Army general assassinated in Damascus

BEIRUT -- Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus Saturday, the country's state-run news agency said. The killing of a high-ranking military officer was the first in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March.

The SANA news agency reported that three gunmen opened fire on Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli Saturday morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. General Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of a military hospital in the capital.

He is believed to have been the nephew of Mohamed al-Khouli, former head of the widely feared Air Force Intelligence Directorate, the most powerful of the multiple security agencies that cement the government's power.

The elder al-Khouli was a security adviser to President Hafez Assad until the president died in 2000.

Capt. Ammar al-Wawi of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group that wants to bring down the regime by force, denied involvement in the assassination. Such assassinations are common outside Damascus and army officers have been killed, mostly in the provinces of Homs and Idlib.

Violence in other parts of the country left at least 17 people dead as regime troops pushed into rebel-held neighborhoods in the central city of Homs and seized parts of the mountain town of Zabadani, north of Damascus.

The United Nations estimates that 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising began in March. But that figure is from January, when the counting stopped because the chaos in the country has made it all but impossible to check the figures.

Hundreds are reported to have been killed since.

Syria's turmoil began with peaceful protests against Mr. Assad's rule, sparking the fierce regime crackdown.

But it has grown more militarized as army defectors and armed protesters formed the Free Syrian Army.

After Russia and China last weekend vetoed a Western and Arab attempt at the United Nations to pressure Mr. Assad to step down, the FSA's commander said force was the only way to oust him.

Western and Arab countries are considering forming a coalition to help Syria's opposition, although so far there is no sign they intend to give direct aid to the FSA.

The Arab League is to meet Sunday in Cairo to weigh steps ranging from a more aggressive humanitarian effort to recognizing the Syrian National Council in exile as an alternative government.

The U.N. General Assembly is to consider Monday a nonbinding resolution introduced by Saudi Arabia that supports an Arab League peace plan meant to push Syria toward a democratic transition.