- NEW: President Obama blasts Syrian government for "relentless brutality" against its people
- Tunisia expels the Syrian ambassador, withdraws diplomatic recognition of Damascus
- Syrian opposition council: 260 people die after the regime commits a "horrific" massacre in Homs
- Activist: "While they're having their little discussion, people are sitting here, and they're dying"
(CNN) -- As international anger grows over reports of mass carnage at the hands of the Syrian regime, President Barack Obama urged the U.N. Security Council to pass a draft resolution Saturday aimed at reining in the bloody crackdown.
In a strongly worded statement, Obama said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had lost all legitimacy, and that the international community "must work to protect the Syrian people from this abhorrent brutality."
Government forces "committed one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria," killing at least 260 civilians over the past day, the opposition Syrian National Council said Saturday.
"During the attack, residential buildings and homes were randomly and heavily bombed," the group said.
Some Syrian residents say the international community is sitting idle as bodies mount in the streets.
UN Security Council may vote on Syria 
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How long can al-Assad remain in power? "The U.N. isn't doing anything about it. The Arab League isn't doing anything about it. ... While they're having their little discussion, people are sitting here and they're dying," said an activist identified as Danny.
He said the assault on Homs started after a few dozen members of the Syrian army defected and fled to a part of the city.
"The civilians went down to welcome the (defectors) to thank them for their bravery," he said. "When the army found out, it started randomly bombarding with tank shells, mortar bombs. It's like they're killing animals."
Homs resident Abu Abdo Alhomsy described continuous bombing and snipers perched throughout the city.
"There are so many people on the streets that are wounded and they need help, but we can't reach them to help them," he said. "They're ready to kills us all. They have no problem with doing that. Please, we call (on) the international community for help."
The Local Coordination Committees, a Syrian opposition group, reported 24 more deaths elsewhere in Syria Saturday, most of them killed while taking part in the funeral of a slain protester in Darya, outside Damascus.
The U.N. Security Council is meeting in New York and is thought likely to vote on the draft resolution later.
As one of the council's five permanent members, the U.S. president's stern words may carry extra weight.
Obama said the Syrian government was guilty of murdering hundreds of Syrian people, including women and children.
"Every government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern," he said.
"Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately."
Worse, Obama said, the violence in Homs came as the Syrian people were celebrating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed and marking 30 years since Al-Assad's father oversaw a massacre in the city of Hama.
Earlier, Tunisia said it would expel the Syrian ambassador from Tunis in response to the killings in Homs, while British Foreign Secretary William Hague and his French counterpart Alain Juppe condemned the violence.
"Far from stopping their policy of repression, Syrian authorities have taken a step further into savagery. The massacre of Homs is a crime against humanity; its perpetrators will be held accountable," Juppe said in a statement, as he urged the U.N. Security Council to act.
"The international community must recognize and support the right of the Syrian people to freedom, security, and choice of its political future," he said. "Those that would impede the adoption of such a resolution would take a heavy responsibility before history."
Hague said he was horrified by the reports from Homs and condemned "unequivocally the use of tanks, mortars and artillery in civilian areas."
Criticizing what he described as Al-Assad's "cold-blooded cynicism in the face of mounting international pressure," he urged the U.N Security Council to act.
"The time is long past for the international community, particularly those that have so far sheltered the Assad regime, to intensify the pressure to end over 10 months of violence," he said in a statement.
Tunisia will expel the Syrian ambassador from Tunis and withdraw diplomatic recognition of the government in Damascus in response to the events in Homs, the official spokesman for President Moncef Marzouki said Saturday in a statement carried by the Tunisian state-run news agency.
For its part, Syrian state-run TV denied reports that the army shelled neighborhoods in Homs.
"This is a media campaign that uses fabrication, falsehood and escalation ... in order to affect a decision at the Security Council and cover crimes and attacks committed by armed terrorist groups," it said.
Despite the latest violence, efforts to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria could drag on.
Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council and a trade partner with Syria, has hinted it is not satisfied with the latest draft resolution.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Russian TV that a "scandal" could arise on the U.N. Security Council if the draft resolution goes for a vote on Saturday, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Russia has opposed previous draft resolutions on Syria.
Addressing the Munich Security Conference in Germany Saturday, Lavrov said work remained to be done on the text, according to the Russian state news agency ITAR-Tass.
"We must eliminate all the duplicities in the text," he is quoted by the agency as saying. "The internal Syrian dialogue should be conducted without any preconditions."
The Russian foreign minister also spoke in defense of Russian arm sales to Syria and said they did not affect the regional balance of power.
"We don't supply firearms and what we supply is not used in the conflict," he said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may meet on the sidelines of the conference, which is also attended by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The latest Security Council draft had dropped demands from an Arab League plan for Syria to form a unity government and for President Bashar al-Assad to delegate power to his deputy.
U.N. diplomats said the changes reflected a big concession to Russia, which has been reluctant to sign on to any plan that could be seen as a mandate for regime change in Damascus.
Russia, which counts Syria as a major weapons client, has said it is concerned about the prospect of a Syrian civil war and does not want al-Assad pushed from power. It has made clear that it will not accept an arms embargo or economic sanctions.
A call for other nations to follow the Arab League members in adopting measures such as sanctions against Syria had also been dropped from the latest version of the draft resolution, which demands the Syrian government allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and guarantee the freedom of peaceful demonstrations. It also calls for an "inclusive Syrian-led political process."
U.S. and European diplomats insisted that the revised text still fully endorsed the Arab League plan and that it did not need to spell out every detail to have the same meaning.
"It will still put pressure on the Syrian government because they realize that Russia cannot stand up forever. And they are under great pressure now. And, you know, Russia does not want to be against the people," Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said.
In October, Russia and China issued a rare double-veto of a resolution that lacked sanctions but would have condemned the violence in Syria.
The Syrian National Council said it hopes Syria can "democratically elect a regime that ensures freedom and dignity for all Syrians." It called for Russia to change its stance, condemn the Syrian regime and hold it accountable for mass killings.
CNN cannot independently confirm opposition or government reports from Syria because the regime has restricted journalists' access to the country.
But the unrest has spread far beyond Syria, with protests breaking out at Syrian embassies in Cairo, Berlin, Washington and London Friday and Saturday.
At least 7,100 people, including 461 children, have died since the start of the Syrian uprising in March, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a network of opposition activists that organizes and documents protests in Syria.
The United Nations estimated in December that more than 5,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since March but has not been able to update that figure because of the situation on the ground.
CNN's Yousuf Basil, Becky Brittain, Pierre Meilhan, Richard Roth, Mick Krever, Elise Labott, Salma Abdelaziz and Amir Ahmed, and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.
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