Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

A soldier in South Sudan's SPLA army looks up at warplanes as he lies on the ground to take cover beside a road during an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona, near Bentiu, South Sudan, on April 23, 2012.

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

A woman runs along a road during an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona on April 23, 2012.

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Smoke rises after the Sudanese air force fired a missile during an air strike in Rubkona on April 23, 2012.

Reuters reports — Sudanese warplanes carried out air strikes on South Sudan on Monday, killing three people near a southern oil town, residents and military officials said, three days after South Sudan pulled out of a disputed oil field.

A Reuters reporter at the scene, outside the oil town of Bentiu, said he saw a fighter aircraft drop two bombs near a river bridge between Bentiu and the neighboring town of Rubkona. 

Sudan leader says he will teach independent South a 'final lesson by force'

Weeks of border fighting between the two neighbors have brought the former civil war foes closer to a full-blown war than at any time since the South seceded in July. Read more.

Video: George Clooney calls crisis in Sudan 'real disaster'

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

A soldier in South Sudan's SPLA army walks in a market destroyed in an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona on April 23, 2012.

Michael Onyiego / AP

A South Sudanese soldier has a bullet removed from his leg in the Rubkona Military Hospital on April 22, 2012.

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Women and children endure wintry weather as they wait in line to buy bread in Al Qusayr, a city in western Syria about 3 miles from Homs, on March 1, 2012.

A few miles from the the unfolding offensive in Homs, Syria, snow fell as people lined up outside a bakery in the town of Al Qusayr on Thursday morning. It was as close as most journalists were able to get to the besieged city, where two of their colleagues remained trapped alongside thousands of civilians after more than three weeks of steady government bombardment.

• Syrian describes horror in Homs, then line goes dead

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad pounded the Babr Amr district of Homs on Thursday in what appeared to be a final push on the opposition stronghold, activists said. On Wednesday, a Syrian official heightened fears of greater carnage to come when he said the government would "cleanse" the area. 

• Smugglers take 'path of death' to supply Syria revolt

Opposition activists remained defiant.

"Baba Amr will be the straw that will break the regime's back," Mohaimen al-Rumaid told Reuters from an area in Turkey near the Syrian border. "All of Syria is turning into Baba Amr." Read more.

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Men wait to buy bread in front of a bakery in Al Qusayr on March 1, 2012.

Rodrigo Abd / AP

Free Syrian Army supporters chant anti-government slogans under snowfall on the outskirts of Idlib, northern Syria, late on Feb. 29, 2012.