Fresh blasts is Syria cause more death

The Syrian government and opposition have blamed each other for the two bombs which targeted security compounds in the country's second city, Aleppo.

State television said at least 28 people were killed, including civilians and members of the security forces.

Mangled, bloodied bodies as well as severed limbs lay on the pavement outside the targeted buildings, as shown in live footage on Syrian television, which consistently portrays the revolt against Assad as the work of foreign-backed "terrorists."

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks in Syria's second city, as officials put the total death toll in the two blasts at 28. But they came as Assad's forces grow more ferocious in operations to stamp out the popular uprising.

On another front, army tanks massed outside opposition neighborhoods in the western city Homs on Friday morning after a week of bombardments that have killed dozens of civilians and drawn condemnation from world leaders.

Activists in Homs said shelling resumed sporadically in the morning and they feared a big push was imminent to storm residential areas of the city that has come to symbolize the plight of the anti-Assad movement.

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) said it had clashed with security forces in the area but that the government was behind the explosions.

Also on Friday, US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford posted a note on the US Embassy in Damascus's Facebook page condemning "the use of heavy weaponry... against residential neighborhoods" in Homs, calling it "a new low for the Assad regime".

Private American satellite image provider DigitalGlobe Inc has released photos that it says show Syrian army activity on Friday in the city of Homs, which has been under heavy bombardment from government forces for days.

The Aleppo blasts contrasted with the carnage in Homs that has gripped world attention in recent days and played into the government narrative that it is only defending the state against violent foes.

In a live television report, a correspondent lifted blankets and plastic sheets which had been laid over corpses on the pavement to show a body with its head blown off. Other bloodied human remains included a limbless torso and a severed foot.

In besieged Homs, activists said shelling began again in the morning. Outgunned rebels loosely grouped under the Free Syrian Army were preparing to counter an onslaught.

Artillery barrages had been directed at Baba Amro, Inshaat, Khalidiya and other districts of the city where rebels have been lying low while mounting hit-and-run guerrilla attacks on the rear of Assad's troops.

Witnesses said makeshift hospitals in Homs were overflowing in the besieged areas with the dead and wounded from nearly a week of government bombardments and sniper fire.

Medical supplies and food were running out and, in the streets, some of the wounded had bled to death as it was too dangerous for rescuers to bring them to safety.

The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group in Homs, put the death toll on Thursday alone as high as 110 by nightfall, though it remains impossible to verify such accounts.

The unrelenting bloodshed only highlighted the difficulties that Western and Arab powers faced in trying to resolve the crisis in a country which has a key place in the strategic balance in the volatile Middle East.

Bolstered by Russian support, Assad has ignored appeals from the United States, Turkey, Europeans, fellow Arabs and other governments to halt the repression and to step down.

Foreign ministers of the Arab League, which suspended a monitoring mission in Syria last month because of the violence, will discuss a proposal to send a joint U.N.-Arab mission to Syria when they meet in Cairo on Sunday, a League official said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief added her voice to international calls for Russia, Syria's strongest ally, to support a United Nations resolution demanding Assad halt the crackdown. But Russia, with a recent history of sending tanks into its own rebel cities, has said no one should interfere in the country's affairs.

"My message to my Russian colleagues is that they too need to recognize the reality of the situation on the ground and we can't go on simply allowing this to happen," the EU's Catherine Ashton said.

But having ruled out intervening military, as NATO did decisively in Libya nearly a year ago, the foreign powers arrayed against Assad have few good cards to play.

Many analyst believe that although the uprising has evolved from peaceful street demonstrations into an armed insurgency, Assad can count on a powerful military and a certain degree of popular support to survive for several months before he might join the list of deposed Arab leaders like Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. The fragmented leadership of the revolt also poses problems for those who would support it.