Youssef Badawi / EPA
Pro-government Syrians wave Syrian and Rusisan flags and surround the car carrying Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as his motorcade drives to the presidential palace in Damascus on Tuesday.
By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services
Updated at 9:15 a.m. ET: Gulf Arab countries announced they were recalling their ambassadors from Damascus and expelling Syrian envoys in response to worsening violence in Syria.
The move came after thousands of Syrians cheered the arrival of Russia's foreign minister as he arrived in Damascus, and the government resumed a fierce attack on a city at the center of protests.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, current head of the council, announces that the GCC states have decided to withdraw all their ambassadors from Syria and also demand that all ambassadors of the Syrian regime in its lands leave immediately,'' a statement
from the Gulf Cooperation Council said.
The six-member GCC includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Original story: Thousands of Syrians waving Russian flags cheered Russia's foreign minister as he arrived in Damascus as a city at the center of protests against President Bashar Assad's regime came under renewed bombardment on Tuesday.
Regime forces stepped up an assault on the flashpoint city of Homs, using tanks and machine guns in a push to recover rebel-held districts, The Associated Press reported.
The United States has closed its embassy in Syria amid violent unrest, and international pressure is mounting on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to stop his bloody crackdown on a popular uprising in the country. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
As dawn broke, gunfire was reported in Homs where the opposition Syrian National Council said dozens of people were killed on Monday and activists claimed 200 died in shelling over the weekend, The Guardian reported.
Syrian authorities denied firing on houses but said their forces killed "tens of terrorists" in Homs on Monday, the newspaper added.
More than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March, the U.N. said early last month. Hundreds more are believe to have been killed since then, but the U.N. says the chaos in the country has made it impossible to cross-check the figures.
Syria has blocked access to trouble spots and prevented independent reporting, making it nearly impossible to verify accounts from either side. 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.
US shutters embassy in Syria, withdraws staff
On Monday, troops shelled a makeshift medical clinic and residential areas, killing nearly 70 people, activists told The AP. More than a dozen others were reported killed elsewhere.
Meanwhile, German investigators said they had arrested two men?on allegations they were spying on Syrian opposition groups in Germany. The two men, named as Mahmoud El A., 47, and Akram O., had been under surveillance by Germany's domestic intelligence agency and would be brought before a judge on Wednesday, NBC News reported.
The Federal Prosecutors' Office said Tuesday some 70 police officers searched the suspects' apartments and those of six alleged
accomplices.
'Thank you Russia and China'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visit for talks with the embattled president comes days after Syrian allies Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations that would have condemned the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent and calling on him to transfer some of his powers to his deputy. The Syrian government had rejected the Arab plan as intervention in Syria's internal affairs.
Stringer / Reuters
A man inspects an armored vehicle damaged during clashes between President Bashar Assad's forces and the Free Syrian Army in Homs on Saturday.
Live footage from the capital showed Lavrov's convoy snaking its way along the Mazzeh boulevard among a sea of Assad supporters who turned up to express gratitude for Moscow's supportive stance. The foreign minister and Russia's foreign intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov were headed to the presidential palace to meet with Assad.
"Thank you Russia and China" read one banner that had the photos of both Assad and the Russian president. Many stood under rain carrying Syrian flags as well as the red, blue and white Russian banner and balloons.
Hillary Clinton lambastes 'travesty' of UN veto on Syria
Lavrov on Monday said Western condemnation of Russia's veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Saturday bordered on "hysteria."
Ongoing violence and a worsening security situation has been further complicated by Russia and China's decision to block a U.N Security Council resolution on Syria. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
Russia is Syria's main supplier of arms and the port of Tartus is home to Russia's only Mediterranean naval base, the BBC reported.
NBC News, msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/07/10338371-flag-waving-syrians-welcome-russian-envoy
who won the glee project full tilt poker full tilt poker shel silverstein dont ask dont tell dont ask dont tell troy davis execution date
