Bashar Assad, Homs | featured news

As bloody month after bloody month goes by, the United States grows ever more committed to overthrowing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The cause is undoubtedly a just one: Avaaz, the human rights group that has been most deeply involved in the Syria crisis, reported Thursday morning that "17 civilians were beheaded or partially beheaded by regime security forces" outside of Baba Amro, the besieged Homs district that will likely soon fall to al-Assad's tanks, if it hasn't already.

Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs as President Bashar al-Assad's government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

As U.N. diplomats make another attempt to condemn Syria's massacre of civilians, one resident in the besieged city of Homs pleaded for President Bashar al-Assad's regime to have mercy.

"They're asking for RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) in al Bayadah," said the young fighter, naming another district in Homs. "Assad's armoured vehicles are coming and they have nothing to stop them." "Give them five or six of ours. God willing we will find some more," replied the man in charge, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

More than 30 civilians and as many as a dozen soldiers were killed Monday in an upsurge of violence in Syria, most of them in the central city of Homs that is rapidly emerging as the epicenter of armed resistance to the government led by President Bashar al-Assad.