Syria expands army assaults - FT.com Government forces stepped up operations across Syria on Wednesday, bombarding the central city of Hama and sending armoured vehicles into a district of Damascus, according to activists, as pressure for international intervention rose. Rami Abdulrahman of the London-based Syrian Human Rights Observatory said residents in two neighbourhoods of Hama, one of the centres of dissent in Syria's 11 month-old uprising, reported hearing explosions on Wednesday morning. The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, said a number of neighbourhoods were "witnessing intensive shelling by several kinds of heavy weapons." Mr Abdulrahman said it was not possible to confirm further information on Hama, because telephone lines and internet access had been cut off. Armoured vehicles meanwhile were reported to have stormed the district of Barzeh in Damascus, one of the few places in the city proper that has seen large protests, and where the Free Syrian Army, a loosely affiliated group of defected soldiers and armed opponents of the regime, is believed to have had a presence. The regime's bloody 12-day assault continued in the rebellious central city of Homs, where a pipeline was attacked on Wednesday, which the regime blamed on "terrorists." According to Mr Abdulrahman, 20 people, including civilians and combatants, were also killed in fighting in the district of Aleppo in northern Syria. The violence comes as France said it has started negotiating a new security council resolution with Russia, after the last proposal was vetoed by Moscow and Beijing. Regional and international powers are under increasing pressure to address the rising bloodshed in Syria, amid fears that the country is headed for Iraq-style civil war. While western and Arab countries have called for Mr Assad to step down, Mr Assad himself has insisted that the country is undergoing political reform. State news announced on Wednesday that a referendum on a new constitution would take place on February 26. With more than 5,000 dead and many more arrested, however, the majority of opposition groups say reform is no longer a viable option.