(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Syrian armour moved against protest flashpoints and a general was gunned down in Damascus on Saturday as the bloodshed showed no signs of abating, even spilling over into Lebanon.
The Syrian National Council (SNC) said Arab recognition of the opposition umbrella group was imminent, ahead of key talks on the crisis in Cairo on Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported.
In Aleppo, tensions escalated as President Bashar Assad's forces stepped up security after twin car bombs killed 28 people and wounded 235 in Syria's second city on Friday, activists said.
Thirty-one people were killed across the country on Saturday, mostly civilians, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Tank shelling killed 10 civilians in Homs, nine of them in the rebel stronghold neighbourhood of Baba Amro, Abdel Rahman told AFP. Dozens were wounded.
Assad's forces have waged a brutal weeklong onslaught on the central protest city of Homs that has killed at least 500 people since February 4, Abdel Rahman said, according to AFP.
Homs activist Hadi Abdullah accused policemen and soldiers of pillaging the Inshaat neighbourhood. "They are stealing computers, television sets... and even blankets."
Security forces also advanced into Zabadani, another main centre of resistance near Damascus, said Abdel Rahman, adding that three civilians were killed there.
Reuters reported that Assad's forces entered the besieged town of Zabadani near the border with Lebanon on Saturday after agreeing a ceasefire with rebels, quoting opposition leader in exile Kamal Labwani.
The agreement, reached after a weeklong tank and artillery bombardment that left at least 100 people dead in the town of 20,000, stipulates that rebels return weapons and armour seized from loyalist forces, who would not pursue the rebels, Labwani told Reuters.
A general was shot dead outside his Damascus home, state media said. If confirmed, this would be one of the most brazen attacks on the top brass in the capital since the uprising erupted in March last year, according to AFP.
"An armed terrorist group this morning assassinated brigadier general and doctor, Issa Khawli, the director of Hamish Hospital, outside his home in the district of Ruknaddin," SANA state news agency said.
A YouTube video posted on the Internet showed Syrian tanks bearing huge portraits of Assad firing on a road in Douma, a Damascus suburb which has been plagued by months of violence.
In another video, protesters are seen marching in the Damascus district of Al Aassali carrying banners which said: "We will only kneel before God," and "Long live Syria, down with Bashar Assad."
In Lebanon, a 17-year-old girl was among three people killed and 23 were wounded in clashes between Sunni Muslims hostile to Syria's regime and Alawites who support it, a security official said.
Ten of the wounded were Lebanese soldiers, including a sergeant in critical condition.
Syrian state media, meanwhile, blamed "terrorists" for Friday's double car bomb attacks on security posts in Aleppo, AFP reported.
The rebel Free Syrian Army accused the "criminal" regime of launching the attacks "to steer attention away from what it is doing in Homs, Zabadani and elsewhere."
On Saturday, snipers were deployed and at least three armoured vehicles were seen entering Sakhur, an Aleppo neighbourhood where dissent against Assad's regime simmers, one activist said.
Some Aleppo residents who lost family members in the bombings were frustrated by the authorities' refusal to hand over their bodies, an activist who identified himself as Mohammed told AFP from the city.
The commercial hub has been largely spared the violence that rights groups say has killed more than 6,000 people in Syria since last March.
In Doha, the SNC's Ahmed Ramadan said the group has "confirmations of an Arab recognition that will soon take place, though not necessarily on Sunday".
Arab League foreign ministers are meeting on Sunday in Cairo to discuss their next move over the Syrian crisis following a meeting of the six-nation energy-rich Gulf Cooperation Council.
Earlier this week the Gulf monarchies said they would withdraw their envoys from Syria and expels Damascus' ambassadors, joining mounting international pressure on Assad over the killings of civilians.
Syria, meanwhile, said it has asked Tunisia and Libya to close their embassies in Damascus in a tit-for-tat move after they both expelled Syria's envoys.
And its neighbour Turkey said it plans to lodge a formal request to the UN for an aid operation to help Syrians suffering a "humanitarian tragedy".
