
Yesterday Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said president Assad was walking down "a dead-end street", the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.
He also confirmed plans for a "new initiative" on Syria to run in parallel with the formation of the British backed "friends of democratic Syria".
Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu will discuss the crisis with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in Washington, Hurriyet added.
"Where's freakin UN? Why isn't anyone helping us?" Homs activist Danny Abdul Dayem asks in another video appeal from Baba Amr.
Just as he was speaking the sound of more shelling could be heard.
Once again the footage cannot be independently verified. The BBC's Paul Wood, who is close to the city, reports claims that today's bombardment has been the heaviest yet.
We've just managed to get through to people inside, the people in whose house we were staying.They says that this morning there began the heaviest bombardment that they have seen yet in three or four days of shelling and mortar attacks.
There are a lot of wild rumours flying around about casualties. People are saying there are already more dead in that particular part of Homs than they saw yesterday or the day before.
There's no way to verify that but they say that the shell and mortar impacts are coming more rapidly than at any time before.
They are also afraid that ground troops are going to come in at some point. On Tuesday, there were tanks about 800m away from the particular part of Homs we were in, not moving forward but using their heavy machine guns to pour fire in the direction of people who support the uprising.
New footage purported to show tanks operating in the city today.
Attention is shifting from Russia to Turkey.
While Turkish foreign minister Davutoglu is heading to Washington, prime minister Erdogan is due to discuss the Syria crisis with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Reuters reports.
A doctor in Homs has made an emotional video appeal for international help in a makeshift field hospital filled with the dead bodies of some of the latest victims of the assault on the Baba Amr [warning: graphic content].
Speaking in a blood-stained medical gown above the sound of shooting Dr Muhammad Al-Muhammad said:
Listen to the shooting outside. Believe me, it has been going on since 5am this morning. There have been more than 200 rockets within three hours. This is a very miserable situation.
We have 25 martyrs within the last three hours. Where is the Red Crescent?
Muhammad, who has appeared in number of videos since the assault started, said he could not save the victims who appeared to have been shot in the head. According to a translation by my colleague Mona Mahmood, the doctor added:
We can't do anything for them. We are treating them in homes. Look a bullet in the head ... I call upon all the honest people of the world. I call upon Erdogan in Turkey. I call upon Emir Hamad of Qatar. I call upon King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I call upon all the Muslims in the world to put pressure on Bashar, the monster. Put pressure on the Assad family.
I call upon the Red Cross and the Red Crescent to intervene. I call upon all humanitarian organisations. We now only have God to help us. We can't do any thing for these martyrs.
The White House has insisted that it was not planning to arm the opposition in Syria (as we noted earlier).
But CNN claims the US military is "beginning to look at what can be done," citing two senior officials.
One of the senior US officials called the effort a "scoping exercise" to see what capabilities are available given other U.S. military commitments in the region.
Both officials pointed out that this type of planning exercise is typical for the Pentagon, which would not want to be in the position of not having options for the president, if and when they are asked for.
It would be Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, who would provide details on what U.S. military assets are available, what missions they could perform if asked, and what risks U.S. forces might face.
"The Pentagon is closely monitoring developments in Syria. It wouldn't be doing its job if it didn't put some ideas on the table," one of the senior U.S. officials told CNN. "But absolutely no decisions have been made on military support for Syria."
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict "independently," AP reports.
It says Itar Tass news agency quoted him saying:
We should not act like a bull in a china shop. We have to give people a chance to make decisions about their destiny independently, to help, to give advice, to put limits somewhere so that the opposing sides would not have a chance to use arms, but not to interfere.
AP also confirms EU plans to impose further sanctions on Syria.
The majority of Britons are opposed to any kind of military intervention in Syria, but a large percentage would support the enforcement of a no-fly zone, according to a YouGov Poll.
Here are the headline findings:
• 66% oppose sending British allied troops into Syria to help overthrow President Bashar al-Assad; 9% support it, 24% don't know
• 60% support a no-fly zone over Syria to stop the Syrian air force from attacking rebels or civilians; 18% oppose, 22% don't know
• 55% oppose the idea of providing arms to civilian rebels; 16% support it, 28% don't know
• 60% oppose the idea of sending British allied troops into Syria to protect civilians from attack; 18% support it, 22% don't know
Syrian state media claims a car bomb has exploded in Homs "causing the deaths and injuries of a number of civilians and law-enforcement members."
It claimed the bomb was detonated in the north-east district of al-Bayyada.
The report cannot be independently verified.
The former opposition stronghold of Zabadani, 20 miles north-west of Damascus, is being pounded by hundreds of tanks, an opposition activist in the town told the Guardian.
Last month Zabadani was effectively liberated by the Free Syrian Army, Ian Black reported from the town last month.
Now activist Fares Mohamad claimed the army is on the brink of retaking the city. Speaking to my colleague Mona Mahmood, via satellite phone Mohamad said: "There are about 300 tanks besieging the city from four positions. But I saw so many tanks I couldn't count them."
"They have been firing shells since last Saturday," he said above the sound of mortars.
Yesterday they fired cluster bombs. Seventy people have critical injuries and there are 18 martyrs so far.
More than 40 houses have been demolished because of the attack. More than 300 people have light injuries. We have set up a field hospital, in the basement of a house, but we don't have any medical equipment.
There are also many people who have gone missing.
More 1,200 families have left for Bloudan [to the east of Zabadani]. We don't have any gas or fuel or communications. This is the only working telephone that we have in the town.
The Free Syrian Army are in Zabadani, but they can't stop the shelling. If you have mortars coming from tanks, what can you do? All they [the military defectors] have are light weapons. They can fight soldiers face-to-face, but they cannot fight tanks.
They are resisting but they don't have enough weapons to stop tanks.
The Syrian Army keeps attacking the town, but until now we don't know if they will control it, because the attack is still going on.
At the start of the assault the first targets were the fire station and the hospital. They didn't want the fire brigade to put out the fires or the hospital to treat the injured. They are now shelling residential districts.
Mohamad is a member of the opposition Local Co-ordination Committee in Syria. His account cannot be independently verified.
The UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay has expressed her exasperation at the failure of the international community to stop the assault in Homs.
In a strongly-worded statement she urged the international community "to cut through the politics and take effective action to protect the Syrian population". She also reminded world leaders of the responsibility to protect civilians from crimes against humanity.
Pillay said:
I am appalled by the Syrian Government's wilful assault on Homs, and its use of artillery and other heavy weaponry in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas in the city. The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have fueled the Syrian Government's readiness to massacre its own people in an effort to crush dissent.
In the past eleven months, since the start of the brutal Government crackdown on largely peaceful protests in Syria, thousands of Syrian protestors and civilians have been killed, injured, detained, tortured and forcibly disappeared. All evidence points to the involvement of the Syrian army and security forces in the perpetration of most of these crimes. In light of their nature and scale, they may constitute crimes against humanity, punishable under international law. Those in command should, however, remember that there is no statute of limitations for serious international crimes, and there will be a sustained effort for as long as it takes to bring justice to all those who have been victims of the gross and systematic crimes taking place in Syria today.
At their 2005 Summit, World leaders unanimously agreed that each individual State has the responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and other international crimes. They also agreed that when a State is manifestly failing to protect its population from serious international crimes, the international community as a whole has the responsibility to step in by taking protective action in a collective, timely and decisive manner. The virtual carte blanche now granted to the Syrian Government betrays the spirit and the word.
The Syrian authorities must re-establish the neutrality of healthcare facilities following the attack on hospitals, patients and staff, the humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières has demanded.
It has compiled evidence that the Assad regime is conducting a campaign of repression against people wounded in demonstrations and the medical workers trying to treat them.
Activists claim hospitals were targeted in the current assaults on Homs and Zabadani.
MSF president Marie-Pierre Allié said:
In Syria today, wounded patients and doctors are pursued and risk torture and arrest at the hands of the security services. Medicine is being used as a weapon of persecution.
It is critical that the Syrian authorities re-establish the neutrality of healthcare facilities.
Hospitals must be protected areas, where wounded patients are treated without discrimination and are safe from abuse and torture, and where medical workers do not risk their lives by choosing to comply with their professional code of ethics.
Shashank Joshi an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, takes issue with the Guardian's Seumas Milne after he argued that military intervention in Syria would escalate the crisis.
In a Telegraph blogpost, Joshi wirtes:
Milne thinks that external pressure and negotiations lie at opposite ends of the policy spectrum. In fact, the pattern of the Syrian government's persistent brutality and superficial reforms means that arm-twisting is the only way to bring about the credible settlement that Milne claims to want. Assad has now promised that a new constitution is forthcoming. The idea that the referendum for this can be freely and fairly held under conditions of civil war is laughable, as is the notion that Assad has any incentive to negotiate in good faith whilst squatting under a Russian diplomatic shield ...Milne's suffocating "anti-imperialist" worldview leads to a deeply unpleasant moral equivalence between a reluctantly militarising opposition and unyielding regime. This leads to some absurd conclusions. Such as the idea that poor, misunderstood Russia is simply protecting itself from Western depredations. "Russian officials have privately assured opposition leaders that the quarrel is with the US, not them," Milne tells us. That's a relief, then. Those being slaughtered in Homs don't know how lucky they are.
It is unclear whether the president of the opposition Syrian National Council Burhan Ghalioun has resigned as the Guardian and others reported on Tuesday.
Ian Black, the author of that report tweets:
@emile_hokayem @rmslim this was reported on tuesday but still unclear whether correct. much criticism of him esp after UNSC vote fiasco
— Ian Black (@ian_black) February 8, 2012
Michael Weiss, spokesman for the Henry Jackson Society, claims to have spoken to a leading member of the Syrian National Council, who claims that Ghalioun's future will be decided next week, but that he is still president for now.
@ian_black Ian, I spoke with Radwan Ziadeh just now. He says Ghalioun isn't out as prez. Decision TBD Feb 15.
— michaeldweiss (@michaeldweiss) February 8, 2012
Russia has to "look at its conscience" following its veto of the UN resolution calling on Syria's president to quit, David Cameron said today according to PA.
Speaking in the Commons, Cameron said:
Frankly, Russia and China set themselves against Arab opinion and world opinion in passing what would have been a strong and good UN resolution.
What we now need to see, and Britain will be playing a big part in this, is real engagement with the opposition groups both inside and outside Syria - bringing together the strongest possible international alliance through a contact group so that we can co-ordinate our efforts with respect to getting rid of this dreadful regime and then making sure with the EU and other bodies we continue with the sanctions and pressure.
I think the bloodshed in Syria is absolutely appalling. I think the Russians have to look at their consciences and realise what they have done.
But the rest of the world will keep on fighting as hard as it can to give the Syrian people a chance to choose their own future.
Here's a summary of events so far today.
• The Syrian Army has continued to bombard the central city of Homs, where a doctor claimed 25 people were killed in a sustained attack involving hundreds of rockets. The Syrian government continues to blame the violence on armed terrorist gangs. It reported that a car bomb had killed civilians and members of the security forces in a north-west district of the city.
• The former opposition stronghold of Zabadani is being pounded by hundreds of tanks, an activist in the city told the Guardian. There were also unverified activist reports of army raids on Taseel, in the southern province of Deraa, and on Douma, a suburb of Damascus.
• Turkey has proposed hosting an international conference on Syria. Speaking ahead of talks in Washington, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it would be naive to believe president Assad's promises of reforms and pledges to end the violence.
• Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict "independently". David Cameron accused China and Russia of setting themselves against world opinion, by vetoing a UN resolution calling for a political transition in Syria.
• The White House has said it is not planning to arm the opposition in Syria, amid reports that US officials have not ruled out some form military intervention. A new poll found that the majority of people in Britain are against military intervention in Syria, but would favour a no-fly zone.
• The UN's human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has expressed her exasperation at the failure of the international community to stop the assault in Homs. The humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières has compiled evidence of a campaign of repression against people wounded in demonstrations and the medical workers trying to treat them.
Activist Danny Abduldayem has just been speaking to Sky News from Homs on Skype.
They started bombing us at 5am ... Over 200 houses have been hit by rockets.
He held up a rocket to the camera.
Children are dying ... Four years old, three years old ... We have no medication ... We only have four doctors ...
They've cut all communications off, they've cut electricity off, they've shut the water off ... They've shot three of my friends today ...
Over 150 tanks are coming from Damascus to Homs. They're on their way. Thirty or 40 tanks are here already ... They're putting children on the tanks so the Free Syrian Army can't bomb them ... They're animals ...
When the Arab League sent the monitors here we could get stuff in here, so we got lots of supplies ... If this situation continues for another week we will have no medication, no food.
How is this going to end, Abduldayem was asked.
We don't know. We wanted the UN to help us. We knew the Arab League isn't going to do anything for it ... [The UN] have abandoned the Syrian people.
You see pieces of bodies in the streets ... If you try to move the bodies you will get shot by a sniper.
This regime will not leave peacefully. This regime needs to be threatened. This regime needs to be attacked.
We want a no-fly zone. If we had a no-fly zone I'm sure at least 70% of the army would defect.
If the situation stays like this there will be lots of massacres going on. If it wasn't for the media he would have killed a hundred thousand by now.
He said if it was not for the Free Syrian Army the government forces would be killing more people in Homs right now.
They were hitting us with anti-aircraft tanks ... They want to turn this revolution off. They won't turn this revolution off.
He said there were 80 places across the country where protests against the regime were taking place. But in Homs there had been so much bloodshed that the citizens there would not stop fighting Assad's forces.
We don't care if America occupies this country or Israel comes in. We want to get rid of this regime.
A Sky News correspondent has just been reporting from Homs that people in towns and villages between Homs and the Lebanese border are expecting a "massacre" as Syrian army tanks and infantry prepare to attack them (see this map).
"There is a great expectation that there will be a massacre here," he said. "They are basically saying goodbye to each other."
The Free Syrian Army was gathering, saying "this is it - they are coming now", he said. "These are small towns, small villages, that [are] basically going to be attacked from probably the early hours of the morning, if not before."
What was happening in Baba Amr and other districts was about to happen to these areas, people felt.
Reuters has more on Turkey's offer to hold an international conference in support of the Syrian people, intended to send a message to Bashar al-Assad to halt his violent attacks.
Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, told the news agency that history taught that leaders who fired on their own people did not survive.
He spoke just before he was due to leave for the US for talks on Syria.
Davutoglu said that if the UN security council failed to protect civilians, then likeminded countries should find ways to end the killing and deliver aid to civilians trapped by the military assault, especially those in Homs. He said:
We definitely want to have this meeting in our region showing concerns and the sensitivities and solidarity and regional ownership, maybe in Turkey, maybe in another country. It is not enough being an observer. It is time now to send a strong message to the Syrian people that we are with them.
We are ready to help them, and [give] a message to the Syrian regime that they cannot continue these methods of oppression.
Asked whether the escalating violence was nearing the point where Turkey would consider establishing a buffer zone inside Syria, or enforcing a humanitarian corridor, Davutoglu said: "Yes, we are very very worried ... Now, it is hundreds of people are being killed daily. We are worried what will be happening next week, next month, and Turkey is directly concerned."
Asked under what circumstances Turkish troops could be ordered onto Syrian soil, Davutoglu said that point had not been reached and military intervention in Syria was a matter for countries of the region and the international community.
"Now it is still time for diplomatic efforts, and we are using all diplomatic means," he said.
He added:
If a leader or regime fights against their own people, they cannot survive. This is the principle of history.
Yemen's president, who is in New York protected by diplomatic immunity while he receives medical treatment, ordered a crackdown on Arab spring protesters last year that killed at least 120 people just in one city, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today.
More from Human Rights Watch, which has issued a statement saying the Obama administration's decision to move forward on a $1m (£0.63m) arms sale to Bahrain sends the wrong signal to a country that is engaged in serious human rights abuses.
"Bahrain has made many promises to cease abuses and hold officials accountable, but it hasn't delivered," said HRW's Maria McFarland. "Protesters remain jailed on criminal charges for peacefully speaking out and there has been little accountability for torture and killings – crimes in which the Bahrain Defence Force is implicated."
The Local Co-ordination Committees Syrian activist group sends the following recent reports from Homs - which cannot be independently verified:
Homs: Rastan: More artillery shells have been launched at the city by the regime's army.
Homs: The regime's army is raiding Teir Maala and Ghanto towns with tanks and armoured vehicles amid intense shooting; residents are extremely terrified.
Homs: Houleh: The regime's army continues to shell homes using tanks and heavy machine guns. The regime's security is imposing a curfew in the city and prohibiting entry or exit, knowing that the area is suffering a humanitarian disaster. Electricity, water, food, and other essential humanitarian items have been completely cut off.
Homs: Mortar Shelling Was Re-started at Enshaat Neighbourhood.
WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT FOLLOWS.
This video posted by the LCCs purports to show a young man who was shot in the face by a sniper in Baba Amr.
Another extremely disturbing video purports to show the remains of a family after the shelling of their home in Baba Amr.
The foreign power most active in Syria is not Britain, France, Russia or Saudi Arabia, writes my colleague Simon Tisdall. It is Iran - "and it is fighting fiercely to maintain the status quo."
Iranian Revolutionary Guards are said to be present in Syria in numbers ranging into the hundreds, though exact figures cannot be confirmed. They act as trainers, advisers and intelligence-gatherers to regime forces, in much the same way as Iranian agents assisted extremist Shia and Sunni groups fighting US forces during the occupation of Iraq.
A spate of kidnaps of Iranian nationals in Syria, officially described as Shia pilgrims, has been attributed to growing popular hostility to this Iranian presence. Last month, Al-Jazeera television reported claims that Iranians detained by Syrian rebel forces were soldiers operating as snipers in and around Homs.
Tisdall notes of the west:
The reality is that from Barack Obama down, nobody in the western camp, with honest diplomacy at a standstill, has a clue what to do. They know only what they cannot do – which, primarily, is not get in the middle of another Middle East war.
Mark Toner of the US state department has just been speaking to Sky News. He said there had been "a dangerous escalation in violence" in Syria.
Assad and his regime are hitting these towns like Homs and Zabadani even harder since the UN failed to act.
He was vague on whether the US would offer humanitarian aid.
That is something we've talked about with other partners and allies and it's something this Friends of Democratic Syria ad hoc group might discus going forward ... We want to help these innocent civilians
Toner talked about the frustration the US felt attempting to deal with the Syrian problem. "It is been a difficult row to hoe ... We tried to spur the UN security council to action we were thwarted by two countries ... We do have hard-hitting sanctions in place; they are having an effect. The question is: what can we do more to bring this to an end?"
What did the US want to see at the end of this – the end of Assad?
Certainly we do. We've said Assad has lost all credibility as a leader of his people ... We want an end to the violence.
He said he wanted to see the Syrian regime adhere to the Arab League peace plan it said it was going to. "Frankly Assad's regime's response so far has been half-hearted to say the least."
Asked about Russia's position, he said: "We haven't had a chance to get a debrief from Foreign Minister Lavrov's visit to Damascus. We are highly sceptical of any offer from Assad ... of another round of talks." He described this as a "stalling technique".
He had no doubt Assad's troops were brutally attacking Syrian cities. "The independent monitors and information we are getting says ... places like Homs are being brutalised by the regime and people are being brutalised wholesale."
This is David Batty – I'm taking over the live blog for the rest of the evening. You can follow me on Twitter @David_Batty.
Here is our news story on today's attacks on Homs and Zabadani.
At least 27 people were killed on Wednesday, with around 200 injured, 50 of them seriously, activists said, in a day of unrelenting artillery attacks. Activists said the victims included a four-year-old girl, Salam al-A'raa, shot in the head, in the opposition-controlled suburb of Bab al-Amr.
"We are seriously dying here. It is really war," Waleed Farah told the Guardian, speaking via satellite phone. He said: "It isn't war between two armies. It's between the army and civilians. You hear the rockets and explosions. You feel you are at the front. The situation for civilians is pitiful."
Waleed said the situation had worsened over the past 24 hours, five days after the Syrian army began shelling rebel-held areas of Homs late last week. He said that as well as a massive bombardment, government troops had now sealed off the neighbourhood of al-Khaldiyeh – a crucial supply-point for bringing food and medicine into Bab al-Amr.
Médecins Sans Frontières has released testimonies from civilians wounded in the conflict in Syria collected by its staff between 30 January and 6 February.
The interviewees – 10 people who were wounded and five doctors – say the injured are unable to get adequate medical treatment because security forces have taken over many public hospitals.
The unidentified witnesses, who have fled the country, said many wounded are afraid to go to such hospitals for treatment, knowing that Syrian authorities could arrest them and subject them to interrogation or even torture. Instead, some get whatever treatment they can in private clinics or makeshift hospitals in private homes.
MSF (Doctors Without Borders) is not authorised to operate inside Syria and cannot fully verify the accounts. However, the aid agency says that "given the recurring nature, the consistency and the severity of the acts described in the testimonies", it has decided to make them public.
In this clip, a 29-year-old man injured last November describes being imprisoned by the authorities and seeing other detainees whose wounds have been left to rot.
The Pentagon is drawing up contingency plans for intervention in Syria that include military action, according to my colleague Chris McGreal.
The defence department has for several weeks been planning a range of US actions, from dealing with a flood of refugees and the provision of medical relief to a direct military assault on Syria. Included in the planning is intervention coordinated with allies such as Turkey and other countries in Nato.
Administration officials said the "internal review" was at the initiative of the Pentagon, not the White House, in order to be able to present options to President Obama if he were to call for them. Officials said they are not an indication of a shift away from the focus on the pursuit of a diplomatic solution with a strong emphasis on sanctions against Damascus.
But pressure is growing in Washington for more decisive action by the Obama administration as the Assad regime intensifies its assault on Homs
Reuters reports that the US hopes to meet with international partners soon to agree the next steps to tackle the growing crisis in Syria. White House press secretary Jay Carney said a "friends of Syria" meeting could be held in the near future, but did not give details.
The news agency also quotes a Syrian opposition activist called Ahmed who says he was seen "whole families killed this week." "Now I feel like I'm just waiting to be the next to die," the 28-year-old accountant added.
Iran's deputy foreign minister has said 11 Iranians kidnapped in Syria have been released, Reuters reports.
Hossein Amir Abdollahian said 18 other Iranians are still being held hostage in an attempt to pressure Tehran to abandon its support for Assad's regime.
But Abdollahian pledged that the Islamic republic would continue to offer support to the Syrian president "in fighting foreign intervention and terrorism".
He told a news conference in Damascus: "Luckily, efforts here have gained the release of 11 Iranians kidnapped and there are continued efforts to get the release of 11 other Iranian visitors who crossed into Syria by land. Efforts are also ongoing to secure the release of seven engineers."
Last month, Syrian rebels released video of seven men they said were Iranian soldiers. The authenticity of the video could not be verified.
It's worth noting my colleague Simon Tisdall's comment that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are said to be present in Syria in numbers ranging into the hundreds.
Amnesty International has called on Russia Syria to use its influence to try to stop the assault on Homs.
Amnesty said more than 200 people have been killed since Friday from shelling and sniper fire.
The human rights organisation's secretary-general Salil Shetty said:
The situation in Homs is critical, and is turning into a major humanitarian crisis. Russia has blocked international efforts to stop the massive human rights violations in Syria, stating that they have a better plan for resolving the crisis.
Russia, and other countries with influence over Syria, must use whatever means they have to restrain the Syrian military in Homs and ensure it stops using heavy weaponry in residential areas.
The Syrian government seems to think that Saturday's security council veto has given it the green light to crush resistance in Homs by any means – Russia needs to make clear, with a loud voice, that this is not the case.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT FOLLOWS.
This video recently posted on YouTube puports to show the remains of a family whose home was shelled in Homs. The Guardian cannot verify this footage.
This report from Al Jazeera shows the dire straits faced by Homs' civilian population. It is getting increasingly difficult to smuggle in essential supplies, including rice, sugar and baby milk. Those interviewed says they fear there is nothing to prevent Assad from wiping them out.
Time magazine has published a series of photos of people caught up in the violence in Syria by the Italian photographer Alessio Romenzi. The images show the dead, the wounded, the bereaved, protesters on the streets and families hiding in basements. There are more images on Romenzi's website.
PBS News Hour has an interview with Sami Ibrahim, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in which he says violence in the country has intensified since Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Assad's regime.
Ibrahim tells the programme that the Syrian people "feel that no-one care[s] about their blood and their life [sic]." He also said Assad's forces were targeting hospitals, forcing the staff to evacuate, sometimes in the middle of surgery.
Here's the Guardian's latest story on the Assad regime's military onslaught on Homs.
Tanks and heavy artillery were used on an unprecedented scale, according to witnesses. More than 200 rockets fell in the space of three hours on just one part of Homs, the opposition-controlled suburb of Baba Amr, residents said.
One activist, Raji, speaking from a basement inside Baba Amr, said Syrian forces were now using a heavier artillery round with devastating effect. In addition to the 27 people killed , he said many people were lying dead under the rubble of their houses. There were also reports that 18 premature babies had died in hospital after power cuts caused their incubators to fail, according to the BBC. State TV denied the reports.
The Associated Press has spoken to anti-Assad fighters in Homs who say they are struggling to cope with the barrage of shells raining down on the besieged city.
"We don't have the same capabilities to retaliate with the same power," one of the fighters said. Assad's forces have tanks "and we only have this rifle," he added.In the Baba Amr neighbourhood, doctors at a crowded medical clinic struggled to cope with the dead and wounded. "Bashar is a dog," one man spat as he approached a bed where an injured man was treated.
Outside, bodies wrapped in white sheets were piled on a pickup truck. Despite the risk of attack, residents are still holding funeral processions.
This YouTube video purports to show shells hitting flats in a residential area of Homs.
AP has also interviewed civilians who have fled to Jordan from Homs. Samar Rahim, 32, who fled with her family a week ago, told the news agency:
You'll be shot dead, if you go out. Snipers are firing at anyone in the streets. That's why we left everything behind. We didn't dare go out, not even for bread, fearing we would be shot.
Rahim also described how her neighbourhood had been terrorised by Assad's forces. She said a pregnant woman was shot dead when she ventured out on an errand; a 10-year-old boy was shot on her street; and another neighbour was shot as soon as she opened her front door.
The crisis in Syria is entangled in the major world and regional powers attempts to maintain or extend their power and influence in the Middle East, writes Patrick Seale.
The Syrian crisis has, in fact, been a two-stage affair from the very beginning – internal as well as international.
Inside Syria ... the situation is today one of increased violence by both sides, of sectarian polarisation, and of a dangerous stalemate, slipping each day closer to a full-blown sectarian civil war.
The second level of the contest is being played out in the international arena, where Russia and China, with some support from other emerging powers such as India and Brazil, are challenging America's supremacy in the Middle East.
At the heart of the international struggle is a concerted attempt by the United States and its allies to bring down the ruling regimes in both Iran and Syria. Iran's 'crime' has been to refuse to submit to American hegemony in the oil-rich Gulf region and to appear to pose a challenge, with its nuclear programme, to Israel's regional nuclear monopoly. At the same time, Iran, Syria and Hizballah – partners for the past three decades – have managed to make a dent in Israel's military supremacy. They have in recent years been the main obstacle to US-Israeli regional dominance.
The Obama administration has been fleshing out some of the next steps it might take following the failure of the UN resolution to condemn Assad, AP reports.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the US was still not actively considering military intervention.
"We never rule anything out in a situation like this. But we are pursuing a path that includes isolating and pressuring the Assad regime so that it stops its heinous slaughtering of its own people," he said.
Carney added the US would hold talks with allies and Syrian opposition groups, including the Syrian National Council, to help "move toward a peaceful, political transition, [a] democratic transition in Syria."
The US State Department said it was looking to form a coalition that could take the form of a "Friends of Democratic Syria" and would look at tightening sanctions on Assad's regimes and ways to get humanitarian aid to the people.
"We on the US side have already been looking at what we can do to prepare ourselves on both the financial and the legal side so that we're ready to provide humanitarian aid such as food and medicine," said state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
She said: "But we're going to have to work with our international partners, we're going to have to work with neighboring states, to identify coordinators on the ground who can assist in receiving this aid and in distributing it."
Nuland said the US was considering several ways to deliver aid to those in need. "There are always land, sea and air options. As we've repeatedly said, we are not looking for military options," she said.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has discussed the possibility of creating a joint observer mission to Syria with the Arab League, AP reports.
The UN chief said he had also spoken to the head of the League about appointing a joint special envoy to Syria.
Ban also reiterated his "deep regret" over the UN Security Council's failure to agree on action to halt the bloodshed in the country.
We're wrapping up this live blog but coverage will resume tomorrow.
In the meantime, here's a round up of today's main developments:
• The Syrian Army has continued to bombard the central city of Homs, where opposition activists claimed at least 53 people were killed in a sustained attack involving hundreds of rockets. The Syrian government continues to blame the violence on armed terrorist gangs. It reported that a car bomb had killed civilians and members of the security forces in a north-west district of the city.
• The former opposition stronghold of Zabadani is being pounded by hundreds of tanks, an activist in the city told the Guardian. There were also unverified activist reports of army raids on Taseel, in the southern province of Deraa, and on Douma, a suburb of Damascus.
• Turkey has proposed hosting an international conference on Syria. Speaking ahead of talks in Washington, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it would be naive to believe president Assad's promises of reforms and pledges to end the violence.
• Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict "independently". David Cameron accused China and Russia of setting themselves against world opinion, by vetoing a UN resolution calling for a political transition in Syria. The European Union said it will impose harsher sanctions on Assad's regime.
• The White House has said it is not planning to arm the opposition in Syria, amid reports that US officials have not ruled out some form military intervention. A new poll found that the majority of people in Britain are against military intervention in Syria, but would favour a no-fly zone.
• The UN's human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has expressed her exasperation at the failure of the international community to stop the assault in Homs. Amnesty International has called on Russia to use its influence with Assad, a key Kremlin ally, to help stop the bloodshed.
Thanks for reading and for your comments below.