A member of the opposition Syrian National Council said the group took control of Syria's embassy in the Libyan capital on Saturday without meeting any resistance.

"The Syrian National Council has taken physical control of the embassy today," said council member Anas al-Khalid.

Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud on Saturday accused Syrian rebels of shelling the protest hub of Homs to swing a U.N. Security Council vote in their favor.

"The reports on some satellite channels that the Syrian army shelled neighborhoods in Homs are fabricated and unfounded," Mahmoud said in a statement to Agence France Presse.

Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian government's murderous crackdown on protests for the second time.

Western governments reacted with fury to the new block on U.N. action over President Bashar Assad's 10 month-old assault on demonstrators which followed weeks of acrimonious negotiations over the text.

President Barack Obama on Saturday accused Syrian President Bashar Assad's government of murdering civilians in an "unspeakable assault" in the city of Homs, and demanded that Assad step down.

"Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately," Obama said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Washington will push for a U.N. Security Council vote on Syria later Saturday, a U.S. official said.

However, it was not clear what if any progress Clinton had made in bridging differences with Foreign Minister Lavrov over the terms of an amended Arab- and Western-backed draft resolution in New York.

Syrian forces bombarded the protest city of Homs Saturday, killing more than 200 civilians in a "horrific massacre," activists said, as the army opened fire on funeral processions near Damascus, killing 12 people.

The Damascus government denied involvement in the pre-dawn assault, blaming groups trying to incite unrest ahead of a possible Security Council vote, as television images showed bodies and buildings destroyed in the city.

Russia said Saturday that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Damascus on Tuesday along with the foreign intelligence service chief for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"On the order of the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Fradkov will visit Damascus on February 7 for a meeting with Bashar Assad," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Tunisia will expel the Syrian ambassador and stop recognizing the Damascus regime as government after a violent repression that killed over 200 people in the central city of Homs, the presidency said.

"Tunisia has begun formal procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and to end all recognition of the regime in power in Syria," said the presidency in a statement.

The Lebanese army deployed on Saturday in the northern village of Wadi Khaled after media outlets reported that members of the Free Syrian Army were present in the area.

“On Saturday morning the military carried out three airdrops in al-Rami village near Wadi Khaled and searched the area for hours,” a military source told LBC.

Kuwaiti authorities arrested several people when hundreds of angry Syrians and local activists stormed the Syrian embassy in the Gulf state on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

"A group of Syrian expats stormed the Syrian embassy in Kuwait, removed the flag and destroyed utilities," the ministry said in a statement.