Syrian general gunned down, state TV says

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Saturday in the first killing of a high-ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the state-run news agency said.

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The attack is a sign that violence in Syria is reaching the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities. Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility, it could also indicate that rebel soldiers who have risen up in numerous cities and towns are trying to step up action in Damascus.

SANA news agency said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital.

Such assassinations are not uncommon outside Damascus and army officers have been killed in the past, mostly in the restive provinces of Homs and Idlib.

Syria also told Libya and Tunisia to close their embassies in Damascus within 72 hours, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday, after the two North African countries announced similar measures against Syria.

Libya said on Thursday it had given Syria's charge d'affaires and his staff in Tripoli three days to leave the country, and last week Tunisia said it had started procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and withdraw recognition of the Syrian leadership under Assad.

US ambassador says satellite images prove Syria government's violence

Syrian forces bombarded districts of Homs city on Saturday.

Activists said seven people were killed in the latest attacks in a week-long government siege of Homs, which has been at the heart of the uprising which broke out 11 months ago.

Mohammed Hassan, an opposition campaigner in the western city, told Reuters by telephone that a 55-year-old woman was among those killed by shellfire on the Bab Amro district.

The bloodshed followed Friday's violence, when bombings targeting security bases killed at least 28 people in Aleppo and rebel fighters battled troops in a Damascus suburb after dark.

Assad has ignored repeated international appeals, the latest from the European Union, to halt his crackdown.

"I condemn in the strongest terms these acts perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own civilians," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

However, the world is deeply divided over how to end the conflict. A week ago, Russia and China vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Western and Arab states that backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

With Syria in worsening turmoil, Saudi Arabia has circulated a new draft for the General Assembly similar to the earlier one.

But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Saturday Moscow could not support a move at the U.N. General Assembly resting on "the same unbalanced draft resolution text."

PhotoBlog: Satellite spots tanks near university housing complex in Homs

Homs suffers
The diplomatic dispute brings no relief to Homs, where the government offensive on mostly Sunni Muslim rebel-held areas has killed at least 300 people in the past week, activists say.

Food and medical supplies are running low in blockaded areas and many people are trapped in their houses.

Accounts could not be independently confirmed as Syria restricts access by most foreign journalists.

Youtube footage provided by activists showed a doctor at a field hospital next to the body of the woman. "Shrapnel hit her in the head and completely drained her brain matter," he says.

The 46-year-old Assad belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated the majority Sunni country since his late father took control in a 1970 coup.

Security forces have also made house-to-house raids in Homs in the last two days. The bodies of three people shot by snipers were pulled from the streets on Saturday, activists said.

YouTube footage from Friday showed two tanks said to be on the edge of Bab Amro, one firing its main gun across a highway.

"The indiscriminate shelling is killing mostly civilians," Fawaz Tello, of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters, arguing that Assad wanted to avoid pushing his troops into street fighting and was banking on the bombardment to force rebel fighters to withdraw.