Tuesday death toll at 33 as Idlib attacked

Shelling has continued in Syria Damascus – Agencies At least 33 civilians were killed Tuesday as Syrian security forces attacked the village of Abdita in the northwestern province of Idlib, a monitoring group said. Forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad launched a military operation in the village in the Jebel Al-Zawiya region of Idlib, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syrian tanks and troops were massed Tuesday outside the central-western city of Homs, a resistance stronghold the regime has been bombarding for more than two weeks, activists said.
Syrian activist network the "Local Coordination Committees" (LCC) also stated 16 people were killed in Baba Amr and Qusair, both in Homs. The casualties included three women and three children.
It was not immediately clear whether the shelling signalled the start of a widely expected offensive to crush rebels in the area.
Opposition groups said the heavy shelling of the Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm El-Zeytoun lasted more than two hours.
Phone lines have also been reportedly cut in the city.
The massing of tanks and troops comes nine days after the Syrian army began distributing gas masks to its soldiers, while opposition activists said Assad forces transferred grenades and mortars containing chemical agents to a Homs school building, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Opposition figures expressed concern the moves could signal the regime's intention to unleash a fierce street attack on Homs residents and use chemical weapons against its citizens.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday it was trying to negotiate at least a brief pause in the violence to deliver aid to the most devastated areas.
In Homs, for instance, supplies of food, baby formula, medicine and potable water are all running out, an opposition group said.
Red Cross spokeswoman Carla Haddad said the agency, based in Geneva, was negotiating with Syrian authorities and rebels about stopping hostilities so urgent humanitarian aid could be delivered to devastated areas.
The ICRC, the only international agency with aid workers in Syria, has been cooperating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
Two Iranian warships were docked in a Syrian port Tuesday in a show of support for the Assad regime as the Red Cross tried to broker a humanitarian cease-fire.
 The ships, docked in the Mediterranean city of Tartus, Syria's second-largest port city, arrived Monday after Russian ships were also dispatched to the same port, activists said.
 The ships are "a serious warning" to Washington, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
 The agency quoted a senior Iranian lawmaker as denouncing US Senator  John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, for calling on the United States to arm the Syrian opposition.
 McCain told CBS News Monday arming the opposition would not necessarily be done "directly."
 "But I think that there are ways to get arms to the resistance, and the Turks in the Arab League can play a great, a very significant role," he said.
 "I'm not calling for an invasion of Syria," he said, "but I am calling for practical measures which would allow the Syrian people to achieve the aspiration that we hold for all people."
 Western and Arab leaders plan a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab League said.
 "The [Tunisia meeting] will include a large number of countries, and the goal of this meeting is to put extra pressure on Syria," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi said. "Also, there are indicators coming from China in particular, and to a certain extent from Russia, that there may be a change in [their] position."
 Russia however announced on Tuesday that it had decided to pull out of the Friends of Syria Group meeting.
“Officially we were not informed who will take part in the conference or what the agenda will be. Most importantly, it is unclear what the actual goal of this initiative is," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.
 He said that there is some information that several opposition groups have been invited to Tunisia but representatives of the Syrian government have not. "Serious questions arise about the final document of the meeting. According to some information, a small group of countries, without knowledge of others, will be asked to simply stamp a document that is already in the process of being written," Lukashevich said.
“Taking into account all these circumstances, we consider it is not possible for us to participate in the meeting,” he added.
 Lukashevich said that according to the report, “it seems that we are talking about slapping together some kind of international coalition as was the case in organising the Libya Contact Group in order to support one side against the other in an internal conflict.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “Russia is for all members of the world community to act as friends of all Syrian people and not only part of it.”
 The European Union will also likely adopt fresh sanctions against the Assad's regime in the coming week, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Monday.
  “We will adopt further sanctions in Europe, and not just in Europe,” Westerwelle told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 economic powers in Los Cabos, Mexico.
“I believe sanctions will be tightened in the next week, because the violence is continuing,” he said, when asked whether Europe would adopt measures to blacklist Syria’s central bank.
 Westerwelle declined to name specific sanctions under consideration, but a G20 official at the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the EU was on course to agree to measures to curb the central bank’s ability to operate.
 China and Russia’s blocking this month of a draft UN Security Council resolution that backed an Arab plan demanding that Assad step aside angered the West and Arab states.
 They also voted against a non-binding General Assembly resolution to back the Arab plan last week. China has sent envoys to the region, stung by Western criticism that by vetoing the resolutions it was allowing the violence in Syria to increase.
 The President of the General Assembly Nasser Abdel Aziz said before the news conference in Cairo the international community could no longer remain silent on the situation in Syria.
“We know there are difficulties in the Security Council but I think we cannot stay silent and have to exert the utmost pressure so that the (Syrian) government implements what was agreed upon, or make the Security Council look into the matter more seriously because it is dangerous and there are big violations,” he said, according to Reuters.
 It's been almost a year since anti-government protests have been brutally cracked down on by Assad's forces. According to the UN, the total number of victims in the country has exceeded 5,400 people, while activists claim that over 6,000 have been killed. Syrian authorities have said that over 2,000 military and law enforcement officials were killed in clashes with well-armed militants.
 The Syrian National Council (SNC) has emerged as the international voice of the uprising but has yet to show a real command over grassroots activists and an armed insurgency.
 Despite the continued fighting, Assad is still forging ahead with a referendum on Sunday for a new constitution which should lead to elections. Syrian opposition has dismissed the move as a joke.