KUWAIT CITY, June 9, (Agencies): The death toll of Saturday’s violence in Syria went up to 43 people, including women and children, the opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said.
In its tally update, the LCC said 25 people were killed by government fire in the city of Deraa, 16 in Homs and one in Hasaka and Damascus countryside.
The LCC added that an enormous number of civilians were wounded in the heavy air bombing of the town of Al-Rastan in Homs.
It disclosed the army continued shelling of the neighborhoods of Khalidiya, Jouret Al-Shiyah and Al-Qarabes in Homs’ old city.
In Deraa, three civilians were also wounded by bullets of pro-government snipers on their way to participate in the funeral of the victims of the deadly air raids on the city.
The government forces also continued crackdown campaign against civilians in the city where the anti-regime uprising broke out 15 months ago.
Over 150 civilians, including children, were arrested and taken to unknown destinations in the raids, the LCC revealed.
Meanwhile, international observers visited the town Al-Latmana in Hama Saturday and recorded the destruction caused by government forces bombing of the town in the past two days.

Departure
Russia will not oppose the departure of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad if that is the result of a dialogue between Syrians themselves and is not imposed from outside, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
Lavrov spoke one day after his deputies held consultations with US special envoy Fred Hof, in Moscow to push for a political transition in Syria that would see Assad leave power.
“If the Syrians agree (about Assad’s departure) between each other, we will only be happy to support such a solution,” Lavrov told reporters. “But we believe it is unacceptable to impose the conditions for such a dialogue from outside.”
Eager to maintain its firmest Middle East foothold and stop the West pushing governments from power, Russia has used its UN Security Council veto and other tools to protect Assad from coordinated condemnation and sanctions.
Moscow insists there must be no “preconditions” in any discussion of Syria’s future, including the departure of Assad, an outcome which would suit many countries in the West as well as the many Sunni Muslim Arab states that dislike the Syiran government and its ally Iran.
Lavrov cited the power transition in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh was eventually pushed out, saying that was a result of an internal process without any conditions being set by external parties.
Lavrov reiterated his call for an international conference in support of the envoy Kofi Annan’s failing peace plan and said “there was no outright rejection” of this initiative from the United States expressed during the Moscow talks, despite Russia’s recommendation that Iran take part.
“We want this event to be effective. In order to be effective all the sides with any influence on the sides in the Syrian conflicts should be represented there. Iran is one such country,” Lavrov said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that it was “hard to imagine inviting a country that is stage-managing the Assad regime’s assault on its people.”
Washington accuses Tehran of providing advice and material support to help Assad crush dissent, something Iran denies.
Two reported massacres in Syria in as many weeks have deepened doubts about a UN-backed peace plan and prompted some Western states to again threaten sanctions.
One of Lavrov’s deputies, Gennady Gatilov, told the Interfax news agency earlier on Saturday that “introducing restrictive or forceful measures clearly will not foster (peace) and will only aggravate the already difficult atmosphere”.
Lavrov repeated Russia’s stance that Syrian opposition should also bear the blame for violence and accused unnamed “external players” for encouraging the opposition to keep fighting in order to provoke a military intervention.
Russia and China have twice vetoed Western-backed Security Council resolutions critical of Syria, whose security forces have killed at least 10,000 people, by a UN count, while losing more than 2,600 of their own, according to Damascus.
One of the resolutions they blocked, in February, would have backed an Arab League call for Assad to cede power.
Analysts say that if Moscow were to help engineer Assad’s exit it would hope to retain influence in Syria.
Assad’s government has bought billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons and hosts a Mediterranean logistical facility that is Russia’s only permanent warm-water naval port outside the former Soviet Union.

Force
Russia will not approve the use of force against the Syrian regime at the United Nations, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday at a briefing in Moscow.
“We will not sanction the use of force at the United Nations Security Council,” Lavrov said in televised remarks as he gave a briefing on Russia’s proposal for an international conference on Syria.
Russia, along with China, has vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and have vowed to oppose any military intervention.
Former UN chief Kofi Annan, the author of a fledgling peace plan on Syria, called Friday for “additional pressure” in the wake of a new massacre as he held talks in the United States.
Britain, France and the United States will quickly draw up a Security Council resolution proposing sanctions against Syria over the worsening conflict, diplomats said Friday.
Russia on Saturday pushed its idea of an international Syria conference including Iran as it reaffirmed its opposition to the use of force against its ally after the latest violence.
Moscow said that denying Tehran a role in helping negotiate an end to the protracted crisis would be “thoughtless.”
“We want this event to be effective,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters.
“To say that Iran doesn’t have a place because it is already to blame for everything and it’s part of the problem and not part of the solution, this is thoughtless to say the least from the point of view of serious diplomacy.”
The Iranian government is one of the most important of a dwindling number of friends for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has called Iran a “spoiler” and said it is “part of the problem in Syria.” The United States has accused Iran of arming Assad’s forces.
Russia has said that a conference on Syria was needed to overcome differences over how the peace plan of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan should be implemented.
Lavrov said permanent UN Security Council members Russia, the United States, France, Britain and China, Syria’s neighbours including Lebanon and Jordan, as well as the EU and the Arab League should take part in the get-together.
Moscow wants to hold the conference “as soon as possible”, Lavrov said, without being more specific.
“We are saying honestly and openly that our conference — should our colleagues agree to it — should become the only format that supports the efforts to implement the Security Council resolutions that approved Kofi Annan’s plan.”
He stressed it might be necessary to overlook ideological divisions to settle the Syria crisis and he suggested that the United States should do so over Iran.
“Americans are pragmatists. When they want, they do not pay attention to ideological problems,” Lavrov said.
“This is pragmatism. It’s simply necessary in foreign policy.”
“We are talking about saving people’s lives.”
Lavrov acknowledged that Annan’s tattered peace plan for Syria had begun to “seriously falter” but stressed the Kremlin saw “no alternative” to it.

Bahrain
Bahraini police wounded several people on Saturday morning when they fired sound bombs, tear gas and bird shot to disperse dozens who protested across several Shiite areas, witnesses said.
“Down Hamad,” chanted dozens of supporters of the youth group of the “Revolution of February 14,” referring to Bahrain’s Sunni monarch. “The people want to overthrow the regime.”
“We have the right to choose our destiny,” they chanted, waving the kingdom’s red and white flag.
An exact toll of those hurt cannot be obtained, as wounded protesters are treated in homes from fear of being arrested in hospital.
Hundreds took part in similar protests near Manama on Friday calling for the release of opposition detainees, witnesses said.
And on Wednesday, leading Shiite rights activist Nabil Rajab was re-arrested pending a probe into tweets deemed insulting to Sunnis, prosecutors said.
Rajab led anti-government protests following a government crackdown on Shiite-led demonstrations against the regime in March 2011.
The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of the Sunni Arab monarchies in the Gulf, have been discussing a Saudi proposal that would lead to a form of closer political union.
The first step in this process would be the union of Sunni-ruled Bahrain, which has a Shiite majority, with Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia.
The proposal has prompted protests from Bahraini Shiites, who insisted that a referendum must be held for such a proposal to be endorsed.