BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two explosions outside security bases in Aleppo killed 17 soldiers and civilians on Friday, Syrian television said, in the worst violence in Syria’s commercial hub in an 11-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

State television showed blood, bodies and shattered concrete strewn across a street outside one of the apparent targets of the blasts, a military security building in the northern city.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese banks which worked for years to build up business in neighboring Syria have been quietly implementing U.S. and European Union sanctions against Damascus to avoid jeopardizing their international operations, bankers and economists say.

This is despite close financial ties between the two countries, cemented by the opening of seven Lebanese banking affiliates in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad began liberalizing the economy when he came to power 12 years ago.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Syrian military assault on Homs killed dozens of people on the eve of a visit to Damascus by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov aimed at pressing President Bashar al-Assad to end an 11-month uprising by implementing swift reform.

The violence Monday came as world powers scrambled for a diplomatic strategy after the defeat of a U.N. Security Council resolution backing an Arab League call for Assad to give up power and start a political transition.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces bombarded Homs on Monday, killing 50 people in a sustained assault on several districts of the city which has become a centre of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian National Council opposition group said.

“The tally that we have received from various activists in Homs since the shelling started at six this morning is 50, mostly civilians,” the group’s Catherine al-Talli told Reuters.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces bombarded Homs on Monday, killing 50 people in a sustained assault on several districts of the city which has become a centre of armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian National Council opposition group said.

“The tally that we have received from various activists in Homs since the shelling started at six this morning is 50, mostly civilians,” the group’s Catherine al-Talli told Reuters.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian forces shot dead one person in the city of Hama on Friday as they broke up a protest marking the anniversary of a 1982 massacre by troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad’s father, activists said.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces dispersed the demonstrations in the Janoub al-Malaab district of Hama, where residents planned to release 1,000 red balloons to mark the killing of more than 10,000 people when Hafez al-Assad’s forces crushed an Islamist uprising.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria risks plunging deeper into violence and even civil war because President Bashar al-Assad “listens to nobody” inside or outside the country calling for change, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said.

A veteran politician whose ties with Damascus have ebbed and flowed over decades of shifting alliances, Jumblatt said he had no contact with the Syrian leader since meeting him in Damascus seven months ago in the early weeks of Syria’s uprising.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah dismissed on Saturday a United Nations call for his militant anti-Israel movement to disarm, saying it was determined to maintain a military capacity to defend Lebanon.

“I affirm today, firmly, decisively and with the greatest conviction … the choice of armed resistance,” Nasrallah said. “These weapons, along with the Lebanese people and army, are the only guarantee of Lebanon’s protection.”

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Many monitors in the Arab League’s troubled mission to Syria are angry over what they see as its failure to halt attacks on protesters and more are likely to pull out in protest, an Algerian former monitor told Reuters on Thursday.

Anwar Malek, who withdrew from the monitoring team this week, said three colleagues had already left Syria because they believed their two-week-old operation had done nothing to stem President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on dissent.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two defiant appearances by President Bashar al-Assad in as many days show the Syrian leader’s confidence that he can lead his country out of bloodshed and turmoil, but will do nothing to sway opponents seeking, and expecting, his downfall.

The carefully projected image of a relaxed, popular and powerful leader failed to deflect opponents demanding his overthrow and foreign powers who say his bloody crackdown on 10 months of protest has robbed him of any right to rule Syria.