At least 45 said killed in Homs massacre

DAMASCUS, Syria, March 11 (UPI) -- At least 45 people were stabbed to death and burned in their homes in Homs, Syria, opponents of the Assad regime said.

A spokesman for the Syrian Revolution General Council, Hadi Abdallah, told CNN 47 victims were stabbed to death and burned in their homes by "Syrian forces and thugs." The victims were reported to be women and children.

Citing the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria, CNN reported the massacre was "orchestrated" by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

CNN said it could not confirm the reports because the regime is restricting news coverage in Syria.

The report followed word that 15 other victims had been killed in violence in Syria Sunday -- one day after former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met in Damascus with Assad and laid out a U.N. proposal to suspend the fighting and allow international relief aid into Syrian communities that have been pounded in the past year by fighting between the army and the government's opponents.

Annan proposed releasing prisoners and initiating political reforms intended to loosen Assad's grip on power, the United Nations said in a written statement.

CNN said opposition representatives told them Sunday violence across the country had left at least 15 dead. Clashes took place in Homs, suburban Damascus and other cities, and at least three government soldiers were among the casualties.

A peace plan was floated this weekend in Cairo where the Arab League and the foreign minister from Russia, a top Syrian ally, met to discuss a way out of the crisis. The plan they came up with basically calls for both sides to stop fighting while barring foreign intervention.

The proposal emerged from high-level meetings between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Arab League counterparts. The Voice of Russia said it differed from a U.N. proposal that was vetoed by Moscow in that it applies to both sides rather than only the Assad military.

"We should agree on a common approach to solve the Syrian crisis on condition of not funding or arming the opposition," Lavrov said.

Syria's official SANA news agency Sunday said the plan was not warmly received by some Arab League ministers. SANA said Qatar and Saudi Arabia in particular were refusing to accept the idea that the opposition movement in Syria had been "hijacked" by al-Qaida and were instead pushing for foreign intervention.

"The Arab ministers invoked an array of lies on the situation in Syria that went as far as denying that armed groups exist, based on the fabrications of their TV channels," SANA said in its dispatch from the meeting.