U.N. considers call for Assad to step down

DAMASCUS, Syria, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Syrian government troops reclaimed two central squares in Damascus suburbs Monday and the United Nations considered a call for President Bashar Assad to resign.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to take up a draft resolution this week calling on Assad to step down and transfer power, CNN reported.

Security forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad killed at least 100 people across the county Monday, the Local Coordination Committees reported. The organization, which helps coordinate protests against the Assad government, said 76 people were killed in Homs.

The activists said about 387 people have been killed since Thursday, National Public Radio reported.

The United Nations estimates at least 5,000 people have been killed in violence the Syrian government blames on insurgents backed by foreign elements.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will join her counterparts from Britain and France at the United Nations Security Council in New York Tuesday to discuss a draft resolution calling for an end to Assad's government in Syria. The BBC reported Russia -- an ally of Assad -- said it would block such a draft because it "leaves open the possibility of intervention" in Syrian internal affairs.That development follows the Arab League's suspension of a mission to monitor whether Assad was abiding by an agreement to end the crackdown against anti-government protesters.

At least 19 people were killed in the Kfar Batna suburb -- 14 of them civilians caught in a crossfire -- after about 2,000 troops, supported by at least 50 tanks and armored vehicles, began a major operation against four suburbs at dawn Sunday about 6 miles east and southeast of the capital, activists said.

Grisly video posted online by opposition activists purported to show civilian corpses littering Kfar Batna's streets.

Mosques became makeshift hospitals and doctors appealed for blood as advancing troops waged a relentless and indiscriminate artillery barrage on four conservative Sunni Muslim suburbs, activists said.

The suburbs are surrounded by the Damascus Ghouta agricultural belt that has provided food to the city since ancient times.

Electricity was cut off in all four suburbs and gasoline stations were empty, activists said.

Across the country, at least 66 people were killed Sunday, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said six soldiers were killed Sunday, not in the suburban onslaught but in a bombing attributed to outside terrorists southwest of Damascus.