More than 50 killed in 2 days of turmoil in Syria

January 27, 2012 at 12:12p.m.

BEIRUT (AP) — Two days of bloody turmoil in Syria killed more than 50 people as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad shelled residential buildings, fired on crowds and left bleeding corpses in the streets in a dramatic escalation of violence, activists said today. Much of the violence was focused in Homs, where heavy gunfire hammered the city today in a second day of chaos. A day earlier, the city saw a flare-up of sectarian kidnappings and killings between its Sunni and Alawite communities, and pro-regime forces blasted residential buildings with mortars and gunfire, according to activists who said an entire family was killed.