Fresh Massacre in Syria, Deputy Minister Defects

At least 60 people were killed in Syria on Thursday as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cautioned against outside military intervention. Photo by CNN

Dozens of people have been killed in a suburb of Syria's battle-scarred city of Homs, BBC reported, saying activists have described the attacks as a "new massacre".

Forty-four of those killed came from just a handful of families, the Local Co-Ordination Committees (LCC), a Syrian-based opposition activist network, said.

At least 60 people were killed in Syria on Thursday as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan cautioned against outside military intervention, saying it could worsen an already precarious situation.

Security forces attacked a funeral procession in the Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh and targeted the car carrying the body, the network said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition group, said those arrested numbered in the dozens.

Violent clashes were reported in Idlib province, and more than 50 young men were arrested in a "detention campaign" in Hama, the LCC said.

Two blasts rocked the town of Izaz near the Syrian-Turkish border Thursday morning, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The blasts were followed by fierce clashes between government soldiers and soldiers that had defected.

Shelling and rocket attacks were also reported in the Homs neighborhoods of Bab Tadmur and Jib al-Jandali Thursday, the fifth day in a row of government attacks there, the group said.

Syria, which blames the violence on "terrorists," has said it is trying its best to get aid to hard-hit areas.

Refugees continue to flee Syria for Lebanon, officials have said.

Earlier in the day a high-ranking member of the government announces in a YouTube video he is defecting from the al-Assad regime.

In a YouTube message posted late on Wednesday, Abdo Hussameddin, one of two deputy oil ministers, accused the government of "barbarism".

He read out a four-minute denunciation of the regime he said he had served for the past 33 years.

"I am joining the revolution of the people who reject injustice and the brutal campaign of the regime," he said.

"I tell the regime, which claims to own the country, you have nothing but the footprint of the tank driven by your barbarism to kill innocent people."

He said he was stepping aside although he knew that his house would be burnt and his family persecuted by the regime.

The Syrian government has not publicly commented on Hussameddin's announcement.

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