Reuters

A boy runs in front of a huge Syrian opposition flag during a protest rally against Syrian President Bashar al Assad in Al Qusayr.

Amman - Syrian artillery pounded rebel-held areas of Homs on Monday 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.

While foreign powers argued over whether to arm the rebels, the Syrian Interior Ministry said the reformed constitution, which could keep Assad in power until 2028, had received 89.4 percent approval from more than 8 million voters.

Syrian dissidents and Western leaders dismissed as a farce Sunday's vote, conducted in the midst of the country's bloodiest turmoil in decades, although Assad says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

Officials put national voter turnout at close to 60 percent, but diplomats who toured polling stations in Damascus saw only a handful of voters at each location. On the same day, at least 59 people were killed in violence around the country.

The outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria, where repression of initially peaceful protests has spawned an armed insurrection by army deserters and others.

Qatar joined Saudi Arabia in advocating arming Syrian rebels, given that Russia and China have twice used their vetoes to block any action by the United Nations Security Council.

“I think we should do whatever is necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Oslo.

Arab countries should help lead a military force to provide a safe haven for anti-Assad forces inside Syria, he added.

Assad says he is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups” and his main allies - Russia, China and Iran - fiercely oppose any outside intervention intended to add him to the list of Arab autocrats unseated by popular revolts in the past year.

China called US policy in the region “super-arrogant” and Russia's Vladimir Putin warned against any action that bypassed the UN Security Council.

International “impotence” was described by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe as “hugely frustrating”. But, accusing the Syrian authorities of “massacres” and “odious crimes”, he said Paris would keep on pressing for action at the Security Council and warned Assad that he would be brought to justice.

Shells and rockets crashed into Sunni Muslim districts of Homs that have already endured weeks of bombardment as Assad's forces, led by officers from his minority Alawite sect, try to stamp out an almost year-long revolt against his 11-year rule.

“Intense shelling started on Khalidiya, Ashira, Bayada, Baba Amro and the old city at dawn,” opposition activist Mohammed al-Homsi told Reuters from the city. “The army is firing from the main thoroughfares deep into alleyways and side streets.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine people had been killed by the attacks on Baba Amro.

Opposition accounts of grim conditions in Homs were echoed by those from other observers, including the Red Cross.

Syrian activists reported on Monday the discovery of the bodies of at least 62 people near Homs, but the identity of those killed were disputed. Some activists said they were families from the troubled Baba Amro district in Homs who were kidnapped as they tried to flee the neighbourhood which has been under bombardment for more than three weeks.

But others said they were minority Alawite Muslims, the same sect of Islam to which embattled Assad belongs.

Crowds gathered in the sensitive Damascus district of Kfar Souseh, home to several security agency headquarters, to mourn three young men killed in a protest on Sunday, a witness said.

“Only Allah, Syria and freedom” they chanted, instead of the officially sanctioned slogan “Only Allah, Syria and Bashar”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which says the plight of civilians in Homs is worsening by the hour, has failed to secure a pause in the fighting to allow the wounded to be evacuated and desperately needed aid to be delivered.

“We are still in negotiations,” ICRC spokesperson Hicham Hassan said in Geneva. “Every hour, every day, makes a difference.”

The relief agency has been pursuing talks with the Syrian authorities and opposition forces for days to secure access to besieged neighbourhoods such as Baba Amro, where local activists say hundreds of wounded need treatment and thousands of civilians are short of water, food and medical supplies.

Four Western journalists are trapped in Baba Amro, two of them wounded. An American reporter and a French photographer were killed there on February 22.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he hoped the journalists could be rescued soon. “It's very tense, but things are starting to move, it seems,” he told RTL radio.

Russia said its diplomats in Syria were trying to arrange a humanitarian truce in Homs and suggested that Western countries should pressure rebel forces there to co-operate. - Reuters