100 Civilians, 43 Troops Dead as Violence Rocks Syria

At least 143 people were killed in violence across Syria on Thursday, among them 100 civilians and 43 government troops, activists and a rights group said.

"This has been one of the bloodiest days in Syria since the anti-regime revolt broke out in March last year," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said regime forces killed 100 people across the country, among them more than 10 children.

Thirty-two people were killed in Homs, 24 in Daraa, 24 in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Daraya and Sirghaya, seven in Idlib, four in Hama, three in Deir Ezzor, three in Aleppo, one in Latakia and one in the capital Damascus, the LCC said.

The Observatory told Agence France Presse that at least 13 civilians were killed in the central city of Homs and another two unidentified people died in nearby Qusayr.

Streaming video from Homs on the bambuser.com website showed smoke billowing from a residential district amid automatic gunfire and mortar blasts.

The bombardment aborted two attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent to evacuate trapped civilians, but the agencies vowed to try again on Friday.

"Unfortunately, a second attempt, which we carried out in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross, has failed," the Red Crescent's Khaled Erksoussi said.

Hundreds of people are believed to be trapped in the historic heart of Syria's third-largest city, unable to flee or find shelter because of the fighting, the Geneva-based agency said.

According to a new toll on Thursday, the Observatory said at least 10,480 civilians, 3,715 soldiers and 830 army defectors have been killed since March 2011.