Syrian security forces have renewed their assaults on the central cities of Homs and Hama, while anti-government forces are said to have killed soldiers in Idlib and a senior military official in Damascus, activists, rights groups and the state news agency report. 
 
 Opposition neighbourhoods in Homs were hit by tank and rocket bombardments on Saturday in the government's continuing crackdown on protesters there, with the city's Bab Amr area coming under concerted fire. 
 
 Activists said that the neighbourhood came under a renewed assault late on Saturday night, ahead of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers due to discuss setting up a joint observer mission with the United Nations. 
 
 Ministers from the Arab League, which suspended Syria in response to the crackdown, meet in Cairo on Sunday to discuss forming a joint UN-Arab monitoring team in place of an observer mission that was suspended last month. 
 
 An official source at the League said another proposal called for the appointment of a UN-Arab League envoy to deal with Syria, adding that some states may also propose the Arab League formally recognise the opposition Syrian National Council. 
 
 Rights groups say at least four people were killed during Saturday's violence in Homs, and that three bodies of people who had been killed earlier were also recovered. 
 
 Security forces have also made house-to-house raids over the last two days in Homs, which has been under siege for the last week, anti-government activists have said. 
 
 They say at least 300 people have been killed there since the government's latest assault began on February 4. 
 
 In Hama, the Syrian Revolutionary General Commission (SRGC), a rights group that has organised protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, says that the army is continuing to maintain a heavy presence. The group said troops raided the city's al-Sharia neighbourhood and that heavy gunfire and mass arrests were reported from there and at least three other districts. 
 
 Reports of violence between security forces and anti-Assad forces were also reported from Zabadani and Douma, which is just outside the capital Damascus. 
 
 The SRGC said that at least 46 people were killed in Saturday's violence: 20 in Homs, 11 in Deraa, 11 outside Damascus, three in Idlib and one in Hama. 
 
 Counter claims 
 
 
 
 Elsewhere, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an UK-based rights group, reported that 10 soldiers were killed in an ambush by army defectors on Friday in the Idlib area, near the Turkish border. The defectors hit a patrol between two villages with hand grenades and roadside bombs, the SOHR said. 
 
 Army defectors also fought government troops for hours overnight in the al-Qaboun neighbourhood of Damascus. 
 
 
 
 Also in Damascus, state media reported that anti-government forces had killed a senior Syrian military doctor outside his home. 
 
 The SANA news agency reported that "an armed terrorist group" had killed Brigadier-General Issa al-Khouli, who it described as a doctor and hospital director, in the Rukneddine district of the Syrian capital on Saturday. 
 
 The Revolution Leadership Council, an anti-Assad group in Damascus, alleged that the government had carried out the killing itself. 
 
 Aleppo attacks 
 
 Meanwhile, the armed opposition has denied claims from the government that it carried out bomb attacks in the northern city of Aleppo that left dozens of people dead on Friday. 
 
 Speaking to Al Jazeera, Arif al-Hummoud, a commander of the Free Syrian Army, a name used by various armed groups, said that opposition fighters had carried out an attack on Friday morning but were not responsible for the blasts. 
 
 "A group from the Free Syrian Army attacked a branch of the military security and a security unit in Aleppo with only [rocket-propelled grenades] and light weapons," he said. 
 
 Syrian state television quoted the health ministry as saying that 28 people were killed and more than 200 others wounded, including soldiers and civilians, in the attack and said it was carried out by "armed terrorist groups". 
 
 Abdul Rahman Abu Hothyfa, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union, told Al Jazeera that it was "absolutely the regime" that carried out the attack. 
 
 Security forces opened fire on the protesters in several Aleppo neighbourhoods after Friday prayers, killing at least six people, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, an umbrella organisation of anti-Assad activists. 
 
 The activist network said 12 people were killed in the province and at least 23 more in other parts of the country on Friday. 
 
 In addition to the victims of the attacks in Aleppo, the observatory said another 44 people were killed across Syria on Friday, including 28 civilians, nine soldiers and seven deserters. 
 
 Security forces deployed heavily outside mosques nationwide, firing on worshipers in some areas to prevent protests denouncing Russia's steadfast support for the Assad regime, activists said. 
 
 An activist in Homs giving her name as Salam al-Homsi said it was getting more difficult to save those injured. 
 
 "We can't even get them out of the rubble because the snipers won't let people help the wounded," she said. "There are no medical supplies and people are dying in the field hospitals. It's getting worse and worse." 
 
 'Destruction of Homs' 
 
 Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reports from Tripoli where supporters and opponents of Assad are trading gunfire. 
 
 Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria, has posted declassified photographs on his Facebook site that Washington said shows soldiers attacking a civilian area of Homs. 
 
 State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the "declassified US national imagery" shows the destruction of Homs. 
 
 Nuland said Ford, who left Damascus when the US embassy was closed for security reasons on Monday, would continue to use Facebook to "talk to the Syrian people on a regular basis, along with his Twitter feed". 
 
 The photographs also apparently show sophisticated military hardware, including tanks, mortars and artillery targeting civilian areas. ||||| Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus on Saturday in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the state-run news agency said. 
 
 In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian rescue workers remove wreckage from the Syrian military intelligence building at a security compound which was attacked by an explosion,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this picture taken on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, anti-Syrian regime protesters burn a Russian flag and a portrait of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Khaldiyeh neighborhood in Homs province,... (Associated Press) 
 
 CORRECTS LOCATION - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a damaged bus is seen at a Syrian police headquarters building which was attacked by an explosion, in the northern city... (Associated Press) 
 
 This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, purports to show a wounded man comforted in a hospital in Homs, Syria. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via APTN)... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken on a government-organized tour for the media, destroyed Syrian armored vehicles and police riot gear are seen inside a damaged Syrian police headquarters compound which was attacked... (Associated Press) 
 
 ADDS DETAIL ABOUT BUILDING - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Syrian military intelligence building is seen damaged after was attacked by an explosion, in the northern... (Associated Press) 
 
 ADDS DETAIL ABOUT THE BUILDING - In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian security forces gather in front of a damaged Syrian military intelligence building at a security... (Associated Press) 
 
 This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, purports to show a dead body in Homs, Syria. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via APTN) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, destroyed armored vehicles are seen inside a Syrian security compound which was attacked by an explosion, in the northern city of Aleppo,... (Associated Press) 
 
 The attack is a sign that violence in Syria is reaching the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities. Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility, it could also indicate that rebel soldiers who have risen up in numerous cities and towns are trying to step up action in Damascus. 
 
 SANA news agency said three gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital. 
 
 Such assassinations are not uncommon outside Damascus and army officers have been killed in the past, mostly in the restive provinces of Homs and Idlib. 
 
 Violence in other parts of the country left at least 11 people dead as regime troops pushed into rebel-held neighborhoods in the restive central city of Homs and shelled the mountain town of Zabadani, north of Damascus. 
 
 The U.N. estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March. But that figure is from January, when the U.N. stopped counting because the chaos in the country has made it all but impossible to check the figures. Hundreds are reported to have been killed since. 
 
 The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime. The Syrian government says more than 2,000 soldiers and police officers have been killed by terrorists since March. 
 
 Syria's turmoil began with peaceful protests against Assad's rule, sparking the fierce regime crackdown. But it has since grown more militarized as army defectors and armed protesters formed a group known as the Free Syrian Army. The FSA has carried out attacks on the military and sought to secure control of opposition-dominated areas, as well as defend against regime assault. 
 
 After Russia and China last weekend vetoed a Western and Arab attempt at the U.N. to pressure Assad to step down, the FSA's commander said there was no choice now but armed force to oust the president. Western and Arab countries are considering forming a coalition to help Syria's opposition, though so far there is no sign they intend to give direct aid to the FSA. 
 
 The president of Iran, one of Assad's top allies, warned Arab countries on Saturday not to give aid to the opposition. 
 
 Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters in Tehran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad said countries in the region that have never held free elections are trying to write a "prescription for freedom and elections for others" with the help of the United States. 
 
 "This is a very bitter and the most ridiculous joke of history," Ahmadinejad said. 
 
 For the past week, Syrian forces have been bombarding rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs, aiming to regain control of one of the main cities involved in the uprising. Activists say more than 400 people have been killed in the campaign. 
 
 On Saturday, Syrian troops shelled the Baba Amr district in Homs, killing at least four people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees said 15 people were killed in Baba Amr on Saturday. 
 
 Troops and rebel soldiers battled in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, said Mohammed Doumany, an activist there. The Observatory said troops stormed the Grand Mosque in Douma and detained a number of people who were inside. 
 
 The Observatory also reported a rare clash between troops and defectors late Friday in the northern Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun but had no details. It said troops shot dead an activist in the area. 
 
 The group also said three people were killed Saturday in the rebel-held mountain town of Zabadani near the Lebanon border when troops shelled it, and reported another three killed in the southern province of Daraa when troops conducted a sweep in the village of Msaifra. 
 
 The violence came a day after two suicide car bombers struck security compounds in the northern city of Aleppo, killing 28 people. The blasts were the first significant violence in an industrial center that has largely stood by Assad during the 11-month uprising against his rule. 
 
 Anti-Assad activists denied any involvement and accused the regime of setting off Friday's blasts to smear the opposition. State media touted the bombings as proof the regime faces a campaign by terrorists. 
 
 In neighboring Turkey, Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said late Friday that five Turks, including a former intelligence officer, were being questioned for allegedly kidnapping and handing over to Damascus a Syrian army officer, who had sought refuge in Turkey. 
 
 Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush was one of the first officers to defect after the uprising began. Harmoush, of the so-called Free Officers Movement, put out videos urging the army to stand by the people instead of the regime and saying he had been ordered by his commanders to fire on protesters. 
 
 After his return to Syria, state TV aired an interview with him in September in which he retracted his earlier comments. His fate since is unknown. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
– Here's yet another milestone that doesn't bode well for Syria: Gunmen killed a Syrian general as he left his home in the capital of Damascus today, reports AP. The attack on Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli marks the first time a high-ranking military official has been killed in Damascus, a sign that the violence that has plagued cities such as Homs might be headed there. In fact, fighting was reported today near the capital in Zabadani and Douma, reports al-Jazeera, in addition to heavy clashes and house-to-house raids in Homs and Hama. Click to read how some US officials agree with Bashar al-Assad that al-Qaeda is playing a role in the violence.