UK, France continue push to ship arms to troubled nation's rebel forces

Syria's devastating conflict entered its third year on Friday with European Union leaders frustrated over the failure of diplomacy to end the bloodshed and pressing to arm rebels despite Russian objections.

The conflict erupted on March 15, 2011, when protesters inspired by Arab world uprisings took to the streets of cities and towns across Syria for unprecedented demonstrations.

Two years on, Syria is mired in a civil war that has killed at least 70,000 people and forced 1 million to flee abroad, with millions more missing or displaced inside the country, sparking an economic and humanitarian disaster.

Rebels have seized large swaths of territory, but growing tensions between liberals and moderate Muslims on the one hand, and Islamists on the other, have raised fears of a collapse into a sectarian bloodbath.

The United Kingdom and France have announced moves to lift an arms embargo on Syria, and the issue was expected to come up again on Friday on the second and final day of an EU summit in Brussels.

"Our goal is to convince our partners at the end of May, and if possible before," French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday. "If by chance there is a blockage by one or two countries, then France will take its responsibilities."

Hollande added that political solutions have failed.

"We must go further because for two years there has been a clear willingness by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to use every means to hit at his own people," he said.

Syria's main opposition bloc, the National Coalition, welcomed France's initiative as "a step in the right direction".

Assad's government said any arms shipments would be a "flagrant violation" of international law.

The United States may look favorably on the British and French moves to give more aid to the rebels, the State Department said, without explicitly backing arms shipments.

"We're obviously not going to get in the middle of their internal discussions, but we certainly want to see as many governments as possible provide appropriate support to the Syrian opposition coalition," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

However, Berlin is known to be cool to the idea, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying the EU needed to "proceed very cautiously" on lifting the embargo.

Violence across Syria killed 178 people on Thursday - 66 rebel fighters, 62 civilians and 50 government troops - observers said.

Twenty of the rebels and 22 of the soldiers died in Homs, a symbol of the resistance until the army laid siege to the rebel stronghold district of Baba Amr before overrunning it early last year.

The army on Friday resumed an assault on parts of Homs infiltrated by the insurgents, including Baba Amr, the Old City and Khalidyeh, observers said.

Troops also pounded south Damascus and clashed with rebels in the towns of Harasta and Irbin, northeast of the capital, as well as in and around second city Aleppo, in Syria's north.