Italy calls for 'maximum pressure' on Assad

Italy called on Friday for "maximum pressure" to be exerted on President Bashar Assad to prevent further massacres in Syria, after a sharp escalation in violence there. "We need everyone to raise the pressure to maximum on Assad to ward off a new massacre," Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said in a statement. Terzi is "extremely worried" about the "distressing" situation in Aleppo where rebels are bracing for a major battle with Syrian forces who are moving in on the northern city, the statement said. Rome sent medical kits to the country in June and is considering sending further humanitarian assistance, it said. Italy expelled the Syrian ambassador to Rome in May in a coordinated action with other Western powers after a massacre in the town of Houla. Fighting in Syria has intensified since a bomb attack in Damascus this month that killed several of the regime's key security official.