Violence in the city of Homs has sparked calls for the international community to act ahead of a major conference to discuss the worsening situation in Syria.

But even those Syrians who oppose President Assad are unsure whether military intervention is the way forward.

Dr Rim Turkmani, of the opposition movement Building up the Syrian State, said that military intervention would further "complicate the situation" escalating the violence and fuelling "an already existing civil war".

She described how she had lost family in Homs, but still maintained that we were "wasting our time talking about military intervention" because no country had shown the will to take action.

There is an opportunity for a "political solution" that should be exploited in order to force President Assad to come to a resolution through international consensus, she argued.

However, Syrian National Council spokesperson Ausama Monajed said that they should explore "any kind of solution that would stop this bloodshed".

He said that children are being slaughtered, women are being raped and civilians are losing their families and homes. Syrians "are begging for a devil to come and rescue them," he said.

He called on the international community to declare a humanitarian crisis in Syria and establish a safe zone where refugees can go to before they are killed by the regime.

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