• After almost 2 years, Syria's Assad allows UN aid into rebel-held area

    Zain Karam / Reuters, file

    Rubble from damaged buildings in Azaz, Syria, on Jan. 24.

    By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters

    Published at 6:30 a.m. ET: WASHINGTON - Syrian President Bashar Assad may have allowed humanitarian aid into previously inaccessible rebel-held parts of Syria to try to win the loyalty of the residents, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

    The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N. refugee agency, said on Friday it had reached an opposition-held area of north Syria for the first time and found about 45,000 displaced people in appalling conditions.

    The Syrian government agreed to give the United Nations access to the zone of Azaz, north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, enabling a convoy to deliver tents and blankets to needy people living in the open in freezing temperatures.

    More than 2 million people are estimated to be internally displaced within Syria and more than 700,000 refugees have fled to neighboring countries due to the nearly two-year conflict between Assad and rebels seeking to overthrow him.

    Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

    Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

    Launch slideshow

    "We think that one thing they (the Syrian authorities) may have calculated is that they ought to pacify some of the country by making sure that aid got through," Anne Richard, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said in a conference call.

    "So there has been a change in their approach, but it's hard to speculate what's really motivating them," she added, saying she had asked U.N. officials, "and that was the only answer I had heard, was that they perhaps wanted to keep some of the people in the countryside loyal to them."

    Separately, an International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, official said the group had recently been able to deliver aid with the government's consent to other opposition-held parts of Syria, including Houla in Homs province.

    "The reason why this area is interesting is that it is opposition-held, and it has been sealed off for three months, where potentially no or very, very little humanitarian aid has entered into this area," Andres Kruesi, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Syria, said in an interview posted on the Geneva-based aid agency's site on Wednesday.

    Kruesi said the ICRC and volunteers from the Homs branch of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had delivered mostly food aid and hoped to make a second delivery of food and medical supplies next week.

    "It was quite a success that we have gained this access last week and we have done so with the consent of all parties involved," he added, saying that included the various security services on the Syrian government side and representatives of the armed opposition.

    Kruesi said the ICRC also was able to enter Tall Kalakh, which he described as a small city on the border with Lebanon that was one of the early hot spots of the conflict and where he said most houses were riddled with bullet holes.

    "But over the last weeks now, there has been a local accommodation, negotiated at the government level, where the armed opposition and government have agreed on a cease-fire, which we now try to follow up with humanitarian aid," he said.

    "So the challenge over the next weeks will be to follow up on this field trip and to gain access to similar areas like ... Houla that are encircled, to negotiate with a multiplicity of stakeholders," he said. "We have to replicate this in other governorates (provinces), including also in rural Damascus."

    The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated on January 17 that 4 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance across all 14 governorates in Syria. Of those, 3 million lacked food and 2 million were displaced.

    Related: 

    Heavy fighting breaks relative lull in Damascus

    Analysis: Israel's airstrike likely to complicate Syria crisis

    Full Syria coverage from NBC News

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Syria activists: Several die after Assad's forces use 'poisonous gases'

    By Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News

    CAIRO -- Several Syrians have died after inhaling poisonous gas released by government forces in rebel-held districts of Homs, local eyewitnesses and activists claimed Monday.

    Civilians were admitted to hospital with serious breathing problems after Sunday’s attack, according to doctors and groups who posted what they said was video of the aftermath to YouTube.


    The gas is thought to have been a concentrated irritant, but not one of the deadly chemical weapons stockpiled by the regime of Syria president Bashar Assad.

    Claims by either side in Syria’s bitter civil war are almost impossible to independently verify because journalists are rarely allowed access to the country.

    Pesticide poisoning?
    Mousab Azzawi, chairman of the London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights and a doctor, told NBC News that his organization had received reports from three eyewitnesses on Sunday.

    He said field doctors in Homs were seeing patients “losing consciousness, experiencing severe shortness of breath and vomiting.”

    “To our understanding, this is similar to poisoning with pesticide,” he said, although he was not aware of any pesticide that could take the form of a gas.

    Airstrike kills dozens of Syrians trying to buy bread, activists say

    Azzawi added that they were “very concerned and deeply worried” that the attack might be a sign that Assad’s regime might use chemical weapons “on a very small scale.”

    Walid Fares, spokesman for the Homs Revolutionary Council -- part of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the umbrella organization recognized by more than 100 countries including the United States -- issued a statement to NBC News on Monday.

    It said “poisonous gases” came from shells fired by government tanks in the districts of Al Bayada and Al Khalideya.

    In Syria's Aleppo, 'We're starving. I can bear it but what about my children?'

    “The shells did not explode but rather emitted a cloud of white smoke and it landed in residential areas… where revolutionaries had gathered and which led to tens being injured,” the statement said.

    It said symptoms included “complete absence of vision” as well as nausea, lost consciousness and severe breathing difficulty.

    “The initial analysis of the doctors in the hospital confirmed that it is a poisonous gas that contains banned substances,” the statement added, citing videos that claimed to show patients being treated.

    'This isn't the first time'
    It said there were seven deaths as of early Monday - naming six of the victims - and close to 50 injured.

    A third group, the Local Coordination Committees - a network of local opposition councils across Syria - told NBC News: "The LCC has not yet confirmed what the substance was, but doctors in Homs are confirming the use of toxic gases. This isn't the first time; residents of Homs and Zabadani were reporting the use (confirmed) of white phosphorus months ago.”

    Two YouTube videos showed patients being treated in hospital for the symptoms of a gas attack. In one, a doctor says in Arabic that the gas is “definitely not Sarin” but is “definitely” poisonous.

    US officials: Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order

    Earlier this month, President Barack Obama warned Assad that the use of chemical weapons by his regime would be "totally unacceptable." "If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable," he said.

    The alleged gas attack came hours after a senior Israeli defense official said he believed Syria's chemical weapons were still secure despite the civil war.

    Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com

    Amos Gilad told Army Radio that the both sides had become deadlocked but there was no sign of Assad heeding international calls to step down, according to a Reuters report.

    "Suppose he does leave, there could be chaos ... in the Middle East you never know who will come instead. We need to stay level-headed; the entire world is dealing with this. At the moment, chemical weapons are under control," Gilad said.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Opposition: Syria rebels capture air base as clashes break out across country

    Osman Orsal / Reuters

    Smoke rises over the Syrian border town of Azmarin during clashes Friday between the Syrian army and rebels.

    By NBC News wire services

    BEIRUT -- Syrian rebels captured an air defense base east of the key city of Aleppo on Friday as government forces battled insurgents on several fronts across the country, anti-regime activists said.

    Clashes were also taking place at a military barracks close to Maarat al-Nuaman, a town on the main highway to Aleppo that was seized by rebel forces earlier this week, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

    Aleppo, in the northwest of the country, is Syria's largest city and commercial hub. It has been fiercely contested since July.

    The pro-opposition Observatory gave a death toll for Thursday of more than 260 people, including civilians and combatants on both sides in violence in the capital and the north, west and east.

    It said 92 soldiers were killed on Thursday, which would be one of the highest daily casualty counts on the government side since the uprising against President Bashar Assad broke out in March 2011.


    The official SANA news agency also reported fighting nationwide and said dozens of rebels, which it called "mercenary terrorists," had been killed.

    The reports could not be independently verified. If true, however, they indicate a rapidly intensifying conflict, with the death tolls of the past several weeks far exceeding previous months.

    Clashes on the border with Turkey
    Although international attention has focused on the Turkish border in the past week, Aleppo and the city of Homs -- north of Damascus and near the border with Lebanon -- are being fought over and clashes take place almost daily in the suburbs of the capital Damascus as well as in the countryside.

    Turkey: Syria plane carried Russian-made munitions

    Turkey scrambled two fighter planes to the border with Syria on Friday after a Syrian military helicopter bombed the Syrian border town of Azmarin, according to a Reuters witness.

    Fighting along Turkey’s 560-mile border with Syria has repeatedly spilled over into Turkish territory in the past week, with the Turkish army responding in kind to gunfire and mortar shells fired from Syria.

    Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Necdet Ozel said Wednesday his troops would respond "with greater force" if the shells continued to land on Turkish soil, and parliament last week authorized the deployment of troops beyond Turkey, heightening fears that Syria's civil war will drag in regional powers.

    Turkey forces Syrian plane suspected of carrying weapons to land

    Jihadi group reportedly takes part in base assault
    The Observatory said the air defense base seized by the rebels was located in al-Tana village by the Koris military airport on the road east from Aleppo to al-Raqqa.

    Videos posted online Friday claiming to have been shot inside the base said the extremist group, Jabhat al-Nusra, participated in the battle, according to The Associated Press. The videos show dozens of fighters inside the base near a radar tower, along with rows of large missiles, some on the backs of trucks.

    A report by a correspondent with the Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera who visited the base Friday said Jabhat al-Nusra had seized the base. The report showed a number of missiles and charred buildings, as fighters covered their faces with black cloths.

    Complete Middle East & North Africa coverage on NBCNews.com

    Two Aleppo-based activists and Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said Jabhat al-Nusra fought in the battle.

    Little is known about Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Support Front, which began claiming attacks in Syria earlier this year in postings on jihadi forums often used by al-Qaida. While neither group has officially acknowledged the other, analysts say al-Nusra's tactics, jihadist rhetoric and use of al-Qaida forums point to an affiliation.

    Western powers -- and many Syrians-- worry that Islamist extremists are playing an increasing role in Syria's civil war.

    Highway route cut
    Meanwhile, the capture of Maarat al-Nuaman cut the highway between Aleppo and Homs, the main route for the government to resupply and reinforce the northern city.

    Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

    SANA said government forces were mounting operations to clear rebels from Aleppo's Karm al-Jabal area on Friday.

    More than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which began as a popular uprising against four decades of Assad family rule before descending into civil war. The armed forces have relied heavily on air power and artillery to hold back the rebels.

    Fighting has also spilled over the borders into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, raising concern that the fighting could spread across the region, now home to 340,000 Syrian refugees.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Syrian forces launch air attacks as rebels push on largest city

    Dozens are reported dead in Syria where opposition forces are fighting to maintain control of Syria's commercial capital and biggest city. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    By NBC News and wire services

    Fierce clashes intensified in Syria's commercial capital of Aleppo on Tuesday as the government unleashed air attacks on rebellious neighborhoods, while activists claimed opposition fighters had control over several neighborhoods in the city.

    Government helicopter gunships attacked Aleppo, the Local Coordination Committees, a network of on-the-ground activists, told NBC News. The Associated Press reported that warplanes circled in the air around the city, while the British Broadcasting Corp., citing one of its reporters near the area, said that fighter jets had bombed eastern parts of Aleppo.

    With sequential rebel attacks on the country's two largest cities and a bombing that wiped out some of his top security advisors, President Bashar Assad reshuffled his top security posts, dismissing one general and appointing a national security council chief to replace the one killed in the recent attack. 

    Syria's rebels, outmanned and outgunned by the regime's professional army, have mounted a surprising pair of offensives over the last 10 days against the country's two major cities — Damascus and Aleppo. Even as the government appears to have snuffed out most of the rebel pockets in the capital, the rebels appear to be fight fiercely in the commercial hub of Aleppo in the north.

    The government has instituted tight restrictions on outside news outlets working in Syria, making it difficult to verify many reports from inside the country.

    Fighting spreads in Aleppo
    The battle in Aleppo has spread from neighborhoods in the northeast and southwest of the city to previously untouched areas like Firdous in the south and Arkoub closer to the center, local activists and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

    At least 20 people have been killed in the fighting in Aleppo, the Local Coordination Committees told NBC.


    Opposition activist Mohammed Saeed has estimated that the rebels are holding large chunks of the city and the government has responded with attack helicopters — key to their retaking of Damascus over the last few days.

    Circling fighter jets have also been breaking the sound barrier overhead in an apparent attempt to cow the fighters, the AP reported.

    Syria acknowledges it has chemical weapons, will use them if attacked

    "It's like a real war zone over here, there are street battles over large parts of the city," Saeed said, with the sound of gunfire and explosions audible over the phone. "Aleppo has joined Homs and Hama and other revolutionary cities."

    Syria's government is acknowledging for the first time it has the ability to use chemical and biological weapons, though the government says those weapons wouldn't be used on the country's citizens. The Morning Joe panel – including New York Magazine's John Heilemann and the Council on Foreign Relations' Dan Senor and Richard Haass – discusses.

    On Sunday, a newly formed alliance of rebel groups called the Brigade for Unification announced an operation to take Aleppo, the country's largest city with about three million people. While the rebels have not shown themselves able to hold neighborhoods for any significant period of time, the continued fighting highlights the government's inability to pin down the lightly armed opposition forces.

    Prisoners in Aleppo's jail also rioted overnight and activists said at least eight have been killed by government forces. Another prison riot in the city of Homs has been quelled with tear gas and live ammunition.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement Tuesday calling the situation in and around Damascus "tense and volatile."

    "People have been calling us on a daily basis, saying they need a helping hand," Marianne Gasser, the ICRC's head of delegation in Syria, said in the statement. "Some are in need of the basics -- items one usually takes for granted, such as water and food, and a mattress to sleep on. But first and foremost, they are in need of safety."

    NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin answers your questions about Syria

    With the conflict raging in Syria's two biggest cities, as well as many provincial ones, Western and many Arab nations are pushing for Assad's removal, although Russia, China, Iran and Iraq are among others opposed to any forced handover of power.

    The ferocity of the Syria conflict, in which 1,261 people have been killed since fighting intensified in Damascus on July 15, according to one opposition watchdog, has concentrated attention on the possible repercussions of Assad's overthrow.

    Warning over chemical weapons
    As the struggle for Syria intensified, Western leaders seized on an admission by Damascus that it has chemical and biological arms and could use them if foreign powers intervened.

    Analysts: Russia will be big loser if Assad falls

    President Barack Obama said the world would hold Assad and his entourage accountable "should they make the tragic mistake of using those (chemical) weapons."

    Israel, which has publicly discussed military action to prevent Syrian chemical weapons or missiles from reaching Assad's Lebanese Shiite militant allies Hezbollah, said there was no sign any such diversion had occurred.

    "At the moment, the entire non-conventional weapons system is under the full control of the regime," a senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, told Israel Radio.

    Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the army would not use chemical weapons to crush rebels but could use them against forces from outside the country.

    The Global Security website, which collects published intelligence reports and other data, says there are four suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria: north of Damascus, near Homs, in Hama and near the Mediterranean port of Latakia. Weapons it produces include the nerve agents VX, sarin and tabun, it said, without citing its sources.

    NBC News' Ayman Mohyeldin, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • 'Catastrophe': Journalist behind the lines in Syria sees no end to war

    From the front line in what looks ever more like a fight for Syria's capital Damascus, members of the Free Syrian Army appear to be closing in on President Assad's stronghold, at a terrible cost to both sides. NBC's Bill Neely reports.

    By msnbc.com

    As International Editor at NBC News' British partner ITV News, Bill Neely has covered the Libyan and Egyptian revolutions, the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, as well as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is on his fourth trip in seven months to Syria, a country largely off-limits to Western journalists, where he and his team are covering the war. He spoke to msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton from Syria where he was witnesssing what he called "the battle for Damascus."

    Q: Are you surprised by the level of violence you've seen on this trip?

    A: Every day there are surprising things to be seen. On my last trip I was genuinely surprised by the level of destruction in the Baba Amr district of Homs where Marie Colvin (an American correspondent for Britain's Sunday Times) was killed. I think this time it has been really surprising to see three, four miles from the center of Damascus such sustained bombardment. Nobody in Damascus can be unaware of what's happening.

    I was surprised to see (the Free Syrian Army) operate quite openly. I mean, on Monday they drove us around for a long time through suburbs of Damascus. There wasn't a sign in sight of any army presence and they weren't hiding themselves, they were driving around with the guns out the window.

    Ricardo Garcia Vilanova / AFP - Getty Images

    A wounded man is lifted after shelling by Syrian government forces in Qusayr, close to the restive city of Homs, on Tuesday.

    A few days ago (I was surprised by) the level of artillery and mortar fire going into Douma. It still has the capacity to shock you that an army will use that level of force to subdue a rebellion.

    Q: How do you compare this to other conflicts you have covered in the past?


    A: My immediate point of comparison would be [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi [shelling] of the town of Zawiya which was 30 miles from Tripoli. Again there was a staggering level of force used in the bombardment.

    In Kosovo it was very clear that it was ethnic cleansing, that Orthodox Christian Serbs were ethnically cleansing Muslims, as they had done in Bosnia. It is different here. The suburbs I was in yesterday are Sunni and the regime is not Sunni, it's Alawite, a branch of Shiite Islam, so there is a sectarian element to it. I think the Kosovo thing was even more, well, brutal.

    Q: Have we reached a tipping point in the conflict?

    A: My view was was that this was a civil war several months ago, and I think if there were any doubt [Syrian President Bashar] Assad answered that question a few days ago when he said this is a war on all fronts.

    Homs and other Syrian suburbs continue to be relentlessly shelled. Meanwhile, rebel fighters targeted the main court building in the capital. NBC's Bill Neely reports.

    We don't like to call it a war in the West because we don't have a damn clue what to do about it. At the minute it seems to me it is in the interest of the great powers to almost play this down.

    AFP - Getty Images

    A destroyed Syrian forces tank stands in street in Atareb in the province of Aleppo on Monday. Most of Atareb's residents fled the town due to heavy fighting between Syrian forces and rebels.

    One interesting aspect of this is that the U.N. has now stopped giving casualty figures, it has kind of been stuck for quite a long time at around 10,000. Well, it is way way over that.

    More about ITV News' Bill Neely

    Activists appear to have some grounding in fact and are coming up with about 18,600 civilians and rebels killed. The deputy foreign minister told me in May that there were more than 6,000 pro-regime dead. That takes you straight away to 25,000. Hillary Clinton said a few days ago it was 700 in the past week. I just looked at the activists figures and it looks about 100 a day now.

    This is now the longest of the Arab revolutions by a long way, it is bigger than Libya, Egypt and Tunisia put together.

    Syria's pro-government television station has been attacked. Seven people were killed. It is one of the boldest attacks yet on a symbol of that regime as rebel forces step up the fighting around the capital Damascus. ITV's Bill Neely reports.

    And the U.N. keeps warning that if we're not careful this will become a catastrophe. I think if it's 100 a day -- you are talking war, you are talking catastrophe.

    Photos: A glimpse at the escalating conflict in Syria

    And you can talk about talks between the opposition and Assad and a transitional government by mutual consent, and frankly it sounds to the people here on both sides like so much "blah blah blah." In fact, it probably sounds like "blab blah blah" to the citizens of the U.S. and Britain and France as well. But it is it is a [Band-Aid] by embarrassed governments while in reality on the ground there are two sides who are gunning for each other quite literally.

    Q: What can the West do?

    A: I just came from the U.N. in Damascus and there are dozens of white U.N. Land Rovers lined up there. They are all dressed up with nowhere to go.

    It does give a very bad impression of a world that is completely impotent, and secondly of a world that isn't even trying because the U.N. are just sitting in their hotel doing nothing.

    UN suspends Syria monitoring due to rising violence

    Q: What did you think of the recent Human Rights Watch report on widespread torture in Syria, were you surprised?

    A bomb targeting Syria's highest court has exploded in Damascus. NBC's Bill Neely reports.

    A: There was a large element of "duh!" when that report came out. You just thought, "Well, what do you expect, this has been a brutal regime for a very long time."

    Yes, it's terrible but I don’t think it told us anything new. Obviously, Human Rights Watch are trying to get the U.N. to refer Syria to the [International Criminal Court], they're building the evidence up block by block.

    Rights group: Syria's 20 torture methods

    Q: Is the risk that Syria could implode?

    A: The distinction is that Libya imploded, and the problem with Syria is that it could explode. Someone once said the Middle East is like a series of detonators all strung together. When Syria goes off Lebanon will, Iraq might, Iran, Syria's closest, friend might. And Israel may get tempted.

    Shaam News Network / AFP - Getty Images

    A handout image released by the opposition's Shaam News Network shows an anti-regime demonstrator holding a banner during a protest in Kfar Sousa on July 2. The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) pulled out of an opposition conference in Cairo, citing political "disputes," a statement said on July 3.

    Q: So you don't see much sign of the Assad government losing?

    A: Not much sign of them stopping the bombardment of Homs and Douma because, if that’s what they feel they have to do to crush the revolution than that’s what they’ll do. They’ve made that absolutely clear. You read the official Syrian news agency and the word "crush" appears many many times. 

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  • VIDEO: War in Syria edges closer every day to Assad

    Homs and other Syrian suburbs continue to be relentlessly shelled. Meanwhile, rebel fighters targeted the main court building in the capital. NBC's Bill Neely reports.

    Reporting from the embattled Syrian city of Homs, ITV’s Bill Neely says it has become clear that the rebels can strike at the capital at will. They’ve burned cars belonging to judges and lawyers of the highest court; it appears the war is edging closer every day to the president himself.

    Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains defiant. He told Iranian television that external pressure hasn’t had an effect on him and that “No one but us can solve the problem.”

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  • Syrian army shells Homs and Qusayr

    Ricardo Garcia Vilanova / AFP - Getty Images

    Anti-regime fighters and citizens take a man from a pick-up truck who was wounded during shelling by government forces in the city of Qusayr, southwest of Homs, Syria on June 21, 2012.

    The Syrian army was shelling central districts of Homs on Thursday, residents said, after rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad agreed to a temporary truce to allow aid access to the sick and wounded.

    Reports: West may offer Assad immunity if he gives up power

    More than 10 days of heavy fighting has left hundreds of civilians stuck in the old city of Homs, unable to leave the battlefield, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday.

    Qusayr, a rebel stronghold nearby, was surrounded by forces loyal to Assad who bombarded the town heavily as helicopters hovered overhead, a journalist in the area said.

    -- Reuters and Agence France Presse contributed to this report 

    AFP - Getty Images

    Damage and destruction litter a street in the battered city of Qusayr, southwest of Homs in western Syria, on June 20, 2012. The Red Cross said it will try to evacuate hundreds of civilians trapped by fierce fighting in and around the restive city of Homs, as violence killed dozens of people across Syria.

    Former National Security Adviser for President Carter, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, joins Morning Joe to discuss the latest in Egypt, the G20 summit in Mexico, China's relationship with Russia and the impact it could have on the U.S. and Syria.

     

  • Syrian troops shell rebel city as full-scale assault feared, activists say

    The former U.N. secretary general, who brokered the peace deal that was to be implemented in Syria, has conceded that the plan is not working. Meanwhile, U.N. monitors attempting to investigate the latest massacre in Syria are facing gunfire. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 8:45 a.m. ET: Syrian troops on Friday shelled a rebel-held neighborhood in the flashpoint central city of Homs as President Bashar Assad's troops appeared to be readying to storm the area that has been out of government control for months, activists told The Associated Press.

    The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees had no immediate word on casualties from the shelling of Hom's Khaldiyeh neighborhood. Amateur videos posted online showed a small white plane, apparently a drone, flying over Homs.

    Homs has been one of the hardest hit regions in Syria since the uprising against Assad's regime began in March last year. The U.N. said several weeks ago that more than 9,000 people have been killed since the crisis began while activists put the number of dead at about 13,000.

    Also on Friday, the BBC reported that UN monitors had reached a village in nearby Hama province where about 80 people, including women and children, were shot or stabbed. U.N. observers came under fire Thursday as they tried to reach the site in Mazraat al-Qubair, a small farming community of 160 people, mostly Bedouins.

    Rebel fighter: Syria army firing on more villages after 'massacre'

    Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded in a suburb of Damascus on Friday, killing at least two security force personnel, activists told Reuters.

    Rebels in Syria say Assad's forces had slaughtered at least 78 people, including women and children, but Assad's people say it was the rebels and the numbers were far fewer. ITN's Paul Davies reports. Warning: Some pictures in this report are disturbing.

    The Syrian Observatory for Human rights said the blast in the suburb of Qudsiya targeted a bus transporting members of Syrian security forces, and was followed by heavy gunfire. 

    'Extremely tense'
    In Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Hicham Hassan told reporters Friday that the humanitarian situation in Syria was worsening.

    "Currently the situation is extremely tense, not only in Houla, not only in Hama, but in many, many places around the country," he said. More than 100 people were massacred last month in Houla; the opposition and the regime blamed each other.

    Syrian activists say 100 people were killed by government supporters Wednesday in the province of Hama, including many women and children. Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to quell the crisis continue to stall. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

    Hassan the the areas targeted in the latest attacks were the countryside of the northern city of Idlib, suburbs of the capital Damascus, the eastern province of Deir el-Zour and the coastal region of Latakia.

    UN: Monitors shot at trying to reach Syria 'massacre' village

    The ICRC wants to help 1.5 million people, some of whom need basic assistance such as bread. Hassan said many are also worried about people they have left behind adding that most of the people who fled from Taldaw, a village in the Houla region, were women and children.


    "They don't know what happened to the people who remained," he said.

    Also Friday, the opposition called for anti-government protests after the weekly noon prayers.

    It was still not clear if observers have entered Mazraat al-Qubair, where activists said dozens of people, including women and children, were killed on Wednesday. A team that tried to reach the area on Thursday was shot at.

    NYT: US envoy fears Syria conflict will develop into regional sectarian war

    Activists said the Sunni village is surrounded by Alawite villages. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and Assad is a member of the sect, while the opposition is dominated by Sunnis.

    A government statement Thursday on the state-run news agency SANA said "an armed terrorist group committed an appalling crime" in Mazraat al-Qubair, killing nine women and children. It said residents appealed for protection from Hama authorities, who sent security forces who went to the farm, stormed a hideout of the group and clashed with its fighters.

    'Doubled down on his brutality'
    As reports emerged about the Mazraat al-Qubair -- which would be the fourth such mass slaying of civilians in Syria in the last two weeks -- the United States condemned Assad, saying he has "doubled down on his brutality and duplicity."

    U.N. patrols in Syria have on several instances been deliberately targeted with heavy weapons, armor-piercing ammunition and a surveillance drone, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council, according to a senior U.N. official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because Thursday's council meeting was private, said Ban also reported repeated incidents of firing close to U.N. patrols, apparently to get them to withdraw.

    11-year-old boy says he survived Syria massacre

    International envoy Kofi Annan, whose peace plan brokered in April has not been implemented, warned against allowing "mass killings to become part of everyday reality in Syria."

    "If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war," Annan told the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "All Syrians will lose."

    U.N. diplomats said Annan was proposing that world powers and key regional players, including Iran, come up with a new strategy to end the 15-month conflict at a closed meeting of the Security Council that took place Thursday.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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  • Mourning the loss of more lives in Syria

    Robert King / Polaris

    Members of the media center mourn the loss of their cameraman Abdalh Ameed Matar, who was killed in an attack earlier that day on May 31. The Syrian army launched a full scale attack on the city of Homs, Syria. Hundreds of rockets and many wounded and dead were treated inside a mobile field hospital clinic located in a city under siege. Two to three rockets hit the field hospital wounding a few medical volunteers. Despite the threat of being killed by mortar or rocket fire these volunteer doctors and nurses face arrested, torture, and certain death if they are captured by the Syrian regime. These doctors and nurses work under harsh conditions with little medical supplies that are smuggled into the city from Lebanon. Despite these odds the doctors and nurses are able to see over 100 patients per day and conduct life saving operations daily.

    Robert King / Polaris

    Residents of Al Qusayr in Homs,Syria gather for the funeral precession of 13 people killed in yesterday's assault on the town by Syrian forces. Among the dead was local camera man Abdelhamid Idris Matar who died while filming a Syrian tank advancing on the City of Qusayr. The dead were laid the rest in the Martyrs Cemetery on June 1.

    For the latest news out of Syria visit our World News blog.

  • Horror and death in former Syrian rebel stronghold

    If Syria's rising had an epicenter, Homs would be it.  NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from the besieged city, where brutal shelling and attacks have made life harrowing and for those who try to flee, perilous. 

    Just getting in to see opposition-held area is dangerous. Those living there say they have been shot at, and many no longer have electricity and water. Sounds of gunfire punctuate the day. 

    And in a neighborhood where some resistance remains, the population continues to bury its dead.  

    More Syria coverage:

  • Inside Syria: War-torn city of Homs scarred by violence, riddled with fear

    NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from war-torn Homs showing how parts of the city have been ravaged by fighting while others have been spared.

    By Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News

    HOMS, Syria -- Fighting has ravaged Syria over the past 14 months, as evidenced in parts of the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr. Nearly destroyed, hollow buildings stand on the side of roads seldom traveled by either cars or people. Once a stronghold of the opposition, the city now sits firmly under the control of the Syrian military.

    Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News

    A child rides his bike across the bombed-out main street of Baba Amr. Once the stronghold of the opposition, it's now firmly in the hands of the military and the neighborhood is nearly empty as residents have fled to nearby areas. You can still see the damaged buildings and the mosque along the main street.

    A fragile truce brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan has failed to stop the violence, which has killed more than 9,000, according to U.N. figures. It has also caused a refugee crisis in the region.

    Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News

    One of Syria's Olympic athletes, Raya, trains at a shooting range ahead of the upcoming Summer Games in London. Some have called on the IOC to ban Syrian athletes from participating in the Games, while others have defended the right of athletes to not be punished for their government's actions.

    Just a few hundred yards away from Baba Amr, the neighborhood of Akrema is bustling with activity, as people wander through busy streets and markets. But concern is at an all-time high here, as many people fear a regime change would be dangerous for them.

    A roadside bomb exploded in Douma, Syria this weekend near a United Nations convoy carrying the head of a Syria ceasefire monitoring mission and a senior U.N. Official. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

    Ayman Mohyeldin, NBC News

    A U.N. vehicle attempting to enter the opposition-held area of Tel Kelakh was swarmed by government supporters who marked the vehicles with pro-Assad slogans. The U.N. observer mission turned back and did not enter the city.

    A resident of Khalidiya shows the wounds he suffered after he was attacked by pro-government thugs, known locally as the as the "Shabeeha" -- which means "Ghosts".

    See more images from inside Syria, taken by NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin (Editor's note: Some of these images are graphic in nature):

    Related: Slideshow: A glimpse inside Syria (by Ayman Mohyeldin)

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  • Heavy fighting rocks eastern Syria

    Joseph Eid / AFP - Getty Images

    A picture shows destruction in the Bayyada district of the flashpoint Syrian city of Homs on Saturday.

    By Reuters

    Heavy fighting between rebels and government troops erupted in the capital of an oil producing province in eastern Syria, residents and activists said on Sunday, the latest escalation of violence in a tribal area bordering Iraq.

    Rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked tank positions in the eastern sector of the city of Deir al-Zor on the Euphrates river into the early hours of Sunday, in response to an army offensive against several towns and villages in the province that have killed tens of people in recent days, they said.

    "The fighting subsided early in the morning. We do not have a death toll because no one is daring to go into the streets," said Ghaith Abdelsalam, an opposition activist who lives near Ghassan Abboud roundabout. At least five army tanks had been deployed on each street leading to the roundabout, a flashpoint for the fighting, he added. 

     

    On Saturday, explosion killed several people in Aleppo and two blasts hit a Damascus highway on Saturday in further signs that rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad are shifting tactics towards homemade explosives. 

    ITV's Bill Neely reports from both sides of the frontlines in Syria.  Each side accuses the other of the same crimes and neither is willing to stop fighting.

    Syria's state news agency said three people had been killed, one of them a child, and 21 wounded by a booby-trapped car in the northern city of Aleppo. 

     The British-based Syrian Observatory for Humans Rights, which monitors the 14-month-old revolt against Assad, said the blast killed five and wrecked a car wash in Tal al-Zarazeer, one of the poorest suburbs of Syria's commercial hub. 

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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