Assad Forces Continue Homs Bombing on Eve of Lavrov Visit

The United States shut its embassy in Damascus and said all staff had left the country due to worsening security.

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Belgium and Britain recalled their ambassadors from Syria, and London said it would seek further European Union sanctions against the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama said that, however hard Western countries are prepared to lean on Assad diplomatically, they still had no intention of using force to topple him, as they did against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya last year.

"I think it is very important for us to try to resolve this without recourse to outside military intervention. And I think that's possible," he told NBC's Today show.

Russia fought back against blistering criticism from the West for blocking the U.N. resolution Saturday. Foreign Minister Lavrov said condemnations of Moscow's veto had verged on "hysteria."

He was heading to Syria Tuesday because Moscow sought "the swiftest stabilization of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come," Lavrov's ministry said.

"SWIFT REFORMS"

Assad has promised political reforms including a new constitution followed by a parliamentary election, but has also pledged to crush "terrorists" he blames for the violence.

Syria's opposition, which rejected a Russian invitation for talks with Syrian officials in Moscow, says Assad's promised reforms are not credible after his crackdown on protests in which the United Nations says 5,000 people have been killed.

In addition to months of national unrest, the Syrian capital was hit by suicide bombings in December and January.