Syrian opposition: Bloodbath could be imminent in Homs

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 11:34 AM EST, Sun December 11, 2011
The Syrian government has given activists in the flashpoint city of Homs a 72-hour-deadline to halt demonstrations.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: The Sunday death toll rises to 18, an opposition group says
The military has dug trenches around Homs, an opposition military leader says
Syria buries 13 "martyrs," the government says

The Arab League announces it will hold emergency meetings this week in Cairo
(CNN) -- The Syrian government has warned protesters in the city of Homs to stop demonstrations, hand in weapons and surrender defecting military members by Monday night or face bombardment, an opposition leader said.
A 72-hour warning was given Saturday, said Lt. Col. Mohamed Hamdo of the Free Syrian Army.
The Syrian National Council, the country's leading opposition movement, had warned earlier of a potential bloodbath at the hands of the Syrian regime in Homs.
"If the world continues to watch, then the massacre of Hama in the 80s will be repeated," said Hamdo, referring to 1982, when Syria's military -- acting under orders from current President Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad -- launched an assault on the city, killing thousands.
The military has dug trenches around Homs, Hamdo said.
"There is no electricity, water, or communication whatsoever now and the communication breakdown has extended even closer to the Turkish border," he said.
The Syrian government denied reports of water and electricity being out in the city, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
The government made no mention of the reported deadline on the news agency's website Sunday morning.
SANA reported that the "bodies of 13 martyrs from the army, security and police forces" were taken "to their final resting place." Four were from Homs.
As violence raged Sunday in parts of the country, the death toll reached 18, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC). Two of the dead were children, the group said.
The toll includes six people in Hama; five in Homs; three each in Idlib and Damascus suburbs, and one in Daraa, according to the LCC, a network of anti-regime activists in the country.
CNN cannot independently confirm events because the Syrian government restricts access of international media to the country.
The Syrian government said Sunday it had arrested "a member of armed terrorist groups" who was trying to plant an explosive device near residential buildings in Hama. SANA said the military dismantled the bomb and no one was injured.
Throughout the Syrian uprising, government officials have described some opposition fighters as armed terrorists and gang members.
There were clashes Saturday in Khan Sheikhon, where authorities "arrested a number of the terrorists and killed three of those groups' prominent leaders," SANA said in a report Sunday.
Fierce clashes were underway Sunday in the Daraa Province village of Busra al-Harir as Syrian troops battled defectors, leaving many people wounded, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gets information from people in different parts of the country.
Residents said members of Syria's 12th Armored Brigade, which is based near the border with Jordan, "stormed" Busra al-Harir. They said they heard explosions and heavy gunfire in the city and just north of it in Lujah, where defectors were believed to be hiding, the observatory said.
The Arab League announced it will hold emergency meetings this week in Cairo. In a statement on Egypt's state-run MENA news agency, an Arab League official said leaders will "discuss the Arab response to a message from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem to approve the signing of an agreement on an Arab League observing mission to Syria with conditions."
World leaders have widely condemned Syria's crackdown and called on it to halt violence against the opposition.
On Saturday, France expressed its concerns about events in Syria, and warned against Syria launching a military operation against the city of Homs and its population, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Al-Assad's regime has denied targeting peaceful protesters.
The regime's actions have outraged world powers and sparked sanctions by the Arab League, Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Israeli President Shimon Peres on Sunday described Syrian President al-Assad as a "killer," implicitly comparing him to Libya's ousted ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
"The world decided -- including the Arab world -- to intervene when a leader is beginning to kill his own citizens," Peres told CNN in an interview. "It happened in Libya; it's happening in Yemen; it's happening by the Arab League, for the first time in their experience. They decided to put pressure on an Arab state because the leader is killing his people."
The United Nations said this month that more than 4,000 people have died in Syria since the crackdown began in mid-March.
Protesters have been demanding the end of the al-Assad regime and democratic elections. Al-Assad has been in power since 2000; his father, Hafez, ruled Syria for three decades.
Local elections are set to take place Monday for municipal posts.
In its 2010 Human Rights Report about Syria, the U.S. State Department said Syria's elections have not been fair in the past.
"Although the constitution provides the right for citizens to peacefully change their government through elections, in practice they did not have that right because elections were neither free nor fair," the report said.
CNN's Amir Ahmed, Richard Quest, Josh Levs and Joe Sterling and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.

Blogger comment:
The President of Israel is angry about the killing of the Syrians by their savage president while the Arab tyrants are watching.Tantwey of Egypt has no opinion he is just waiting to get away with the money of the bribes and his military council. Muslims brothers are busy thinking about Israel while the real enemy is Iran and Shia. No war with Iran or Shia just liberate our brothers in Syria. Iran is looking for domination of the Arab world and walait Al faqih until their Mahdi Muntazer comes out from a well wearing a swimming suit. Our Mahdi in Sunna is more simple people choose their leaders and govern themselves and live in peace and harmony and not to nuke the world or dominate over. Al Mahdi of Sunni his function is not be Khalifa, president or king but to simply watch people govern themselves and help with his ideas. He is like the wise guy behind presidents and minsters.