Nation & World

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council failed Saturday to take action to stop the escalating violence in Syria as Russia and China blocked a resolution backing an Arab League plan that calls for President Bashar Assad to step down. The double-veto outraged the U.S. and European council members who feared it would embolden the Assad government.

The vote came hours after the Syrian military attacked the city of Homs in what opposition leaders described as the bloodiest government assault in the nearly 11-month uprising that many are calling a civil war.

"It's quite clear; this is a license to do more of the same and worse," said Peter Harling, an expert on Syria at the International Crisis Group. "The regime will take it for granted that it can escalate further."

The Security Council voted 13-2 in favor of a resolution backing an Arab League peace plan for Syria, but the measure was blocked by Russia and China, which opposed what they saw as a violation of Syria's sovereignty.

Predictions were grim about what lay ahead in a conflict that the United Nations says had killed more than 5,000 people as of December. To many, two inexorable forces were at work: a government bent on crushing the uprising by force and an opposition that appears to be radicalizing and growing in determination.

After the vote, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States was "disgusted" by the vetoes, accusing Russia and China of aiming to "sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant." She said their "intransigence is even more shameful" because Russia continues to supply weapons to Syria.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused fellow council members of being inflexible, saying proposed Russian amendments to the resolution had been ignored. Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong joined Russia in voting against the resolution for the same reason.

Syrian opposition leaders said more than 200 people were killed in the attack in Homs. While the deaths were impossible to confirm and were denied by Syrian government officials, reports of the bloodshed drew widespread international condemnation. Protests erupted Saturday at Syrian embassies around the world, including in Egypt, Germany, Greece and Kuwait, and Tunisia expelled Syria's ambassador.

The outrage intensified pressure on the Security Council to act. The resolution said the council "fully supported" the Arab League plan, which calls for Assad to cede power to his vice president and a unity government to lead Syria to democratic elections.

In an effort to placate Russia and other skeptics, Arab and Western ambassadors had dropped specific references in the resolution to Assad's ceding power and calls for a voluntary arms embargo and sanctions, and added language barring outside military intervention.

In Munich, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Russia still had two objections to the latest revised resolution: it did not place sufficient blame for the violence on the opposition, and it unrealistically demanded the government withdraw its military back to its barracks.

He told the security conference in Munich that adopting the current resolution would risk "taking sides in a civil war."

There were contradictory reports on the violence from Homs, which has been largely inaccessible to journalists. But videos and reports by opposition activists described a barrage of mortar shells and gunfire that left hundreds more wounded in the city.

The Syrian National Council, which has sought to act as an umbrella group for the opposition, said more than 260 people had been killed. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll was 217. One opposition activist said the Syrian military suffered casualties, too.

The attack began, activists said, after Syrian army defectors attacked two military checkpoints and captured soldiers. The activists said enraged commanders then ordered the assault.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.