Syrian forces launch ground assault on rebel city

DAMASCUS: Syrian ground troops launched a ground assault on a rebel-held district of Homs after shelling it for 26 days, said activists, as pressure grew for humanitarian access to besieged protest cities.

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the new international mediator for Syria, said he hoped to be in Damascus "fairly soon" with a "clear" message - that the deadly violence must end and aid agencies must be allowed to work.

A top UN official, political chief B Lynn Pascoe, has said "well over 7,500" people have been killed since President Bashar al-Assad's forces began cracking down on anti-regime protests that erupted in March last year.

A security source told in Damascus on Wednesday that Baba Amr was "under control," after activists said the elite Fourth Armoured Division had taken up positions around the holdout district of Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

But a human rights watchdog and activists in the central city denied that troops had moved into Baba Amr, insisting that clashes were taking place only on its outskirts.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights insisted that rebel forces were "preventing an attempt to storm" Baba Amr. (AFP)