Heavy artillery fire has been rocking the Syrian city Homs in what is being described as one of the fiercest assaults on the city in the 11-month uprising. The opposition Syrian National Council says at least 50 people have been killed so far today. Meanwhile, Syrian army deserters have destroyed a military control post in northeastern Syria killing three officers. Nineteen soldiers were captured. The attacks come just days after Russia and China vetoed a United Nations resolution urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to quit. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly criticized Russia and China for vetoing the resolution.

Hillary Clinton: “What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty. Those countries that refused to support the Arab League plan bear full responsibility for protecting the brutal regime in Damascus.”

China defended its veto, saying Western intervention in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq showed the error of forced regime change. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the United Nations should not be taking sides in what has become a civil war.

Sergei Lavrov: “The problem is that the peaceful protesters have our full support, but they are more and more being used by the armed groups who create trouble. And this trouble is acquiring quite dangerous proportions. They attack not only police stations, they attack not only army troops when they move, not only barracks, they attacked state institutions, and they also intimidate people, telling them not to come to work, so that hospitals and shops do not open and a humanitarian crisis is artificially created.”