U.K., Switzerland close embassies in Damascus.

Britain said on Thursday it has pulled its diplomats out of Syria for security reasons but is not breaking diplomatic ties with Damascus after months of violent political turmoil.
"We now judge that the deterioration of the security situation in Damascus puts our embassy staff and premises at risk, and have taken the decision to withdraw staff accordingly. Our ambassador and diplomatic staff left Syria on 29 February and will return to the UK shortly," Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.

A Foreign Office spokesman said Britain had not broken diplomatic ties with Syria. "The (Syrian) embassy in London will remain open so we can have a channel of communication to the Syrian regime," he said.

Meanwhile, the Swiss government said it had formally closed its embassy in Damascus, three weeks after shutting it temporarily, after urging Swiss citizens to leave the country and recalling its ambassador last August for consultations.

Switzerland announced the closure as the U.N.-Arab League Syria envoy, Kofi Annan, prepared to visit Damascus to ask President Bashar Assad to engage with efforts to end the mounting turmoil in his country.

In November Switzerland urged the roughly 180 Swiss citizens living in Syria to leave the country at once. Late on Wednesday, it said about 150 of them remain there, mostly people with dual citizenship living in Damascus.

What began nearly a year ago as peaceful protests against Assad's rule has, after months of forceful repression, turned into an armed insurrection by army deserters who refused to fire on unarmed fellow Syrians.

Elite government troops pounded a rebel bastion in the city of Homs on Thursday, stepping up their offensive after more than three weeks of siege and bombardment, activists said.

A senior official in the rebel Free Syrian Army told Reuters rebels in the Baba Amro district of Homs were fending off more than 7,000 government troops.