Syrian troops attack Homs,38 killed

The mortars came down on Qusair by the dozens, said Abu al-Hoda,a Qusair-based activist. He said women and children have been huddled for days in basements of apartment buildings,too fearful to come out.

Also Sunday,Syrian forces unleashed a new round of heavy shelling and sent reinforcements to a mountainous area near the coastal city of Latakia where hundreds of rebels have set up base.

The fighting between government troops backed by helicopter gunships and armed groups in the area of Haffa began on Tuesday. Rami Abdul-Rahman,the director of the Observatory said at least 58 soldiers have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the operation there since.

He said the heavy losses indicate the seriousness of the challenge in the mountainous area where hundreds of rebels are entrenched. State-run news agency SANA said terrorist groups in Haffa attacked public and private institutions on Saturday and committed heinous crimes against civilians,setting fire to the national hospital and forcing people to leave their homes.

Meanwhile,Syrias main opposition group in exile,the Syrian National Council,elected a Kurdish dissident as its new leader at a meeting in Turkey,a council statement said. Abdulbaset Sieda,a 56-year-old activist who has been living for many years in exile in Sweden,replaced liberal opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun for the three-month presidency.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday he couldnt rule out a military intervention in Syria,saying the situation there was beginning to resemble the violence that gripped Bosnia in the 1990s.