Two people were killed in his neighborhood of Khalidiya on Thursday, he said.

Homs has been at the center of the revolt against four decades of dynastic rule by the Assad family and became the focus of world concern in February and March when opposition-held neighborhoods endured weeks of government bombardments and sniper fire in which hundreds of people were killed.

In other violence on Thursday, activists said 18 people were killed when government forces rained shells on the village of Enkhel in the southern Deraa province, birthplace of the revolt.

Video posted on the Internet showed nine bodies wrapped in blankets and surrounded by weeping men and women.

Syrian state news agency SANA said 21 law enforcement members and civilians were buried on Thursday.

The United Nations says more than 10,000 people have been killed by Assad’s forces during the conflict. The government says at least 2,600 members of the military and security forces have been killed by what it characterizes as a plot by foreign-backed “Islamist terrorists” to bring it down.

With a joint U.N.-Arab League ceasefire plan in tatters and the international community divided, world leaders and diplomats have been unable to stop the bloodshed.

The Arab League’s deputy secretary general, Ahmed Ben Helli, criticized Russia on Thursday for selling arms to Syria and said that U.N. sanctions could be needed to force Assad and the rebels to implement international envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

“Any assistance in aiding violence should be stopped. When you deliver military equipment you are helping to kill people. That should be stopped,” he told Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Russia, one of Assad’s main suppliers of military equipment, has shielded its long-standing ally Syria from tougher U.N. sanctions. It says the solution must come through political dialogue, an approach most of the Syrian opposition rejects.