Iranian warships dock in Syria

Two Iranian warships were docked in a Syrian port Tuesday in a show of support for the Assad regime as the Red Cross tried to broker a humanitarian cease-fire. The ships, docked in the Mediterranean city of Tartus, Syria's second-largest port city, arrived Monday after Russian ships were also dispatched to the same port, activists said. The ships are "a serious warning" to Washington, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported. The agency quoted a senior Iranian lawmaker as denouncing U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, for calling on the United States to arm the Syrian opposition. McCain told CBS News Monday arming the opposition would not necessarily be done "directly." "But I think that there are ways to get arms to the resistance, and the Turks in the Arab League can play a great, a very significant role," he said. "I'm not calling for an invasion of Syria," he said, "but I am calling for practical measures which can be of assistance to them, which would break this stalemate, which would allow the Syrian people to achieve the aspiration that we hold for all people." Western and Arab leaders plan a Friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab League said. "The [Tunisia meeting] will include a large number of countries, and the goal of this meeting is to put extra pressure on Syria," Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby said. "Also, there are indicators coming from China in particular, and to a certain extent from Russia, that there may be a change in [their] position." Syrian tanks and troops were massed Tuesday outside the central-western city of Homs, a resistance stronghold the regime of President Bashar Assad has been bombarding for more than two weeks, activists said. Monday's bombardment killed at least 16 people, the activist group Avaaz reported. Such reports are impossible to verify because independent journalists are being kept out of the region. The massing of tanks and troops comes nine days after the Syrian army began distributing gas masks to its soldiers, while opposition activists said Assad forces transferred grenades and mortars containing chemical agents to a Homs school building, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Opposition figures expressed concern the moves could signal the regime's intention to unleash a fierce street attack on Homs residents and use chemical weapons against its citizens. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday it was trying to negotiate at least a brief pause in the violence to deliver aid to the most devastated areas. In Homs, for instance, supplies of food, baby formula, medicine and potable water are all running out, an opposition group said. Red Cross spokeswoman Carla Haddad said the agency, based in Geneva, was negotiating with Syrian authorities and rebels about stopping hostilities so urgent humanitarian aid could be delivered to devastated areas. The ICRC, the only international agency with aid workers in Syria, has been cooperating with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.