DAMASCUS/ANKARA: Snipers and security forces killed five civilians Wednesday in Syria’s flashpoint province of Homs, activists said as the EU announced plans to slap new sanctions on the regime of President Bashar Assad.
The latest bloodletting came as U.S. President Barack Obama called on the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Syria in a speech at the General Assembly in New York.

And in Geneva the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll from the regime’s bloody crackdown on protesters since mid-March rose to more than 2,700 people.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting residents, said snipers shot dead a man in the Baba Amro neighborhood of the city of Homs and killed another in the town of Rastan, in the central province.

A man and a woman were also shot dead by security forces in the city of Homs, where a man who died Wednesday from his wounds, while a 24-year-old hit by a bullet bled to death in Talbisseh in the same province, it said.
Meanwhile, “security forces arrested three wounded people in a Homs hospital and took them to an unknown destination,” the Observatory said.

And the body of a young man was found Wednesday in Al-Huweiz village, in Hama province further north, “days after he was arrested by security forces,” it added.

The bodies of two other men were handed over to relatives Wednesday in the northwestern province of Idlib, where army and security troops have been conducting operations, it said.
Activists meanwhile reported that security forces arrested prominent dissident lawyer Imad Drubi Wednesday inside the main Homs courthouse.

And the elderly parents of prominent pianist Malek Jandali were beaten by pro-regime militiamen because of “the sympathy shown by their son” for pro-democracy protests, the Syrian Human Rights Committee said Wednesday.
Jandali, 39, who was born in Germany but grew up in Homs, is an internationally known pianist and composer.

The latest U.N. estimates show that the death toll in Syria’s crackdown on dissent has increased by over 100 to more than 2,700 people killed since mid-March, said human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani in Geneva.
“More than one hundred were reportedly killed in the week between Sept. 12-19,” she said, adding that reports of killings continue to pour in.

Frustrated with the regime’s failure to heed global calls to halt the bloodshed, the 27-member European Union prepared to slap a seventh set of sanctions against Syria Saturday, diplomats said.
The new sanctions will include a ban on investments in the oil sector and on delivering bank notes and coins made in Europe, and will also target six firms and two individuals “directly linked to the regime” who are part of Assad’s “inner circle,” one diplomat said.

Earlier this month, the EU adopted a ban on crude oil imports, designed to hit hard at Damascus as the EU buys 95 percent of Syria’s oil exports, providing a third of the regime’s hard currency earnings.

The move came as long-time ally, Turkey announced it is also considering imposing sanctions against Syria and is coordinating its efforts with the U.S., Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying Wednesday.
Erdogan also told Turkish journalists after talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in New York late Tuesday that he was no longer in contact with Syria’s leadership.
“I have cut all contacts with the Syrian administration,” the state-run Anatolia quoted Erdogan as saying. “We never wanted things to arrive at this point, but unfortunately, the Syrian administration has forced us to take such a decision.”

Turkey is Syria’s neighbor and an important trade partner and Erdogan had cultivated a close friendship with Assad. But Turkish leaders have grown increasingly frustrated with Damascus over its refusal to halt the crackdown on opposition protesters and to carry our reforms.
Earlier this month, Turkey hosted a group of Syrian opposition figures who declared a 140-member Syrian National Council in an effort to present a united front against Assad.

Some 7,500 Syrians are seeking refuge from the violence in six camps in Turkey, near the border.
Erdogan did not say what measures Turkey was considering taking. He said, however, the Turkish Foreign Ministry would work with the U.S. State Department to determine possible Turkish sanctions.