By the CNN Wire Staff
CNN, August 12, 2012 — Already devastated by weeks of incessant attacks this year, the Syrian city of Homs faced new terror Sunday as pro-regime forces executed 10 young men in the dissident stronghold, opposition activists said.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad stormed the Shammas neighborhood of Homs and gathered 350 young men in the square of a mosque, said the Syrian National Council, an umbrella opposition group.
“The military began calling the residents from the mosques surrounding the Shammas neighborhood that all young men need to come down to the streets with their hands behind their heads,” the SNC said.
Elsewhere across the country, regime forces shelled at least five cities Sunday morning, including the commercial metropolis of Aleppo and the area of Daraa, where anti-government protests began in March 2011, opposition activists said.
Meanwhile, Arab League foreign ministers will meet in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss what to do after Kofi Annan’s resignation.
Annan stepped down as the U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria this month as reports of bloodshed continued spiraling out of control.
 
On Saturday, for example, at least 101 people were killed nationwide, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.
But the Syrian regime touted developments in the government Saturday, announcing the swearing in of a new prime minister. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said Dr. Wael al-Halqi is a former chief of Syria’s doctors and was the country’s minister of health.
The SANA report made no mention of former Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, who resigned Monday, citing the “killing and terrorist regime.” His spokesman said Hijab had no choice but to take the job because the regime would have killed him if he had declined.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Lebanon, a military court charged two Syrian army officers Saturday with attempting to form an armed group to spread sectarian violence through plotting political and religious assassinations, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The court said Syria’s Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk, the newly-appointed head of the national security bureau, and a colonel known only as Adnan provided improvised explosive devices to Lebanese politician Michel Samaha, who faces the same charges.
Though the Syrian civil war rages on with no end in sight, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday the United States would start to develop contingency plans with its Turkish allies in the event that the embattled Syrian regime collapses.
Her announcement in Istanbul came 17 months into an escalating crisis that has claimed more than 17,000 lives and forced an estimated 150,000 refugees to flee into neighboring nations, including Turkey, which is hosting 50,000 people.
“There is a very clear understanding about the need to end this conflict quickly, but not doing it in a way that produces even more deaths, injuries and destruction,” Clinton said after talks with her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
Clinton said the two countries have agreed to set up a working group to help coordinate their response to the crisis going forward.
“We have been closely coordinating over the course of this conflict, but now we need to get into the real details of such operational planning. And it needs to be across both of our governments,” she said. “Certainly our two ministries are coordinating much of it, but our intelligence services, our military, have very important responsibilities and roles to play.”
Turkey, which is in the process of building four more refugee camps, has long been calling for more U.S. support.
“We would like to see more support from the U.S. on Syria,” said a senior Turkish government official. “Sometimes we feel very much alone.”
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
U.S. slaps new sanctions on Syria, extends those against Hezbollah
Turkey also has hosted Syrian groups opposed to al-Assad’s regime and is a vital transport route for opposition fighters and weapons into Syria.
Clinton announced an extra $5 million in aid for the United Nations refugee agency. Washington was already providing $25 million in nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition, including communications equipment.