As the Syrian army continues its campaign against the city of Homs, opposition activists say that a thousand such campaigns would not douse the revolution, writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus Syrian security and military forces attacked the city of Homs in central Syria five months ago, and it has been one month since the Syrian military started using heavy artillery to bomb neighbourhoods inside the city. Tank and mortar rockets are now being used to target different districts, without sparing the lives of children, women or the elderly. The city has become a war zone in battles between the two unequal sides. The districts of Baba Amr, Al-Khalidiya, Al-Byada, Al-Inshaat and Karm Al-Zaytoun have been under continuous bombardment since 4 February, with the regime doing its best to bring these areas under its control. Baba Amr has been at the receiving end of particularly heavy shelling, as it is thought to house defectors from the regular army who have been defending the area for nearly five months. Local residents have been almost unable to describe the horrors of their existence over recent months, with the regime turning off water and power supplies, as well as communications with the outside world. Activists accuse the Syrian security forces of carrying out massacres in Baba Amr, where hundreds of mortar rockets have been falling every day and where surveillance by unmanned planes has been used to monitor the area and target demonstrators. Movement has become largely impossible, with snipers atop tall buildings overlooking the neighbourhood. It has also become almost impossible to get the wounded to local field hospitals. According to local activists, one month of non-stop shelling of Baba Amr has left more than 500 people dead, bringing the number of those killed in Homs since the start of the uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad one year ago to around 3,000, according to human rights monitors. Activists also say that regime security forces have been guilty of committing crimes against humanity in the town, and they have uploaded hundreds of videos onto the Internet showing alleged massacres and the terrible conditions local people are being subjected to. On 13 February, the Syrian Committee for Human Rights, an NGO, said that regime security forces had carried out a massacre in the Baba Amr district of Homs by firebombing houses and leaving their occupants to burn to death inside them. Eighteen people were reportedly burned to death inside their homes, including women and children. On 22 February, activists reported that shelling of the districts of Al-Inshaat, Bab Al-Sibaa and Karm Al-Zaytoun had killed or injured an unknown number and destroyed a four-storey building in Baba Amr used as a media centre to monitor and document the events. Among the dead were American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, with other international journalists also being injured. One day earlier, a mortar shell fell on the car of Syrian activist Rami Al-Sayed, 26, as he was transporting injured victims to the field hospital in Baba Amr. Al-Sayed bled to death in his car, it being impossible for anyone to come to help him. He was known as "the eye of the revolution" after uploading more than 700 video clips of events in Baba Amr onto YouTube. On 23 February, human rights monitors reported that 60 people had been killed in the Al-Hakura area in Homs during a vicious attack by regime forces that used heavy artillery and aerial bombing. On the same day, the London-based NGO AFAZ reported that seven of the group's activists in Syria aged between 16 and 24 years old had been shot as they tried to enter Baba Amr from a neighbouring area to deliver medical supplies to a field hospital set up by activists and locals. The group accused Syrian security forces of killing the seven young people. On 25 February, the Syrian army targeted the Our Lady of Peace Church in Homs, where Muslim women and children were taking refuge. The shelling of Homs has further angered many Arab and western states, ratcheting up pressures on the Syrian regime. US President Barack Obama said of the events in Homs that "it is necessary for the world community to come together and send a clear message to the Syrian president. It is time for the regime to leave." Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said that events in Syria were "a tragedy that cannot be ignored," describing the regime as "an occupying force." Al-Faisal said that the crisis in Syria could not be resolved without the transfer of power "either voluntarily or by force," arguing that arming the Syrian opposition to carry out attacks on the regime would be "an excellent idea." For its part, the Syrian regime rejected a proposal from the Red Cross to declare a ceasefire every two hours in order to allow the delivery of supplies to areas under bombardment. It also refused to allow safe zones to be created in Homs to facilitate the evacuation of victims of the bombardments, including two injured western journalists. The US NGO Human Rights Watch demanded that aid agencies should have immediate access to Homs and other Syrian cities, stating that 20,000 people were still in Baba Amr and were being targeted by attacks using Russian-made Hawn 240mm calibre missiles. Human Rights Watch urged Russia to try to broker an agreement to allow safe passage for civilians in Homs and to help evacuate the wounded and bring in humanitarian aid. French surgeon Jacques Peres, who has just returned from a 19-day mission to Homs, described the "massacre" that is taking place there. Peres, who had helped set up a unit of the NGO Doctors Without Borders in the city, said that he had been touched "by the courage of the people" and described what he had witnessed as "unbearable". "Children are in an appalling psychological state," Karam Abu Rabie, a political activist in Homs, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "They are living in terror without water or food. Medical conditions are abysmal, and basic medical supplies and medical staff are unavailable. The number of injured are now in the hundreds, and there are dozens of dead." "But even so the world is standing by and not moving. We want the free world to stand by us against injustice," Abu Rabie said. Members of the Syrian opposition who have attempted to communicate with the regime in order to agree a truce and deliver aid to areas under siege said they had promised mediators that any armed protesters would leave the district as soon as the army withdraws. However, the Syrian leadership had turned the offer down, demanding that all armed protesters unconditionally surrender, they said. According to official Syrian sources, military operations in Homs are designed to counter "armed terrorist groups" that have taken control of parts of the city. However, the opposition has said that the real reason for the regime's actions in the city has been the constant demonstrations that have been taking place there over recent months, with the district being protected by Syrian army defectors. Outside Homs, opposition activists are calling the city "the capital of the revolution," since every day more people are killed there by regime forces than in any other Syrian city. The poor district of Baba Amr where many of the killings have taken place is in the southwest of the city in the Basateen area, and it has an estimated 80,000 residents out of a total population of one million. Special features of Homs are likely to complicate further regime military actions there, since some 75 per cent of residents are Sunnis who mostly oppose the regime and the remaining 20 per cent are Alawites, mostly loyal to it, with a small five per cent Christian minority. The Sunnis are concentrated in districts that are now under bombardment, and there are direct links between Sunni and Alawite districts. Observers worry that residents may start to fight each other based on confessional affiliations, possibly triggering a wider sectarian conflict. The city's larger area, which is the country's largest governorate, also has a long border with neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon, making it ideal for smuggling and the storage of smuggled weapons. The authorities have been unable to control this long border, and attempts by the military to bring it under control would be very costly. Some analysts believe that the violence in Homs has a particular local character, since the ruling Alawite minority migrated to the city from rural areas over recent decades, using its position to amass large gains under the protection of regime security forces. The city's last governor allowed corruption to run rampant in the city, impoverishing many residents. The number of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters in Baba Amr and neighbouring areas is unknown, but it is thought that had it not been for their resistance the area would have been sacked by regime forces. Some opposition activists say that the Syrian army has amassed further troops on the outskirts of Homs in preparation for the invasion of the city, adding that a successful regime campaign in Homs could be the beginning of the end for the Syrian uprising and of a successful reassertion by the regime. However, others say that the situation does not rely upon the fate of Homs alone, since the protests against the al-Assad regime have now spread throughout the country, from Deir Al-Zur in the north to Deraa in the south. FSA forces are now operating across the country, the activists say, with units being stationed in Deraa, Damascus, Edleb, Hamah, Deir Al-Zur and other cities, as well as in Homs. Barely a day now passes without the FSA carrying out military operations against the regime's security forces. As the violence in Homs continues, opposition activists have continued to demand that the regime step down from power. "Everything in Syria is up for discussion except a return to the era of servitude," Ayman Al-Aswad, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told the Weekly. "Even with a thousand military campaigns, the regime will not be able to extinguish the revolution. Everyone in Syria is convinced that the regime will fall." Al-Aswad, who led the first anti-regime demonstrations in Deraa in March last year, said that "the regime is continuing with the military option, and the international community has thus far failed to protect the people of Syria. This means that there is pressure for people to take up arms and resort to armed struggle."
