BBC News with Gaenor Howells
The United Nations
humanitarian
chief Valerie Amos has been to the devastated district of Baba Amr in the Syrian city of Homs. She spent about 45 minutes there with members of the Syrian Red Crescent assessing the humanitarian needs of residents who survived weeks of shelling by government forces. A Red Cross spokesman, Sean Maguire, told the BBC that they've encountered fewer people than they'd expected.
"The key issue really for us is where is the population and what are their needs now. We get a sense that they fled, they're elsewhere. Last week, the Free Syrian Army were saying there were about 4,000 people left, out of a population that may
at one point
have been as high as 100,000."
Six British soldiers have been killed by a huge bomb explosion in southern Afghanistan. Their deaths take the number of British service personnel killed in the country to more than 400. Quentin Sommerville reports from the British base at Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
The men had been known as two-vehicle convoy in what was described as a
routine patrol
. Not long after leaving their base, they left the main highway, crossing open ground. It's a common tactic. It was twilight when a massive explosion tore through their Warrior troop carrier.
The fire burnt for hours. The
wreckage
of the vehicle and the remains of the six soldiers have now been returned to base. The burnt-out hull of the Warrior appears to indicate that it was hit by a huge Taliban improvised explosive device, one of the largest seen in the area. One senior officer said this isn't a change in insurgent tactics; it was just