Chilling Video of Homs Emerges as Syrian Shelling Ramps Up

Hundreds of civilians in the seat of the revolution have been reportedly killed over the weekend.

Amid the sounds of birds chirping and cats mewling, mortar blasts and tank rounds erupt every few seconds in this 45-minute video feed taken from a home in Homs, which has been under siege by the Syrian military since Friday. Hundreds have reportedly been killed since the weekend, with 95 killed on Monday alone as the state-sponsored slaughter ramps up. At least 21 have been killed today. The escalating violence prompted the U.S. to close its embassy in Damascus and pull all its diplomatic staff out of the country, while the states of the Arab League have also booted Syrian diplomats out of their borders. Those moves coincide with the arrival in Damascus of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who says it's time for Syria to accept a broader Arab League monitoring team into the country and to plan for a referendum on a new constitution. Of course, the tanks that are shelling the life out of Homs also came from Russia originally, so it's a tad difficult to take Lavrov at his word in this instance. After the weekend's violence, rights groups say that well more than 7,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict since last March.