U.S.: 'Humanitarian disaster' in Syria TUNIS, Tunisia, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking Friday in Tunisia, applauded the selection of Kofi Annan as U.N.-Arab League special envoy for Syria. "We are all here because the Assad regime's escalating violence in Syria is an affront to the international community, a threat to regional security and a grave violation of universal human rights," Clinton said at the international Friends of Syria conference in Tunis. "The Assad regime has ignored every warning, squandered every opportunity and broken every agreement," she said. Faced with determined protesters demanding their rights and their dignity, the regime is creating an appalling humanitarian disaster. Clinton said the United States strongly supports the Arab League's demand that Syrian forces "immediately halt all attacks against civilians" and called for a "negotiated political solution to the crisis." The Tunis meeting came as the United Nations named top international diplomat Kofi Annan, a former U.N. secretary-general, as an envoy to Syria and targeted top Syrian officials for "gross human-rights violations." Annan -- secretary-general from 1997 to 2006, and a Nobel Peace laureate with the United Nations in 2001 -- was named a special U.N.-Arab League envoy, with a mandate to try to end the bloodshed and arrange a political transition, the world body said. U.S. President Barack Obama, meeting with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt in Washington, said: "All of us who have been seeing the terrible pictures coming out of Syria and Homs recently recognize it is absolutely imperative for the international community to rally and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition. It is time for that regime to move on and it is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government. ... The Red Cross said Friday it has begun evacuating injured women and children from Homs, Syria, after weeks of shelling by the regime of President Bashar Assad. The BBC reported the main opposition force in Syria asked the Friends of Syria conference to supply rebel fighters with weapons to use in combat against Syrian forces Officials from the Syrian National Council, the leading opposition group, said other countries should be allowed to supply arms if Assad refuses to give up power. White House deputy press secretary Josh Ernest repeated the administration's position that "further militarizing the situation in Syria at this point in time is not a wise course -- that is not the wise policy course to pursue at this point." The United States was working with its partners and other countries in the region "to see if there [are] things that we can do to bring humanitarian relief and aid to those who are affected by the violence, including medical supplies," Ernest said, "to see if there are things that we can do to offer support to the Syrian National Council to speed a democratic transition -- a political solution in Syria -- and to increase the pressure through sanctions on the Assad regime." The deaths of two foreign journalists -- Marie Colvin, a U.S.-born correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, and Remi Ochlik, a French photographer -- have increased international anger at the Assad regime.