Syrian forces continue offensive after Hama explosion

French foreign minister Alain Juppe The Arab League held an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the crisis in Syria. The opposition Syrian National Council also called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting as it accused regime forces of killing more than 100 people in the central city of Hama in recent days.
"We are calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council so that it can issue a resolution to protect civilians in Syria," the exile group said in a statement.
Up to 70 people have been killed in an attack on a house in Hama, according to Syrian activists.
Several houses in the Masha at-Tayyar district in southern Hama were destroyed by a big explosion.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC) activist network said more than 70 deaths were detected in the city including women and at least 16 children, while the remaining victims were located in the outskirts of Damascus, Homs, Idlib, Daraa, Aleppo and Deir Al-Zour.
Opposition activists, who have been trying for over a year to topple President Bashar al-Assad, said that government forces have been shelling Douma with mortar bombs for a week.
On Thursday, the revolution council reported that at least seven were killed by Syrian security forces in Deir al-Zour.
“Aircraft and artillery have shelled the Muhsin area in the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zour”, the council said.
Two people were also killed in the town of Maree, near the northern city of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Loud blasts and heavy gunfire were reported in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus, said the British-based watchdog said, adding regime troops carried out raids between Harasta and Barzeh, a district of the capital.
Activists reported clashes in other regions as well, including the southern province of Deraa, cradle of the uprising against Assad’s rule, in northwestern Idlib province and in central Homs.
Wednesday's deaths came as a bloody violation of a shaky ceasefire between rebel groups and government in the country.
Hama, a hotbed of revolt in the year-long uprising against Assad's rule, has a small team of United Nations observers, who are preparing the way for a larger UN mission which will monitor the peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan two weeks ago.
There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities who say they are committed to international peace envoy Kofi Annan's April 12 ceasefire agreement, but reserve the right to respond to what they say are continued attacks by "terrorist groups".
Hama is a particularly sensitive site for the opposition. Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, crushed an armed uprising in Hama 30 years ago, killing many thousands of people and flattening parts of Hama's old city.They said the blast was caused by government shelling or even a Scud missile attack.
State television showed pictures of injured children in hospital and says that a group using the house to make bombs detonated them accidentally.
The reports cannot be independently verified owing to government restrictions on foreign media.
A Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteer was shot dead and three others were wounded in the town of Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.
“We are saddened and extremely shocked by the death of Mohammed al-Khadraa,” Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Attar, the president of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, said in a statement. “This is the third fatal incident involving the Red Crescent in less than eight months.”
Khadraa was shot and killed on Tuesday in a vehicle clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem, the statement said.
On Thursday, Syria’s state news agency said an armed terrorist group killed Khadraa when it opened fire on a Red Crescent ambulance, but did not give details on the group.
Meanwhile, the French foreign minister has said the UN Security Council should consider military action in Syria if an international peace plan fails to stop the violence.
Alain Juppe also demanded that 300 UN observers authorised to go to Syria be deployed within 15 days. He said Paris would consider peace envoy Kofi Annan's scheduled report on May 5 as a deadline for Damascus to comply with the plan.
"We think this mediation should be given a chance, on the condition that the deployment of the observer mission happens quickly,'' Juppe said after a meeting with Syrian dissidents at his ministry.
Juppe said that Annan's report on May 5 on the state of the UN-backed ceasefire will be "a moment of truth: Either this mediation is working, or it isn't''.
Juppe said France has been discussing with other world powers the prospect of invoking Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows for action that could be militarily enforceable.