Assad pledges peace

Russia won a promise from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that he would bring an end to bloodshed but Western and Arab states acted to isolate him further.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, representing a rare ally on a trip to Damascus, the Syrian capital other states are shunning, said Assad was keen to resolve Syria's crisis in line with an Arab plan Moscow and Beijing vetoed in the UN Security Council.

The Russian mediation failed to slow a rush by countries that denounced the veto three days ago to corner Syria diplomatically and cripple Assad with sanctions in hopes of toppling him and encouraging reforms.

Opposition activists said government forces renewed shelling of the central city of Homs yesterday just before Lavrov's arrival, killing about 19 people in an onslaught that they say has claimed more than 300 lives in the past five days.

Syria says the city - a hub of 11 months of protest against Assad's rule and parts of which are held by insurgents, including army defectors - is the site of a running battle with "terrorists" directed and funded from abroad.

Its references to foreign interference are widely read to include Gulf Arab states, which followed the lead of Washington and European Union countries in drawing down their diplomatic presence in Damascus yesterday.

"The president of Syria assured us that he was 'completely committed to the task of stopping violence regardless of where it may come from'," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying after his meeting with Assad, accompanied by Russia's top spy.

Lavrov, whose government wields unique leverage as a major arms supplier with long-standing political ties to Damascus, told Assad it was in Russia's interest for "Arab people to live in peace and agreement", the RIA news agency said.

Lavrov said Assad had assured him he was committed to halting bloodshed by both sides and that he was ready to seek dialogue with all political groups in Syria.

Opposition activists have dismissed similar pledges made by Assad in the past because he continued trying to crush protests with tanks and troops.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov had gone to Damascus because Moscow wanted to see "the swiftest stabilisation of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come".

Syrian state television showed hundreds of people gathering on a Damascus highway to welcome Lavrov. They waved Syrian, Russian and Hezbollah flags, and held up two Russian flags made of hundreds of red, white and blue balloons.

Opposition activists said the fresh assault on Homs came after 95 people were killed on Monday in the city of 1million. More than 200 were reported killed there by sustained shelling on Friday night.

Mohammad al-Hassan, an activist in Homs, said: "The bombardment is again concentrating on Baba Amro [district]. A doctor tried to get in there this morning but I heard he was wounded.

"There is no electricity and all communication with the neighbourhood has been cut," he said.

Nineteen people were killed and at least 40 wounded in yesterday's barrage, activists said. Some reported fighting between army defectors and government forces.