As Syrian Violence Goes On, Russia Warns of Civil War - East Idaho News
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As Syrian Violence Goes On, Russia Warns of Civil War

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GETTY W 061112 SyriaTank?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1339403781034JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images(DAMASCUS, Syria) — The besieged Syrian city of Homs was bombarded by heavy government artillery on Sunday, just a day after an activist group charged President Bashar al-Assad’s forces with killing nearly 100 people across the country.

Despite calls by the international community to stop the violence, government forces seem to have actually intensified the onslaught against rebels and civilians that has resulted in an estimated 13,000 deaths over the past 15 months.

The situation in Syria has become so dire that even Russia, a close ally of Damascus, is warning that things are getting worse.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that a threat of “civil war” makes it incumbent on the rest of the world to put pressure on al-Assad and his enemies to end the fighting.

However, Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis said Syria is already in the midst of a civil war that “began with the first massacre, and has intensified with the second.”

Karasik was referring to the slaughter of more than 108 people in the city of Houla last month and last week’s deaths of 78 people in the village of Qubair.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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