Thirteen French soldiers 'captured by Syrian Army' However, Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last month it had no intention of intervening in the country as with Libya. No, I don't think so because Syria is also a different society, it is much more complicated ethnically, politically, religiously. That's why I do believe that a regional solution should be found," he said. Homs, 20 miles from the Lebanese border, remains a strategic battleground with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad unrelenting in their bombardment of the area and anti-Assad demonstrators continuing their protests against the tyrannical dictator. Activists said yesterday at least 12 people, including three children and three women, were killed in shelling in Rastan, a suburb of Homs, on Sunday. Men from another suburb, Baba Amr, were rounded up separately and 10 were lined up against a wall and shot, activists and refugees claimed. French journalist Edith Bouvier was smuggled out of Syria with three others last week after sustaining a broken leg in what some claimed was a targeted-attack on western reporters. Marie Colvin, a reporter for The Sunday Times, was killed in the shelling on February 22 alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlick. They had been working from a makeshift media centre in the neighbourhood when they were hit. The report did not say whether the French troops were part of the mission to evacuate the reporters, who had been holed up in a safe house for one week following the deadly shelling. Accounts of the escape have only mentioned rebel help, although French Ambassador Eric Chevallier returned to Damascus last week to discuss extracting the journalists safely. France announced it was closing its embassy on Friday, as assaults continued in the region. Britain has already evacuated its embassy.