83 civilians killed in Syria Saturday – watchdog

This image made from video released by UNSMIS, the UN observer mission in Syria and accessed Saturday, June 9, 2012, purports to show destroyed buses after overnight fighting in Damascus, Syria. In Damascus, residents spoke about a night of shooting and explosions in the worst violence Syria's capital has seen since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began 15 months ago. AP PHOTO/UNSMIS VIA AP VIDEO

BEIRUT – Pro-regime forces killed 83 civilians throughout Syria on Saturday, including women and children among 20 dead in the flashpoint town of Daraa, a watchdog group said.

Nine women and three children were among those killed in a pre-dawn bombardment of a residential neighborhood in the southern city of Daraa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Dozens more were wounded, some of them seriously, in the city which was the birthplace of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the watchdog said.

In the restive central city of Homs, 29 people died in a bombardment by government troops, the British-based observatory said.

The toll comes among growing international anger over the Syrian crackdown on a revolt in which more than 13,500 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since March 2011.

On Saturday Russia pushed its idea of an international conference including Iran to end the bloodshed in Syria.

However Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also stressed that Moscow would “not sanction the use of force at the United Nations Security Council.”