Syrian Opposition Says 7 Die in Intense Shelling An opposition group says seven people have been killed in heavy shelling of a district in central Syria a day after the army sent reinforcements ahead of a possible ground assault. It was not immediately clear whether the intense shelling of the Baba Amr neighborhood in the city of Homs was the start of a widely expected offensive to crush rebels in the area. Activists said the heavy shelling of the Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun lasted more than two hours. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on activists on the ground, said seven people including a child were killed in Baba Amr. Phone lines have been cut with the city, making it difficult to get firsthand accounts from Homs residents. BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian tanks and troops massed Monday outside the resistance stronghold of Homs for a possible ground assault that one activist warned could unleash a new round of fierce and bloody urban combat even as the Red Cross tried to broker a cease-fire to allow emergency aid in. Two of three Syrian injured men who were wounded from the shelling at Baba Amr neighborhood in the Syrian province of Homs, on their hospital beds as they receive treatment, in the eastern town of Chtoura, in Bekaa valley, Lebanon, on Monday Feb. 20, 2012. Lebanese security officials said at least three wounded Syrians were brought for treatment in the eastern town of Chtoura. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the wounded came from the Baba Amr attacks. Syria's military sent tanks and other reinforcements toward the restive central city of Homs on Monday in what appears to be preparations by President Bashar Assad's regime for an offensive aimed at retaking rebel-held neighborhoods, activists said. (AP Photo/Samer Husseini) Close A flood of military reinforcements has been a prelude to previous offensives by President Bashar Assad's regime, which has tried to use its overwhelming firepower to crush an opposition that has been bolstered by defecting soldiers and hardened by 11 months of street battles. "The human loss is going to be huge if they retake Baba Amr," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russia will put forward a proposal at the U.N. Security Council in the coming days regarding humanitarian aid to Syria, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. Churkin was quoted by the agency as telling Vesti 24 television on Monday that the council "could undertake concrete steps aimed at solving humanitarian issues, relying, among other things, on the fact that Damascus allowed the Red Cross to bring humanitarian aid to some regions." Churkin gave no details about the proposal, his spokesman Anton Uspensky told AP. Russia and China have vetoed two Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning the government crackdown. The central city of Homs - and in particular the opposition district known as Baba Amr - has become a critical ground for both sides. The opposition has lionized it as "Syria's Misrata" after the Libyan city where rebels fought off a brutal government siege. Assad's regime wants desperately to erase the embarrassing defiance in Syria's third-largest city after weeks of shelling, including a barrage of mortars that killed up to 200 people earlier this month. At least nine people were killed in shelling Monday, activists said. Another massive death toll would only bring further international isolation on Assad from Western and Arab leaders. "The massacre in Syria goes on," said U.S. Sen. John McCain during a visit to Cairo, where he urged Washington and its allies to find way to help arm and equip Syrian rebels.