SYRIAN troops have heavily shelled a rebel-held neighbourhood in Homs, activists said.
The attack came amid claims the military were preparing to storm the area.
UN observers have also entered an area where a massacre was reported this week.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Co-ordination Committees had no immediate word on casualties from the shelling of the Khaldiyeh neighbourhood in Homs.
Amateur videos posted online showed a small white plane, apparently a drone, flying over Homs.
“Khaldiyeh is being subjected to five to 10 shells a minute in the worst shelling since the revolution began,” the Observatory said.
Homs has been one of the hardest hit regions in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began last March.
The UN said several weeks ago that more than 9,000 people had been killed since the crisis began while activists put the number of dead at about 13,000.
Amateur videos showed missiles exploding into balls of flames in the crowded concrete jumble of homes.
The violence came two days after reports of a mass killing in the nearby province of Hama, where about 80 people, including women and children, were shot or stabbed.
Leith Al-Hamwy, an activist and resident of Mazraat al-Qubair said a group of observers entered the area, first visiting a cemetery where some of the dead were buried, continuing to the site of the mass killing.
A government statement yesterday on the state-run news agency SANA said “an armed terrorist group committed an appalling crime” in Mazraat al-Qubair, killing nine women and children.