BEIRUT- Syrian forces bombarded the central city of Homs on Tuesday and clashed with rebel fighters shortly before the chief United Nations monitor was due to brief world powers on the escalating violence which forced him to suspend operations. A resident in Homs said the sound of explosions could be heard across the city, and activists also reported shelling in the Damascus suburb of Douma and fighting between soldiers and rebels in northern Aleppo province near the border with Turkey. The violence is the latest wave of relentless bloodshed which led United Nations observers - who were sent to Syria to monitor a ceasefire deal brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan - to halt operations on Saturday. Norwegian peacekeeper General Robert Mood was due to brief the U.N. Security Council at 3:00 p.m. EDT on the renewed violence, which he has blamed on both President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebel fighters. Alarmed but apparently impotent to resolve the crisis, the outside world is deeply divided in its response to an increasingly sectarian conflict which threatens to become a proxy war for regional powers. Western nations and their Sunni Muslim allies in the Gulf and Turkey seek Assad's overthrow but are wary of intervention, while Russia, China and Shi'ite Iran - Assad's strategic ally - have protected Assad from a tough international response. US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin sought on Monday to find common ground over Syria when they met at a G20 summit in Mexico, but they offered no new solutions and there was no sign they had bridged their differences over imposing tougher sanctions on Damascus. Activists say at least 2,000 people have been killed in Syria since Annan's April 12 ceasefire deal, intended to be the first stage in a political plan to resolve Syria's 15-month-old crisis, was supposed to put an end to the killing. "There are many buildings and houses completely destroyed (in Homs), and many injuries in the field hospitals which need surgery," said one resident of Syria's third biggest city, who gave his name as Nidal. "There are many martyrs and no medicine." Mood said he was worried about civilians trapped in Homs after a week of trying and failing to get them out, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 1,000 families were stuck there under fire from the army. Syria said on Tuesday it had tried to make arrangements through the U.N. monitors for evacuations from Homs and blamed rebel fighters for obstructing those efforts and accused them of using civilians as human shields. But Nidal blamed security forces, who he said opened fire on a Red Crescent vehicle as it tried to ferry people out of the center of the city. "Three days ago the regime suggested a ceasefire for two hours from 5 pm to 7 pm to move the residents from Old Homs and Jouret al-Shiyah districts," he said. But when Red Crescent vehicles started the evacuation, "regime forces shot at the Red Crescent cars", forcing the aid organization to call off the operation. He said only Assad's forces were operating in the area where the shots were fired.
