ICRC says delivered aid to Homs, Idlib but needs truce

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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had delivered food and other supplies to the Syrian cities of Homs and Idlib on Tuesday but that better security was needed before the aid could be distributed to needy civilians.

It was vital that both Syrian authorities and opposition groups agree to implement a daily humanitarian ceasefire to allow in life-saving aid, the independent agency said.

"We managed to bring relief material into Homs city and Idlib today (Tuesday) which was handed over to the Syrian Arab Red Crescent branches in both cities to be distributed as soon as possible," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said in Geneva. "It needs suitable security conditions."

"That is why it is essential to implement our initiative of a humanitarian ceasefire so the assistance can be distributed to all people in need of help," he added.

The ICRC, the only agency to deploy international aid workers in Syria, issued a public appeal a week ago for a daily two-hour cessation of hostilities.

A British photographer wounded in a Syrian army bombardment of the besieged city of Homs has been smuggled out of the country and is now safe in Lebanon, a diplomat said on Tuesday.

Paul Conroy, of London's Sunday Times, was among several Western journalists trapped in a rebel-held Homs district where

"Conroy is now safe and sound in Lebanon," the diplomat told Reuters in Amman.

Some Syrian opposition activists said Edith Bouvier, a freelance reporter working for French newspaper Le Figaro, who has a broken leg, had also escaped to Lebanon.

On another note, Syrian President Bashar Assad sent units of an elite armored division into Homs on Tuesday as rebel-held districts came under the heaviest bombardment of a three-week-old offensive, opposition sources in the city said.

They said tanks and troops of the Fourth Division, which is commanded by Assad's brother Maher moved overnight into main streets around the besieged southern area of Baba Amro. The tanks had "Fourth Division Monsters" painted on them, they said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shelling of the central town of Halfaya killed at least four civilians and wounded dozens, many of them seriously. The LCC said 20 people were killed and 100 wounded in the town.

Both groups said the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr in the central city of Homs was under intense shelling. The LCC said 12 people were killed in Homs while the Observatory said five.

The LCC said at least 41 people were killed by troops throughout Syria Tuesday.

Reuters/LBCI/AP

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