Syrian army and security forces of Bashar al-Assad continue the siege of city Homs with tanks 120212.

A Syrian general was gunned down in the heart of the capital on Saturday, according to state media, as fresh violence flared in several cities and world powers mulled a way to halt the government's bloody offensive against civilians.

The capital has not been engulfed with the same kind of daily violence other cities have during the 11-month Syrian uprising, but the killing and recent attacks in Damascus could be a sign that the resistance is spreading to the seats of power.

At least 30 people were killed in Syria on Saturday, including 12 in Homs, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists. Homs, located in the country's west, is Syria's third largest city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition group, put Saturday's toll at 46, 32 of them civilians.

Meanwhile, the siege on the city of Homs has continued, with rights groups saying at least four people were killed during Saturday's violence, and that three bodies of people who had been killed earlier were also recovered.

Opposition neighbourhoods in Homs were hit by tank and rocket bombardments in the government's continuing crackdown on protesters there, with the city's Bab Amr area coming under concerted fire.

Security forces have also made house-to-house raids over the last two days in Homs, which has been under siege for the last week, anti-government activists have said.

The Syrian army continued to fight the rebellion with a rare violence using tanks, an amateur video of the February 11, 2012 shows a ZSU-23-4 (armored self-propelled anti-aircraft) which firing in the besieged town of Homs. The rebels resist in the Syrian city of Homs, and destroy armored vehicles of the Syrian army and police forces of President Bashar al-Assad.