9-Feb-2012 - As Diplomats Visit Damascus, Video Shows Bombardment in Homs

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The shriek of ordnance cut through an activist’s frightened and repeated prayers as he filmed scenes of intense bombardment in the city of Homs, Syria.The video, posted on Tuesday by the activist Sham News Network, offered a direct view of the sustained onslaught. Days of heavy attacks there have killed hundreds, according to activists, and left the city fearful, pockmarked and shuttered. Residents, including women and young children, can be seen in activist video moving with their belongings through the streets and darting between buildings in an effort to avoid the next rocket or mortar, but unsure of where it would fall.After an attack in the neighborhood of Baba Amr, where some of the heaviest strikes have centered, men carried young children through the doorway of a partly destroyed building, jogging across rubble-strewn streets, in video posted to the Sham News Network channel on Monday. Ahmed al Omran, a Saudi journalist with NPR who sifts through Syrian protest video on his Twitter feed, said the scale of the destruction in Homs reminded him of the the devastating siege of the rebellious Libyan city of Misurata last year.Some videos on YouTube are NFL jerseys cheap now calling Bab Amr “the Misurata of Syria”.— Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) February 7, 2012The activists attempting to document the situation in the city have themselves NFL jerseys china come under attack, perhaps deliberately or as a result of filming from rooftops as the bombs fall. One video shot from a roof appeared to end when the camera fell over amid the loud sounds of bombs. Mr. Omran said the Arabic title of the video said that the cameraman had been wounded while filming.As the attacks continued in Homs, government supporters in the capital, Damascus, cheered the arrival of Russian representatives on Tuesday. Russia’s foreign ministry posted photos from the visit on Twitter and proudly noted the number of Syrians who came out to welcome the envoy, waving Russian and Syrian flags.In Damascus people line up all along the Russian delegation's itinerary saluting it with flags and posters twitter.com/MFA_Russia/sta…— MFA Russia (@MFA_Russia) February 7, 2012Thousands of people in Damascus greet the Russian delegation chanting "Thank you, Russia," "Millions of Syrians thank Russia and China"— MFA Russia (@MFA_Russia) February 7, 2012Sergey Lavrov, Mikhail Fradkov and Bashar al-Assad twitter.com/MFA_Russia/sta…— MFA Russia (@MFA_Russia) February 7, 2012President Bashar al-Assad met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, right above, and Mikhail Fradkov, center, the head of Moscow's foreign intelligence service, on Tuesday only days after Russia and China vetoed a United Nations resolution that called on Mr. Assad to hand over some of his powers. After the meeting, Mr. Lavrov said the Syrian president was “fully committed” NFL jersey supply to ending the violence, the state-run Sana news agency reported:President al-Assad affirmed his commitment as per the Arab plan to the task of putting an end to violence regardless of its source. To this end, Syria affirms its interest in continuing work with the Arab League observer mission and increasing observer numbers to cover all points and verify any breaches or violations to the principle of not allowing violence regardless of source.Mr. Assad’s wife, Asma, appeared to reiterate that message from the Russian envoy. In an e-mail statement sent to The Times of London, Mrs. Assad said that her husband “is the President of Syria, not a faction of Syrians, and the First Lady supports him in that role,” according to passages quoted by The Times and reported by The Daily Telegraph. She has made few public statements during the 11-month-old uprising.

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