Syria Army Kills 70 Civilians in Protest Cities

Army shelling and gunfire killed at least 70 civilians in protest towns on Saturday, including women and children, a watchdog said.

According to the Syrian Local Coordination Committee, 29 were killed in Homs, 26 in Daraa, 20 in Latakia and one person in Hassaka, Aleppo and Daraya in Reef Damascus.

Nine women and three children were among 17 people killed in a pre-dawn bombardment of a residential neighborhood in the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Dozens more were wounded, some of them seriously, in the city which was the birthplace of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule, the Britain-based watchdog said.

In nearby Jordan, hundreds of Syrian refugees demonstrated in the border town of Ramtha to protest against the deaths in Daraa, Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.

Meanwhile, U.N. observers who visited the village of Al-Kubeir, where at least 55 people were killed earlier this week, said they saw blood on the walls and "a strong stench of burnt flesh."

The Al-Kubeir incident prompted Western governments to launch a push for tough new sanctions against Damascus. But Russia, along with China, has already vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad.

In central Syria, government forces on Saturday pounded several rebel neighborhoods of Homs city with artillery and mortar fire, killing six civilians, the Observatory said.

It said the army killed at least 29 civilians nationwide, while three soldiers died in clashes in the north and four rebel fighters were also reported killed, taking Saturday's death toll to at least 36.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse that dozens of regime troops were killed or wounded in fighting at Al-Heffa in Latakia province, but was unable to give exact figures.

Diplomats in New York said Britain, France and the United States would quickly draw up a Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Syria following a grim report from the monitors on their visit to Al-Kubeir.

"We will move fast to press for a resolution," one U.N. diplomat told AFP.

More than 20 unarmed U.N. observers were allowed into Al-Kubeir on Friday, a day after monitors were shot at and prevented from entering the village.

"Inside some of the houses, blood was visible across the walls and floors. Fire was still burning outside houses and there was a strong stench of burnt flesh," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in New York.

U.N. officials have made clear they believe government forces and their allies were behind the attack on the mainly Sunni Muslim village surrounded by an Alawite population loyal to Assad.

Damascus denied responsibility and blamed foreign-backed "terrorists."