"Nothing frightening" seen in Syria protest hotbed: monitor

Arab League monitors checking if Syria is ending a military crackdown on popular unrest said they saw "nothing frightening" in an initial visit to the protest hotbed of Homs, although a longer investigation would be needed.
Given the brief and limited nature of the monitors' tour on Tuesday, the comment by their chief may alarm opposition activists who fear the mission could end up cloaking Damascus in respectability, whitewashing President Bashar al-Assad's record.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed 15 people across the country Tuesday, six of them in Homs. It said 34 were killed the day before.

"Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening," Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, chief of the monitoring contingent, told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.
"The situation seemed reassuring so far," he said on Wednesday after his team's foray into the city of one million people, the epicenter of anti-Assad upheaval inspired by the fall of several other Arab autocrats in uprisings this year.
"Yesterday was quiet and there were no clashes. We did not see tanks but we did see some armored vehicles. But remember this was only the first day and it will need investigation. We have 20 people who will be there for a long time."
Syria's Addounia television quoted Dabi as saying "Yes...we saw gunmen in the city of Homs." It gave no further details.
Monitors were to pay a second visit to Homs Wednesday and also go for the first time to the city of Hama, another hotspot of unrest, the Idlib region on the northwest border with Turkey where anti-Assad insurgents have battled security forces, and Deraa in the south, the cradle of the nine-month-old revolt.
Activists say about a third of the estimated 5,000 people killed in unrest in Syria since March died in Homs. Dozens have been killed in the past week alone and thousands arrested in the months before the 22-state Arab League was invited in.
Assad says he is fighting an insurgency by armed terrorists who have killed 2,000 soldiers and police.
State television Wednesday flashed news that Syria has freed 755 people detained in the unrest "whose hands were not stained with Syrian blood." Releasing detainees is part of Assad's pact with the Arab League to defuse the crisis.
But there are still 15,000 Syrians in detention, according to Amnesty International.
Dabi led the first group of monitors to Homs escorted by Syrian authorities. They were shown destruction in the district of Baba Amr, where tanks fired into residential areas the day before, according to amateur video recorded by activists.
Video reports, which cannot be independently verified, have shown parts of Homs looking like a war zone. Constant machinegun and sniper fire is audible and corpses are mangled by blasts.
International journalists are mostly barred from Syria, making it difficult to confirm accounts from conflict zones.
HOMS RESIDENTS UNIMPRESSED WITH MONITORS
Homs residents were dissatisfied with the monitors' visit.
"I felt they didn't really acknowledge what they'd seen--maybe they had orders not to show sympathy. But they didn't seem enthusiastic about hearing people tell their stories," said Baba Amr resident and activist Omar.
"We felt like we were shouting into a void. We placed our hopes in the entire Arab League. But these monitors don't seem to understand how the regime works, they don't seem interested in the suffering and death people have faced."
Activists said they showed monitors buildings riddled with bullets and mortar rounds and pointed out what they said were tanks but only had two hours to give them a tour. Dabi said his team did not see tanks but they did see some armored vehicles.
The monitors represent the first international intervention on the ground in Syria since the revolt began. Protesters hope what they report will nudge the world into action against Assad.
But the very choice of the Sudanese general to head the League mission has dismayed activists, who note Sudan's own defiance of a war crimes tribunal over the Darfur conflict.
The Arab League says Dabi has military and diplomatic expertise needed to lead its unprecedented intervention in the internal crisis of a member state.
But international human rights activists critical of Sudan's government say it is all but impossible to imagine a Sudanese general involved in Darfur ever recommending intervention to halt human rights abuses in a fellow Arab country.
WASHINGTON WEIGHS IN
The State Department condemned an escalation of violence in Homs before the monitors' deployment.
"We have seen horrific pictures of indiscriminate fire, including by heavy tank guns, and heard reports of dozens of deaths, thousands of arrests, as well as beatings of peaceful protesters," spokesman Mark Toner said.
If monitors were impeded "the international community will consider other means," Toner said.
Russia also urged that the monitors be given unfettered access to people and places worst affected by Assad's crackdown.
Emboldened by the observers' first visit, about 70,000 Homs protesters marched toward the city center Tuesday, where security forces fired shots and teargas at them, activists said.
The army pulled some tanks out before the monitors arrived, in what the activists called a ploy to show the city was calm.
"We want international protection!" residents shouted at the monitors in a video posted on YouTube.
Armed insurgency seems to be overtaking peaceful protest. Many fear full-blown fighting between Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, driving the protest movement, and minorities loyal to the government, particularly Assad's Alawite sect.
Western powers have shown no desire to intervene militarily in a volatile region of Middle East conflict. The U.N. Security Council is split, with Russia and China against interference.
Assad's opponents appear split on aims and tactics. He has strong support in major areas, including Damascus and the second city Aleppo, and maintains an anti-Israel alliance with Iran.

Iran navy chief says closing Gulf "really easy"

Closing off the Gulf to oil tankers will be "easier than drinking a glass of water" for Iran if the Islamic state deems it necessary, state television reported on Wednesday, ratcheting up fears over the world's most important oil chokepoint.
"Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water," Iran's navy chief Habibollah Sayyari told Iran's English language Press TV.
"But right now, we don't need to shut it as we have the Sea of Oman under control and we can control the transit," said Sayyari, who is leading 10 days of exercises in the Strait.

Tension has increased between Iran and the West after EU foreign ministers decided three weeks ago to tighten sanctions on the world's No. 5 crude exporter over what the U.N. nuclear watchdog says is an attempt to design an atomic bomb, but left open the idea of an embargo on Iranian oil.
Iran, which says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, warned on Tuesday it would stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports.
The announcement over the possible closure of the only access channel for eight U.S.-aligned, Gulf Arab states to foreign markets, pushed up international oil prices on Tuesday although they slipped back on Wednesday in thin trade and as the market dismissed it as rhetoric.
"The threat by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz supported the oil market yesterday, but the effect is fading today as it will probably be empty threats as they cannot stop the flow for a longer period due to the amount of U.S. hardware in the area," said Thorbjoern bak Jensen, an oil analyst with Global Risk Management.
"WILL NOT YIELD"
The Strait of Hormuz is "the world's most important oil chokepoint," according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The State Department said there was an "element of bluster" in the threat, but underscored that the United States, whose warships patrol in the area, would support the free flow of oil.
France urged Iran on Wednesday to adhere to international law that allows all ships freedom of transit in the Strait.
It was not immediately clear what Sayyari meant by controlling the Sea of Oman, but the Iranian navy has been developing its presence in international waters since 2010 for counter-piracy operations and also to show off its naval power.
Iran's international isolation over its defiant nuclear stance is hurting the country's oil-dependent economy, but Iranian officials has shown no sign of willingness to compromise.
Iran dismisses the impact of these penalties, saying trade and other measures imposed since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the U.S.-backed shah have made the country stronger.
During a public speech in Iran's western province of Ilam on Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implied Tehran had no intention of changing course.
"We will not yield to pressure to abandon our rights ... The Iranian nation will not withdraw from its right (to nuclear technology) even one iota because of the pressures," said Ahmadinejad, whose firm nuclear stance has stoked many ordinary Iranians' sense of national dignity.
Some Iranian oil officials admitted have that foreign sanctions were hurting the key energy sector that was in desperate need of foreign investment.
Though four rounds of the U.N. sanctions do not forbid the purchase of Iranian oil, many international oil firms and trading companies have stopped trading with Iran.
"SHOWING TEETH"
So far, big trade partners of Tehran - Russia and China -have blocked a ban on Iran's oil exports at the United Nations.
Iran's arch-foes Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action if diplomacy and sanctions fail to rein in Iran's nuclear work.
The presence of U.S. naval forces in the Gulf to secure a free passage for oil has increased concerns over a possible military conflict if Iran tries to block the waterway.
Analysts say Tehran could retaliate against any military strike by launching hit-and-run attacks in the Gulf and by closing the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of all traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic waterway.
An Iranian analyst who declined to be named said the leadership could not reach a compromise with the West over its nuclear activities as it "would harm its prestige among its core supporters."
"Iranian officials are showing their teeth to prevent a military strike," said the analyst.
"Closing off the Strait of Hormuz will harm Iran's economy that will be very dangerous for the establishment ahead of the parliamentary vote."
Iran will hold its parliamentary election in March, the first litmus test of the clerical establishment's popularity since the 2009 disputed presidential vote, that the opposition says was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election.
The vote was followed by eight months of anti-government street protests and created a deepening political rift among the hardline rulers.
With the opposition leaders under house arrest since February and the main reformist political parties banned since the vote, Iranian hardline rulers are concerned a low turnout would question the establishment's legitimacy.
Frustration is simmering among lower- and middle-class Iranians over Ahmadinejad's economic policies. Prices of most consumer goods have risen substantially and many Iranians struggle to make ends meet.

Putin says ready for talks with Russian opposition

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he was ready for dialogue with the opposition after the biggest protest against his 12-year rule at the weekend but added he was at a loss for a leader to hold talks with.
"The dialogue should take place," Putin told reporters. "In what form? I will think about it. They should formulate some kind of shared platform ... Who do we talk to?"
Tens of thousands gathered in central Moscow on Saturday to protest against election results that gave Putin's United Russia party a majority in the lower house of parliament or Duma. International monitors said the vote was marred by violations.

Putin, accused of being out of touch with the growing protest movement, has walked a thin line between questioning the opposition's credibility as a real political force and addressing protesters' concerns in the country of 140 million.
Russia's opposition, marginalized under Putin's tightly controlled political system, have been galvanized by the protests but have failed to unite behind a single leader.
Putin said the demonstrators were made up of a mix of marginalized liberal movements, communists and nationalists, who had so far failed to reach a common set of demands.
"Is there a common platform there? No there isn't," he said. "We need to talk to everybody about their claims, about their problems, but it requires some thinking."
He refused to comment on blogger Alexei Navalny, whose arrest during a protest the day after the December 4 election won him prominence among the opposition. He was released last week.

Snow and tears mark funeral for North Korean leader

The world watched anxiously on Wednesday as North Korea staged a huge funeral in the capital, Pyongyang, for former leader Kim Jong-il, searching for signs of what to expect from the isolated nation that may be close to attaining nuclear weapons capacity.
Bleak pictures from state television showed a funeral cortege led by a limousine carrying a huge picture of the 69-year old, who died on December 17, passing serried ranks of olive green-clad soldiers whose bare heads were bowed in homage in the main square of the snow-covered capital.
A hearse carrying the coffin was led by a weeping Kim Jong-un, the son and heir, accompanied by Jang Song-thaek, his uncle and a key power-broker in the transition, and Ri Yong-ho, the army chief of staff.

"Seeing this white snow fall has made me think of the general's efforts and this brings tears to my eyes," Seo Ju-rim, a red-cheeked, weeping female soldier, told North Korean television, referring to Kim.
One of the myths surrounding Kim Jong-il was that he could control the weather and state media has reported unusually cold and wild weather accompanying his death.
Video showed weeping civilians who swayed with grief and shouted "father, father" as black Lincoln and Mercedes limousines and army trucks streamed past the crowds. It was not clear whether the pictures were live or recorded.
"I wished it was a dream, how can this be true," sobbed one middle-aged woman named Kim. "How can anything like this ever happen in the world?"
Kim Jong-un will become the third member of the family to run the unpredictable North Asian country as it enters 2012, the year that was supposed to mark its self-proclaimed transformation into a "strong and prosperous" nation.
Larry Niksch, who has tracked North Korea for the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Research Service for 43 years, believes it could take as little as one to two years to have a working nuclear missile once the North produced enough highly enriched uranium for the warhead's core fuel.
The prospect of an untested leader, believed to be in his late 20s, having nuclear capacity has alarmed many.
"Yes, we are watching and will be analyzing how any changes can be reflected in our policy," a South Korean government official said. He was not authorized to speak to the media, so could not be identified.
UNCLE JANG, POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
State television showed Jang Song-thaek walking directly behind Kim Jong-un alongside the limousine carrying the coffin. Jang ranks a lowly 19th in the list of names on the state funeral committee but his public elevation confirms that he will play a key role in shaping policies.
An ascetic-looking, bespectacled 65-year-old, Jang has overcome a purge, bitter palace intrigue and personal tragedy to become vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, the supreme leadership council which Kim Jong-il led as head of the military state.
"Kim Jong-un is clearly the head of the new leadership but, in terms of hierarchy and influence, Jang appears to have secured considerable position," said Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in the south.
Strong it may be -- North Korea is backed by neighboring China, has conducted two nuclear tests and has a 1.2 million-strong armed forces -- but prosperous it is not.
On average, the 25 million North Koreans have a life expectancy three-and-a-half years lower than they did when "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung, the new leader's grandfather, died in 1994, according to U.N. data.
The United Nations, in a country program for 2011-15, says North Korea's main challenge is to "restore the economy to the level attained before 1990" and to alleviate food shortages for a third of its 25 million population.
Indications from the transition since Kim Jong-il's death suggest his "military first" policy will continue, leading to further hardship in a country that endured mass starvation in the 1990s.
Leverage from outside, with the exception of China, is limited. All the United States, South Korea and Japan can do is hope that the regime does not collapse, nor flex its military muscle as it did in 2010, when it shelled a South Korean island.
North Korea was established in 1948 and under its founding father, Kim Il-sung, went to war to try to conquer the South. It failed and in 1953 a dividing line that would become the world's most militarized frontier was drawn across the peninsula.
PROSPECTS OF A PURGE
While Kim Il-sung was revered by his people for fighting Japanese colonial rule, the halo surrounding his successors has steadily dimmed to such an extent that his grandson, the new ruler, will have to rely on people such as his uncle, Jang, to hold on to power, at least in the short term.
Official media in the North have built Kim Jong-un, a jowly and rotund man in his late 20s, into a leader worthy of inheriting the crown, naming him "respected general," "great successor," "outstanding leader" and "supreme commander."
This year, dissident groups based in South Korea, citing North Korean refugees and businessmen working in China, linked the youngest Kim to a crackdown on business activities and a tougher policy on people seeking to flee from North Korea.
Those reports could not be verified independently, but would again suggest that further repression is more likely than an economic opening under the new man.
It also gives little hope for the 200,000 North Koreans who human rights group Amnesty international says are enslaved in labor camps, subjected to torture and hunger or execution.
"There is likely to be a politically motivated purge and imprisonment, and it could go on for a considerable period of time," said Pak Sang-hak, who heads a group in Seoul working to support defectors, and is himself a defector.
"That is especially because of the relative instability of Kim Jong-un's leadership. There might also be persecution as a way of intimidation and discipline."

Obama taps economist, banker as Fed governors

President Barack Obama will nominate Harvard economist Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell, an investment banker and former Treasury official, to the two empty seats on the Federal Reserve's policy-setting board of governors.
The White House's pick of candidates, who have Democratic and Republican credentials respectively, may help speed their nomination through Congress amid a sluggish economic recovery that has failed to put a major dent in the unemployment rate, now at 8.6 percent.
While neither has laid out detailed views on monetary policy, Stein wrote a paper earlier this year suggesting he would back the Fed's
unconventional efforts to keep down long-term borrowing costs, which have been controversial in Washington. The Fed for over three years has adopted an array of radical measures to keep interest rates low and spur recovery.
Stein, who previously worked for the Obama administration as an adviser to the Treasury secretary and a National Economic Council staff member, specializes in stock price behavior, corporate investment and financing decisions, risk management and capital allocation inside firms. He declined to comment on his nomination.
The choice of Powell, who served at the Treasury during President George H. W. Bush's term in the late 1980s and early 1990s, could be aimed at mollifying Senate Republicans. They blocked Peter Diamond, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, saying the Nobel prize winner was not qualified for the job and was too sympathetic to government intervention in the economy.
Powell is a lawyer by training and worked at Dillon, Read and Bankers Trust Co. after leaving the senior Bush administration and before joining Carlyle Group. His knowledge of financial markets could help him fill the gap left by Kevin Warsh, a former Morgan Stanley executive who acted as Chairman Ben Bernanke's point-man for crisis negotiations.
FULL BOARD
However, Powell's financial industry background may also be a source of criticism from analysts who already see the U.S. central bank as being too cozy with Wall Street.
Powell is currently a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, focused on federal and state fiscal issues. He was not immediately available to comment. Both Stein and Powell had already been flagged in various press reports as likely nominees.
In response to a deep recession and financial crisis, the Fed slashed interest rates to near zero and sharply expanded its balance sheet to $2.8 trillion to keep the economy afloat. Some analysts worry the Fed's asset purchases could make it harder for the central bank to tighten monetary policy when it decides the time is right.
If Powell and Stein are confirmed, it would be the first time since April 2006 that all seven seats on the Fed's board are filled. The term currently filled by Elizabeth Duke, the last remaining George W. Bush appointee on the board, is to expire at the end of January, though governors can choose to stay in office until a successor is confirmed.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, a Democrat, welcomed the most recent nominations.
"With the fragile state of the U.S. economy and a looming European debt crisis, Chairman Johnson believes it is imperative that our financial regulators operate at full strength," his office said in a statement. "Chairman Johnson is committed to moving these nominations though the Banking Committee in a timely manner and is looking to schedule a hearing soon."

Mass anti-Assad protest in Homs as monitors visit

Tens of thousands of Syrians in Homs rallied on Tuesday against President Bashar al-Assad, emboldened by Arab peace monitors' first tour of the flashpoint city, after the army withdrew some tanks following days of unrest.
Some 70,000 protesters marched towards the city centre where security forces fired at them and lobbed teargas, activists said.
The observers want to determine if Assad is keeping his promise to implement a peace plan to end his uncompromising military crackdown on nine months of popular revolt that has generated an armed uprising, edging Syria towards civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed 15 people across the country on Tuesday, six of them in Homs. An activist network said 34 had been killed on Monday.
Some protesters shouted "we want international protection" in a video posted on YouTube apparently showing a street encounter with the Arab League observers, in which some residents argued and pleaded with them to venture further into the Baba Amr quarter, where clashes have been especially fierce.
There was the sound of gunfire after a resident yelled at one monitor to repeat what he had just told his headquarters.
"You were telling the head of the mission that you cannot cross to the second street because of the gunfire. Why don't you say it to us?" the man shouted, grabbing the unidentified monitor by his jacket.
Gunshots crackled nearby as two monitors and two men wearing orange vests stood amid a crowd of residents, one begging the team to "come and see; they are slaughtering us, I swear."
Damascus has barred most foreign journalists from the country, making it hard to check events on the ground.
The head of mission said the first visit was "very good."
"I am returning to Damascus for meetings and I will return tomorrow to Homs," Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi said. "The team is staying in Homs. Today was very good and all sides were responsive."
Activist reports just before the monitors arrived said up to a dozen tanks were seen leaving Baba Amr but others were being hidden to fashion a false impression of relative normality in the city while observers were around.
"My house is on the eastern entrance of Baba Amr. I saw at least six tanks leave the neighborhood at around 8 in the morning (0600 GMT)," Mohamed Saleh told Reuters by telephone. "I do not know if more remain in the area."
Al Jazeera television showed an estimated 20,000 Syrians in a square in Khalidiya, one of four districts where there has been bloodshed as rebels fight security forces using tanks.
They were whistling and shouting and waving flags, playing music over loudspeakers and clapping. Women were advised to leave because of the risk of bloodshed. But a speaker urged the men to "come down, brothers."
The protesters shouted "We have no one but God" and "Down with the regime." An activist named Tamir told Reuters they planned to hold a sit-in in the square.
"We tried to start a march down to the main market but the organizers told us to stop, it's too dangerous. No one dares go down to the main streets. So we will stay in Khalidiya and we will stay here in the square and we will not leave from here."
ASSAD ISOLATED
The autocratic Assad is internationally isolated. Western powers and his neighbors Turkey and Jordan have called on him to step down, which would end a 41-year-old family dynasty.
He says he is fighting Islamist terrorism steered from abroad and has defied calls to make way for a reformist succession as has transpired in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia after popular uprisings toppled dictators this year.
Armed insurgency is eclipsing civilian protest in Syria. Many fear a slide to sectarian war between the Sunni Muslim majority, the driving force of the protest movement, and minorities that have mostly stayed loyal to the government, particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.
Analysts say the Arab League is anxious to avoid civil war. Western powers have shown no desire to intervene militarily in a volatile region of Middle East conflict. The U.N. Security Council is split, with Russia - a major arms supplier to Assad - and China opposed to any hint of military intervention.
Assad's opponents appear divided on aims and tactics. He retains strong support in important areas - including Damascus and the second city Aleppo - of the country, and maintains a critical anti-Israel alliance with Iran.
WAIT AND SEE
Homs protesters appeared to take heart from the monitors' sudden presence. They want to impress on the Arab League mission that it must not let its teams be hoodwinked by the state and be shown places where life looks relatively normal.
As the monitors arrived, tanks were seen leaving the Baba Amr district which activists say was pounded for the past four days. Hundreds have been killed in Homs in the revolt - among the 5,000 the United Nations says have died as a result of violence nationwide since protests began in March.
In Baba Amr on Monday, activist video showed bodies crushed and buildings smashed as if by high explosive weapons. The images were impossible to verify.
"We do not want to jump to conclusions and say that this delegation is not objective or did not look for the truth," said Moulhem Droubi, top ranking Muslim Brotherhood member on the Syrian National Council, the opposition umbrella group in exile.
"It is not fair yet to judge. Let's wait and see what it will do," he told Reuters by phone from somewhere outside Syria.
"I expect it will be able to write a report with many facts because the facts are so clear. If they go to Baba Amr they will see that there is destruction."
Syria stalled the Arab League for months before accepting the monitoring mission, the first significant international intervention on the ground since the start of the popular revolt inspired by Arab pro-democracy uprisings this year.
The Arab delegation started with 50 monitors who arrived on Monday. About 100 more are to follow soon.
On the border with Turkey, Syrian forces killed "several" men from an "armed terrorist group" trying to cross into Syria, the state news agency SANA said on Tuesday.
The northern border has become the route of choice for infiltration by army defectors fighting to topple Assad since Turkey's government, once a close ally, parted ways with him over the bloody repression of protesters.
SANA also reported that "an armed terrorist group targeted and sabotaged a gas pipeline near Rastan in Homs province" on Tuesday. The pipeline has been attacked several times in recent months and returned to operation each time.

Iran threatens to stop Gulf oil if sanctions widened

Iran threatened on Tuesday to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil.
Western tensions with Iran have increased since a November 8 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors and investigators.
Many diplomats and analysts believe only sanctions targeting Iran's lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran - have blocked such a move at the United Nations.
Iran's warning on Tuesday came three weeks after EU foreign ministers decided to tighten sanctions over the U.N. watchdog report and laid out plans for a possible embargo of oil from the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
"If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.
Rahimi's remarks coincided with a 10-day Iranian naval exercise in the Strait and nearby waters, a show of military force that began on Saturday and coincides with the heightened Western pressure on Tehran.
"Our enemies will give up on their plots against Iran only if we give them a firm and strong lesson," Rahimi said.
JANUARY MEETING
EU ministers said on December 1 that a decision on further sanctions would be taken no later than their January meeting but left open the idea [ID:nL5E7N92VF] of an embargo on Iranian oil.
Countries in the 27-member European Union take 450,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil, about 18 percent of the Islamic Republic's exports, much of which go to China and India. EU officials declined to comment on Tuesday.
About a third of all sea-borne oil was shipped through the Strait of Hormuz in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.
Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq - together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar - must slip through the Strait of Hormuz, a 4-mile wide shipping channel between Oman and Iran.
Iran has also hinted it could hit Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf in response to any military strike on its nuclear installations - a last resort option hinted at by Washington and the Jewish state.
However, some analysts say Iran would think hard about sealing off the Strait since it could suffer just as much economically as Western crude importers, and could kindle war with militarily superior big powers.
"To me, if Iran did that it would be a suicidal act by the regime. Even its friends would be its enemies," said Phil Flynn, analyst at PFG Best Research in Chicago.
SAUDI REPLACEMENT?
Industry sources said on Tuesday No. 1 oil exporter Saudi Arabia and other Gulf OPEC states were ready to replace Iranian oil if further sanctions halt Iranian crude exports to Europe.
Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi had said that Saudi Arabia had promised not to replace Iranian crude if sanctions were imposed.
"No promise was made to Iran, its very unlikely that Saudi Arabia would not fill a demand gap if sanctions are placed," an industry source familiar with the matter said.
Gulf delegates from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said an Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz would harm Tehran as well as the major regional producers that also use the world's most vital oil export channel.
Oil prices spiked on Tuesday, fuelled by fears of supply disruptions and Iranian naval exercises in a crucial oil shipping route, with gains capped by simmering euro zone debt concerns.
Crude oil futures jumped nearly a dollar to over $109 a barrel after the Iranian threat, but a Gulf OPEC delegate said the effect could be temporary. "For now, any move in the oil price is short-term, as I don't see Iran actually going ahead with the threat," the delegate told Reuters.
The industry source said that in the case of EU sanctions, Iran would most likely export more of its crude to Asia, while Gulf states would divert their exports to Europe to fill the gap until the market is balanced again.
A prominent analyst said that if Iran did manage to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the ensuing spike in oil prices could wreck the global economy, so the United States was likely to intervene to foil such a blockade in the first place.
"First, the U.S. will probably not allow Iran to close the Strait. That's a major economic thoroughfare and not just for oil. You shut that Strait and we are talking a major hit on many Middle East economies," said Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks in New York.
"Second, there is no way that the Saudis (alone) have enough oil or quality of oil to replace Iranian crude. Figure Saudi spare capacity is 2 to 4 million at best. Of that spare, about 1-2 million is real oil that is comparable out of Iran. Lose Iran, lose 3.5 million barrels per day of imports. No way."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed hitting Iran with an oil embargo and won support from Britain, but resistance to the idea persists within and outside the European Union.
An import ban might raise global oil prices during hard economic times and debt-strapped Greece has been relying on attractively financed Iranian oil.
Iran's seaborne trade is already suffering from existing trade sanctions, with shipping companies scaling down or pulling out as the Islamic Republic faces more hurdles in transporting its oil.

Insight: FDA warned PIP on breast implant safety in 2000

As early as 2000, U.S. health authorities raised concerns about the French breast implant maker at the heart of a scandal affecting hundreds of thousands of women worldwide. That was almost 10 years before the company came under scrutiny from European regulators.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent an investigator to inspect a plant run by the manufacturer, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), at La Seyne Sur Mer in southeastern France in May 2000. Shortly afterward, the FDA sent the company's founder, Jean-Claude Mas, a warning letter saying the implants were "adulterated" and citing at least 11 deviations from good manufacturing practices.

The problems had to do with PIP's saline implants, a different line from the silicone implants that French authorities ordered off the market in 2010 for using industrial-grade silicone instead of medical-grade silicone, leading to the French company's bankruptcy. Still, the plant inspected by the FDA was used to manufacture the silicone implants for PIP.
The French government last week recommended that women in France who have PIP's silicone gel-filled implants get them removed by their surgeons after the implants appeared to have an unusually high rupture rate. Other countries, including Britain and Brazil, said women should visit their surgeons for checks.
A critical question is why the FDA's warning did not trigger greater scrutiny of PIP's activities by regulators in France and elsewhere.
France's drug and medical device regulator, AFSSAPS, told Reuters on Tuesday that it had not found evidence that the FDA had informed them of the 2000 letter sent to PIP.
"The FDA wouldn't be obliged to send it to us if there wasn't a health risk," said a spokeswoman. "Therefore there doesn't seem to be a reason why we would have been informed."
The FDA warning letter was made public in 2000. The agency said it also routinely exchanges non-public information with foreign regulators with whom it has confidentiality commitments, including France. But the FDA could not immediately comment on whether it had shared information with France in 2000.
POOR HEALTH
No one has been charged in the PIP case.
Sources said a Marseilles court could soon announce fraud charges against four to six ex-PIP employees.
There is also an investigation into involuntary homicide by French authorities, following the death from cancer of a woman last year. She had received PIP implants. The French government has not presented any evidence of an increased cancer risk from the product.
Mas' lawyer Yves Haddad told Reuters on Monday that his 72-year-old client was in poor health but ready to respond to any court summons. Haddad denied that Mas was in hiding, reiterating that he was still in southern France's Var region.
"He's currently in very bad health because he has just undergone a difficult surgery that prevents him from walking," Haddad said. "He is worried by the importance this matter is taking on. He is angry at those who pointlessly add to people's suffering," the lawyer added.
Haddad said on Tuesday he did not have details about the FDA inspection as he had only worked for PIP for four or five years.
The U.S. concerns about PIP's saline implants more than 11 years ago could mean that there are safety issues for more women than the 300,000 worldwide who received the company's silicone implants. The number of women with PIP saline implants worldwide and the safety record of the device could not be immediately verified.
The FDA's letter was cited in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas on behalf of U.S. patients who received the saline implants in the late 1990s, and one who received them as recently as 2001. The plaintiffs said that the implants deflated several years later.
Deflation can be a problem with breast implants. The key issue is whether the incidence suffered by a particular product is higher than health authorities deem to be acceptable.
The FDA's letter is available on the agency's website. Reuters could not ascertain the outcome of the lawsuit, and the lead lawyer, Charles Houssiere, could not be reached for a comment.
The FDA's warning letter, dated June 22, 2000, cited PIP's failure to investigate the deflation of its saline implants and a failure to report more than 120 complaints in France and elsewhere to the FDA. The letter said the plant also did not have a process in place to make sure the implants it produced met design specifications.
NO FORMAL APPROVAL
PIP began selling its saline implants in the United States in September 1996, under a 510(k) accelerated review application that did not require the company to submit clinical trials to show an implant's safety and effectiveness, as long as it was "substantially equivalent" to devices already on the market.
The French company could not sell its silicone-gel implants in the United States at the time because the FDA had prohibited the sale of all such implants from 1992 until 2006 for most women because of safety concerns.
However, for many years, the FDA allowed manufacturers to sell saline implants without formal safety trials, because many were sold before the agency received the authority to regulate medical devices. The agency assumed they were safe unless proven otherwise.
In 2000, due to concerns about possible complications such as infections and rupturing, the agency finally required all implant companies to submit a formal application, known as pre-market approval, to continue selling their products.
PIP was one of three companies that submitted an application, which came under review of a panel of outside advisors to the FDA in March 2000.
At the time, PIP said it had already sold 35,000 of its pre-filled saline implants in the United States, and that it was the third-largest manufacturer of breast implants in the world. It said it only had reports of 521 complaints with its devices, a rate of 1.5 percent.
But the panel recommended that the FDA reject PIP's application. It recommended the implants from the other two companies, Inamed Inc, now part of Allergan Inc and Mentor, now a unit of Johnson & Johnson.
Panelists said at the time they were not reassured by PIP's data, and that the company's clinical trials did not include enough patients that were followed for an adequate time to truly evaluate the device's risks.
"ILL PREPARED"
One panel member, Boyd Burkhardt, a plastic surgeon from Arizona, said the company's data was incomplete, and he found it difficult to understand why the company was "as ill prepared as you appear to be" to meet regulatory standards.
"Like it or not, we have a regulatory threshold which is probably higher or at least different than it is elsewhere in the world, and I think in order to get your product approved, you're just going to have to bite your tongue and meet that threshold," Burkhardt told the company, according to a transcript from the panel's meeting available on the FDA's website.
Asked to comment on the PIP controversy, Burkhardt, in a brief interview, said that he stands by the prior comments he made to the FDA.
It was not immediately clear why after the panel's rejection the FDA then carried out an inspection of the PIP plant in May 2000.
PIP said it stopped selling its saline implants in the United States that same month, according to an SEC filing.

Arab monitors tour Homs, Syrian tanks seen leaving

At least 20,000 people protested in Homs on Tuesday against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as Arab League peace monitors began to tour the flashpoint city and the army withdrew some tanks following battles that killed 34 people.
The observers want to determine if Assad is keeping his promise to implement a peace plan to end his uncompromising crackdown on nine months of revolt that has generated an armed uprising, edging the country towards civil war.
Activist reports just before the monitors arrived said up to a dozen tanks were seen leaving Baba Amr, one of Homs's most embattled neighborhoods, but others were being hidden.

"My house is on the eastern entrance of Baba Amr. I saw at least six tanks leave the neighborhood at around 8 in the morning (0600 GMT)," Mohamed Saleh told Reuters by telephone. "I do not know if more remain in the area."
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, relaying activist reports from its base in Britain, said protesters had gathered in Khalidiya, one of four districts where there has been bloodshed as rebels fight security forces using tanks.
Activists say they want to impress on the Arab League mission that it must not let its teams be hoodwinked by the state and be shown places where life is relatively normal.
As the monitors arrived, tanks were seen leaving the Baba Amr district which activists say was pounded for the past four days. Hundreds have been killed in Homs in the revolt. The United Nations says at least 5,000 have been killed in Syria since protests began in March.
Assad is internationally isolated. Western powers and his neighbors Turkey and Jordan have called on him to step down, ending a 41-year-old family power dynasty. He says he is fighting Islamist terrorism steered from abroad.
On the border with Turkey, Syrian forces killed several men from an "armed terrorist group" trying to cross into Syria, the state news agency SANA said on Tuesday.
The northern border has become the route of choice for infiltration by army defectors fighting to topple Assad.
"Special forces were able to kill and wound several gunmen and seized some weapons, ammunition, army uniforms, communication tools and fake identity cards," SANA said. It did not give a specific casualty count.
SANA also reported that said "an armed terrorist group targeted and sabotaged a gas pipeline near Rastan in Homs province" on Tuesday.
The pipeline has been attacked several times in recent months and has come back into operation after outages each time.
MEETING WITH HOMS GOVERNOR
The monitors started by meeting the governor of Homs, Syria's Dunia television channel said. An Arab League source said they intended to tell him where they wanted to go, based on requests from people in Homs who have witnessed the violence.
Dunia showed no footage of the monitors. Syria has barred most foreign journalists from the country, making it hard to verify reports of events on the ground.
At least 34 people were killed in Homs on Monday as tanks fired at targets among apartment blocks.
Amateur video recorded by activists on Monday and posted on the Internet showed tanks prowling around Baba Amr, firing at unseen targets. Video showed gruesome pictures of mangled bodies in the wreckage of building that bore the signs of shelling.
Assad's opponents fear that the monitors - who arrived in the country on Monday after weeks of negotiations with Arab states - will be used as a cloak of respectability for a government that will hide the extent of violence.
They say tanks have been withdrawn before from restive cities such as Deraa and Hama, only to return later.
Syria stalled the Arab League for months before accepting the monitoring mission, the first significant international intervention on the ground since the start of the popular revolt inspired by Arab pro-democracy uprisings this year.
The Arab mission, led by Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, is starting with 50 monitors who arrived in Damascus on Monday and will be split into five teams of ten. About 100 more monitors are to follow soon.
The teams will use government transport, according to Dabi. But that arrangement likely to fuel charges by the anti-Assad opposition that the monitoring mission will be impeded and hoodwinked from the outset.
Arab League delegates insist the mission will nevertheless maintain the "element of surprise" and be able to go wherever it chooses with no notice.
AVERTING CIVIL WAR
In Baba Amr, activist video showed bodies shattered like rag dolls and buildings smashed as if by heavy weapons. The video images were impossible to verify but hard to fake.
Armed insurgency is eclipsing civilian protest in Syria. Many fear a slide to sectarian war between the Sunni Muslim majority, the driving force of the protest movement, and minorities that have mostly stayed loyal to the government, particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.
Analysts say the Arab League is anxious to avoid civil war. Western powers have shown no desire to intervene militarily in a volatile neighborhood of Middle East conflict, and the United Nations Security Council is split.
Assad's opponents appear divided on aims and tactics. He retains strong support in important areas -- including Damascus and the second city Aleppo -- of the country, and maintains an anti-Israel alliance with Iran.
Fighting in Homs has intensified since a double suicide bombing in Damascus on Friday that killed 44 people.
At least ten army defectors were killed in fighting with security forces in the suburb of Douma outside Damascus, according to the British-based Observatory.
"The violence is definitely two-sided," said a Homs resident who gave his name only as Mohammed to protect his safety. "I've been seeing ambulances filled with wounded soldiers passing by my window in the past days. They're getting shot somehow."
Parts of Homs are defended by the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors from the regular armed forces, who say they have tried to protect civilians.

Iraqi al Qaeda group says behind Baghdad bombings

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq has claimed responsibility for a slew of bombings that killed at least 71 people in Baghdad last week, a group that monitors online communication among insurgents said Tuesday.
A suicide car bomber and multiple roadside bombs hit Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite areas on December 22 in the first attacks on the capital since U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq on December 18.
In a sign of growing tensions within the government itself, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and asked parliament to fire Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.

The U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for al Qaeda-linked insurgents, had claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement posted on Islamist websites Monday.
ISI said it had carried out the attacks in support of Sunni prisoners. "The operations were distributed between targeting security headquarters, military patrols...and eliminating the heads of unbelief from amongst the security, military and administration leaders of the Green Zone (Iraqi) government," it was quoted by SITE as saying.
In Thursday's single biggest attack, at least 18 people were killed when an attacker driving an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government criminal investigation office in Baghdad's central Karrada district.
Hashemi has been formally charged with running death squads targeting Iraqi government and security officials. He has denied all charges which he says were "fabricated."
Overall violence in Iraq has dropped since the peak of sectarian fighting in 2006-07 but bombings and killings still occur almost daily.
Al Qaeda in Iraq has been weakened by deaths of leaders but there are fears the group will try to regroup and strengthen its presence following the withdrawal of U.S. troops almost nine years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Exclusive: Afghanistan sets ground rules for Taliban talks

Afghanistan will accept a Taliban liaison office in Qatar to start peace talks but no foreign power can get involved in the process without its consent, the government's peace council said, as efforts gather pace to find a solution to the decade-long war.
Afghanistan's High Peace Council, in a note to foreign missions, has set out ground rules for engaging the Taliban after Kabul grew concerned that the United States and Qatar, helped by Germany, had secretly agreed with the Taliban to open an office in the Qatari capital, Doha.

U.S. officials have held about half a dozen meetings with their insurgent contacts, mostly in Germany and Doha with representatives of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban's Quetta Shura, this year to prepare the way for face-to-face talks between the group and the Afghan government.
A representative office for the group is considered the starting point for such talks and Doha has in the past served as a meeting ground for initial contacts.
But the Afghan peace commission which has suffered a series of setbacks including the assassination of its head in September said that negotiations with the Taliban could only begin after they stopped violence against civilians, cut ties to al Qaeda, and accepted the Afghan constitution which guarantees civil rights and liberties, including rights for women.
The council, according to a copy of the 11-point note made available to Reuters, also said any peace process with the Taliban would have to have the support of Pakistan since members of the insurgent group were based there.
"The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is in agreement regarding the opening of an office for the armed opposition, but only to move forward the peace process and conduct negotiations," the council said.
The government would prefer such an office in either Saudi Arabia or Turkey, both of which it is close to, but was not averse to Doha as long as the authority of the Afghan state was not eroded and the office was only established for talks, officials said.
"We are saying Saudi or Turkey are preferable, we are not saying it has to be there only. The only condition is it should be in an Islamic country," said a government official.
President Hamid Karzai's administration recalled its ambassador from Doha last week, apparently angry that it had been kept in the dark about the latest round of contacts with the insurgent group.
Officials said Kabul was also deeply concerned about reports that the United States was considering the transfer of a small number of Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay military prison to Doha as a prelude to the talks.
"We are a sovereign country, we have laws. How can you transfer our prisoners from one country to another. Already it's a violation to have them in Guantanamo Bay," the official said.
The Afghan government wanted the prisoners to be returned to its custody, the official said.
Reuters reported this month that the United States was considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay into Afghan government custody as part of accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy.
"We have no problem with this. In fact we have been demanding this for a while. These are Afghan prisoners," said the official, who declined to be identified.
The tension between the Karzai administration and the United States over engaging the Taliban underscores the challenges of seeking a political settlement as the West prepares to withdraw most combat troops from the country by 2014.
Efforts to engage the insurgent group have faced a string of setbacks, the most recent being the assassination of the head of the peace council and former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September at the hands of a suicide bomber who pretended to be a Taliban emissary.
HARDENING OF POSITIONS
It led to a hardening of positions with Karzai saying the government could not talk to suicide bombers and that there should be an address for the Taliban so that negotiators know they are talking to the right representatives.
"We are committed to the reconciliation process, the experience of the last 10 years shows no military solution is possible. Talking to the armed opposition is the key in this regard," said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.
The peace council, laying down the markers for engagement with the Taliban, said well known figures from both the Taliban and the government had to be involved in talks.
It said that "before any negotiations can take place, violence against Afghan people must stop and that the armed opposition must cut ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups."
It also said that the Taliban must accept the constitution and honor the gains made in the last 10 years since they were ousted from power, conditions that the Taliban have shown no sign of accepting.
The Taliban do not accept the constitution and have vowed to carry on fighting until all foreign troops have left the country.
The peace council said Pakistani support was necessary for talks to take place, another condition that makes the task harder because of fraught ties between the United States and Pakistan which fears it is being shut out of the process.
Opening a Taliban office in a third country is seen as a way to create distance from Pakistan which has longstanding ties to the insurgent group.
But the government official said he did not think the peace council had laid down such tough conditions that the talks would fail even before they started.
"We don't think it's a deal breaker. We are quite optimistic," he said.

Nigerian leaders rapped after Islamists attack churches

Nigeria's main opposition leader accused the government of incompetence on Monday after Islamist militants killed more than two dozen people in Christmas Day attacks on churches and other targets.
Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner and former military ruler who lost a presidential election in April to incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner, told a Nigerian daily that the government was slow to respond and had shown indifference to the bombings.
The attacks, described by the country's top broadsheet daily Thisday as "Nigeria's blackest Christmas ever," risk reopening old wounds and reviving tit-for-tat sectarian violence between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south, which has claimed thousands of lives in the past decade.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia, Islamic law, across Africa's most populous country, claimed responsibility for three church bombings, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian houses of worship.
The most deadly attack killed at least 27 people in the St Theresa Catholic church in Madalla, a town on the edge of the capital, and devastated surrounding buildings and cars.
Security forces also blamed the sect for two explosions in the north targeting their facilities. Officials have confirmed 32 people died in the wave of attacks across Nigeria, though local media have put the number higher.
But the church bombs are more worrying because they raise fears that Boko Haram is trying to ignite a sectarian civil war in a country split evenly between Christians and Muslims, who for the most part co-exist in peace.
"How on earth would the Vatican and the British authorities speak before the Nigerian government on attacks within Nigeria that have led to the deaths of our citizens?" Buhari said in the statement published by Punch newspaper on Monday.
"This is clearly a failure of leadership at a time the government needs to assure the people of the capacity to guarantee the safety of lives and property."
At a church service in the St Theresa church to mourn the dead there less than a day earlier, a priest in white and red robes conducted a prayers while around 200 mourners sighed, chanted and sang solemnly. Some wept.
The burnt out cars that had littered the scene the day before had been removed and replaced by half a dozen military jeeps. Ten 10 armed soldiers dismounted from each of them to cloak the church in a heavy security presence.
"I've never cried before, but yesterday, I cried," St. Theresa's priest, Father Isaac Achi, said. "This morning, I cried, but with all of you around today, I'll not cry again. Yesterday more than 40 army men protected me while I slept."
Buhari said the government needed to do more than spend more on security to deal with the problem, echoing concerns by analysts that more needs to be done to address the sense of alienation in the poorer north of Nigeria that breeds militancy.
Jonathan called the attacks "unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for ever. It will end one day," a response that some Nigerians found short-sighted.
He often declines to comment on Boko Haram attacks at all, or when he does describes it as a "temporary" problem that will blow over in time.
COORDINATED ATTACKS
A few hours after Sunday's bomb in Madalla, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in Gadaka in the northern state of Yobe. Residents said many were wounded in Gadaka.
A suicide bomber killed four officials at the State Security Service in one of the other attacks in the northeastern town of Damaturu, police said. Residents heard two loud explosions and gunfire in the town.
The attacks, which came a few days after clashes between security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people, and the surge in violence suggested increasing evidence of coordination and strategy by the group.
National Security Adviser General Owoye Azazi said in the church attacks were premeditated but urged Nigerians to go about their business as usual, while remaining vigilant.
"This is not a fight between security forces and some dissident elements. It is a conflict between some misguided extremists in our midst and the rest of society," he said.
Benedict condemned the attacks as an "absurd gesture" and prayed that "the hands of the violent be stopped."
The pope, speaking from his window overlooking St Peter's Square in Rome, said such violence brought only pain, destruction and death.
The United Nations, the European Union and the United States condemned the bombings which they described as terrorist attacks, pledging to help Nigerian authorities in the fight against extremists.

Monitors arrive in Syria as tanks fire in Homs

The first group of Arab monitors arrived Syria on Monday to assess whether Damascus is adhering to a peace plan, and residents of the flashpoint city of Homs said at least 23 people were killed as tanks fired on neighborhoods.
Fifty monitors and 10 other officials from the Arab League arrived from Egypt on a private plane, the first international intervention on the ground to end nine months of violence between President Bashar al-Assad's troops and opponents.

Some monitors are due on Tuesday to visit Homs, scene of the worst violence, where there has been no sign of Assad carrying out a plan agreed with the Arab League to halt his offensive.
Amateur video posted on the Internet by activists showed tanks in the streets next to apartment blocks in the Baba Amr district. One fired its main gun and another appeared to launch mortar rounds.
Mangled bodies lay in pools of blood on a narrow street, the video showed. Power lines had collapsed and cars were burnt and blasted, as if shelled by tank or mortar rounds.
"What's happening is a slaughter," said Fadi, a resident living near the flashpoint Baba Amr neighborhood. He said it was being hit with mortar shells and heavy machinegun fire.
An armed insurgency is increasingly eclipsing civilian protests in Syria. Now many fear a slide toward a sectarian war pitting the Sunni Muslim majority, the driving force of the protest movement, against minorities that have mostly stayed loyal to the government, particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. Fighting in Homs has intensified since a double suicide bombing in Damascus on Friday that killed 44 people.
Four army defectors were killed by security forces in a town near the Turkish border on Monday, an activist network said. Nine soldiers killed in fighting in Homs were buried, state media reported.
Homs resident Fadi told Reuters via Skype that residents and fighters were trapped by trenches the army had dug around the neighborhood in recent weeks.
"They are benefiting from trenches. Neither the people nor the gunmen or army defectors are able to flee. The army has been descending on the area for the past two days."
TWO-WAY FIGHT
Other residents said the fighters have still been able to inflict casualties on the army.
"The violence is definitely two-sided," said a Homs resident who gave his name only as Mohammed to protect his safety. "I've been seeing ambulances filled with wounded soldiers passing by my window in the past days. They're getting shot somehow."
Parts of Homs are defended by the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors from the regular armed forces, who say they have tried to protect civilians.
"There are many casualties," activist Yazen Homsi told the Avaaz opposition group from Homs. "It is very difficult to access them and provide treatment as a result of the heavy shelling throughout the neighborhood."
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented names of those reported killed in Monday's clashes. It also reported three people killed on the outskirts of Hama, north of Homs, as security forces fired on protests.
It said explosions went off in Douma, a Damascus suburb, as the army clashed with rebel fighters. In a town near the Turkish border, four army defectors were killed by security forces, it Observatory reported.
The Syrian government has banned most access by independent media, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.
GOVERNMENT TRANSPORT FOR MONITORS
Shortly before the monitors arrived on Monday, France said it was "deeply worried by the continued deterioration in Homs" and urged Syria to allow the monitors in.
The head of the observer mission, Sudanese General Mustafa al-Dabi, arrived in Damascus on Saturday. The League says the mission will eventually include 150 monitors.
"Our Syrian brothers are cooperating very well and without any restrictions so far," Dabi told Reuters.
But he added that Syrian forces would be providing transportation for the observers - a move which may anger the anti-Assad opposition and spark accusations of censorship.
The first group of monitors will be divided into five 10-man teams going to five locations. Those that are expected to visit Homs on Tuesday will try to assess whether Assad is withdrawing tanks and troops from Syria's third largest city as promised.
Arab delegates said they would maintain the upper hand.
"The element of surprise will be present," said monitor Mohamed Salem al-Kaaby from the United Arab Emirates.
"We will inform the Syrian side the areas we will visit on the same day so that there will be no room to direct monitors or change realities on the ground by either side."
The mission's mandate is to confirm that the Syrian government is executing the Arab League initiative by withdrawing the military from cities, releasing prisoners and allowing Arab and allowing international media to visit.
Despite the scenes of ravaged streets, Syrian state television has been regularly showing other areas of Homs, a city of one million, looking peaceful.
The United Nations says at least 5,000 Syrians have been killed since the revolt broke out in March, inspired by other Arab uprisings this year. An estimated one-third of deaths have occurred in and around Homs.
The Syrian authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed armed Islamists who they say have killed 2,000 members of the security forces. After six weeks of stalling, Damascus signed a protocol this month to admit the Arab League monitors.
A source inside the opposition Syrian National Council said a growing number of its members are pushing to openly endorse armed insurrection against the government.
But they faced resistance from those in diplomatic contact with Western powers and calling for U.N. support - such as creation of safe havens to protect protesting civilians.
Assad, 46, succeeded his father in 2000 to carry on 41 years of family rule. He has responded to popular calls to step down with a mixture of force and promises of reform, announcing an end to a state of emergency and promising a parliamentary election in February.

Islamists kill dozens in Nigeria Christmas bombs

Islamist militants set off bombs across in Nigeria on Christmas Day - three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27 people - raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.
The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches. Security forces also blamed the sect for two other blasts in the north.

St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madala, a satellite town about 40 km (25 miles) from the center of the capital Abuja, was packed when the bomb exploded just outside.
"We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I just ran out," Timothy Onyekwere told Reuters. "Now I don't even know where my children or my wife are. I don't know how many were killed but there were many dead."
Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of Gadaka. Residents said many were wounded in Gadaka, but there were no immediate further details.
A suicide bomber killed four security officials at the State Security Service in one of the other bombs, which struck the northeastern town of Damaturu, police said. Residents heard two loud explosions and gunfire in the town.
A Reuters reporter at the church near Abuja saw the front roof had been destroyed, as had several houses nearby. Five burnt out cars were still smoldering. There were scenes of chaos, as shocked residents stared at the wreckage in disbelief.
"Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud sound: 'Gbam!' Cars were in flames and bodies littered everywhere," Nnana Nwachukwu told Reuters.
Father Christopher Barde, Assistant priest of the church, said: "The officials who counted told me they have picked up 27 bodies so far."
"I happen to also live close by the church. Help was very slow in coming to the injured," he said.
Police cordoned off the area around the church. Thousands of furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway from Abuja leading to Nigeria's largely Muslim north.
Police and the military tried to disperse them by firing live rounds into the air with tear gas.
"We are so angry," shouted Kingsley Ukpabi, as a queue of hooting vehicles lined up behind his flaming barrage.
ATTACKS INCREASE
Boko Haram - which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means "Western education is sinful" - is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
It has emerged as the biggest security threat in Nigeria, a country of 160 million split evenly between Christians and Muslims, who for the most part live side by side in peace.
Boko Haram's low level insurgency used to be largely confined to northeastern Nigeria, but it has struck several parts of the north, center and the capital Abuja this year.
Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast.
The sophistication of the explosives it uses and the number of attacks it carries out have increased this year.
The sect was blamed for dozens of bombings and shootings in the north, and has claimed responsibility for two bombings in Abuja this year, including Nigeria's first suicide bombing, which killed at least 23 people at the U.N. headquarters.
Rights groups say more than 250 people have been killed by Boko Haram since July 2010.
At the church near Abuja, a wounded man whose legs were almost shattered to pieces by the blast was loaded onto a stretcher near an ambulance by security services.
"I'll survive," he said in a hushed voice.
The blast in Jos, a tinderbox of ethnic and sectarian tensions that sometimes sees deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians, was accompanied by a shooting spree by militants, who exchanged fire with local police, said Charles Ezeocha, special taskforce spokesman for Jos.
"We lost one policeman and we have made four arrests. I think we can use them to get more information and work on that," he said. Police found four other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated, he added.
President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south who is struggling to contain the threat of Islamist militancy, called the incidents "unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for ever. It will end one day."
The White House condemned "this senseless violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day." A statement said: "We have been in contact with Nigerian officials about what initially appear to be terrorist acts and pledge to assist them in bringing those responsible to justice."
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Vatican hoped "this senseless violence does not weaken the will of the Nigerian people to live peacefully and promote dialogue."
The attacks were condemned by a number of other countries, including Britain, France and Italy.
Gun battles between the security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people Thursday and Friday in northern Nigeria, authorities and hospital sources said Saturday.
Boko Haram became active in about 2003 and is concentrated mainly in the northern Nigerian states of Yobe, Kano, Bauchi, Borno and Kaduna.
The group considers all who do not follow its strict ideology as infidels, whether they are Christian or Muslim. It demands the adoption of sharia, Islamic law, in all of Nigeria.

Republican Gingrich out of Virginia primary election

Leading Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has failed to meet the requirements to be in the presidential primary election in Virginia, where he resides, the state's Republican Party said.
Gingrich had been leading in a poll of Virginia voters and a spokesman for the former speaker of the House of Representatives defiantly pledged to run a write-in campaign for the March 6 vote. However, Virginia does not permit write-ins in primary elections, according to the state code.

The Virginia Republican Party also said Texas Governor Rick Perry's petitions also had failed to qualify him for the ballot. Only former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul qualified.
Three other members of the Republican field trying to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama - former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum - did not meet the Thursday deadline for submitting petitions.
Despite Gingrich's last-minute scramble to submit his petitions by the deadline, the state party said on its website on Saturday that a review process showed he did not have the required 10,000 verifiable signatures.
The Virginia state board of elections earlier had said Gingrich, among the top three Republican candidates nationally, had made the ballot with 11,050 signatures.
"Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said. "Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.
"We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice," Krull said.
But Virginia Code Section 24.2-644(C) rules out write-ins in its first sentence, saying: "At all elections except primary elections it shall be lawful for any voter to vote for any person other than the listed candidates for the office by writing or hand printing the person's name on the official ballot."
A December 22 Quinnipiac poll for Virginia had Gingrich ahead with 30 percent of the vote, compared with 25 percent for Romney and 9 percent for Paul. Virginia is one of 11 states holding a primary or caucus on March 6.
After Gingrich staged two campaign events in the state last week, his campaign had been confident that he had made the ballot even as his last-minute scramble raised concerns about Gingrich's abilities to run a national campaign.

George H.W. Bush calls Mitt Romney ‘the best choice’ in 2012 campaign

Mitt Romney has picked up a major, if still unofficial, endorsement in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Former President George H.W. Bush told the Houston Chronicle he believes Romney is the best candidate in the race—though he stopped short of officially endorsing his 2012 bid.
"I think Romney is the best choice for us," Bush told the Houston Chronicle. "I like Perry, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere; he's not surging forward."

The ex-president, who is personally close to Romney, praised the former governor's "stability, experience, principles."
"He's mature and reasonable—not a bomb thrower," Bush said, adding that he didn't mean to besmirch anybody in the field. "I've got to be a little careful, because I like Perry; he's our governor."
Yet Bush wasn't nearly as kind about Newt Gingrich, admitting that he knows the former House speaker well and isn't a fan. "I'm not his biggest advocate," he said.
Bush's support of Romney isn't that surprising. In an interview with CNN's Larry King last year, he and his wife, Barbara, praised Romney, saying he would make a "very good president."
Romney has worked hard to woo the Bush family over the years. Four years ago, most of the Bush family, including the former president and his son Jeb, supported John McCain—though they waited to endorse until after Romney had dropped out of the race.
Earlier this month, Romney traveled to Houston, where he visited the former president and first lady.