Only Putin can decide if - and when - Assad will step down

Images of the bullet-ridden bodies of bound Syrian civilians, some all but naked, are flooding Arab television broadcasts. Syrian human rights activists say on live TV they can't collect their dead in neighborhoods that are being attacked by Syrian army mortars. The dead are estimated at more than 300 since Friday.

The many hundreds of civilians wounded in that time don't appear to have much of a chance to receive medical aid. It's not only that the hospitals are filled - many of the wounded fear heading to a clinic because they could be killed by the Syrian army.

This has the been the demonstrators' toughest day in Homs, Syria's third largest city at more than 1.2 million people. Homs has become the symbol of Syria's civil uprising. The destroyed homes in the Khaldiyeh quarter are evidence of the regime's savage assault. Its new strategy to allow the army to attack and kill without distinguishing its target, as opposed to previous efforts to focus on the sources of the uprising, reflects the campaign's current stage.