Syria army pounds Homs as envoy heads to Russia

Diplomats in Brussels said EU foreign ministers had agreed an assets freeze and travel ban on “Assad's wife, mother, sister and sister-in-law,” and eight other entourage members.

Asma Assad, whose parents live in Britain where she grew up, cannot be barred entry to the country but is not expected “to try to travel to the United Kingdom at the moment,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

Assad himself was targeted last May 10, along with his younger brother Maher and four cousins.

Washington welcomed the EU decision.

“We are gratified that the EU has taken yet another step in tightening the noose on the Assad regime,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Syrians in the United States would be allowed to stay beyond their visas and avoid the risk of returning to their strife-torn country.

Meanwhile, U.N.-Arab League envoy Annan heads to Moscow on Saturday to gauge how far Russia is willing to push its key Arab ally after it finally joined a U.N. call on regime forces to pull back from protest cities.

Annan will meet President Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday before flying to China, the other U.N. Security Council member resisting global efforts to condemn Assad.

The special envoy will be carrying with him Assad's answer to a peace plan under which Syria could begin a “political transition” to a representative government, with no specifically defined role for the Syrian leader.

Moscow backed Wednesday's non-binding Security Council statement in support of the initiative only after making sure it contained no implicit threat of further action should Assad fail to comply.

Washington's U.N. ambassador Susan Rice admitted the U.N. call represented only “a modest step” towards ending the conflict.

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