Russia tells citizens to leave #Syria, reportedly refuses Assad requests for weapons

05/09/12

Moscow believed to be considering evacuating personnel from its naval base in Tartus


A destoryed Syrian Army tank. Russia has indicated it will not provide Assad with any new weapons. (photo credit: CC BY/FreedomHouse,Flickr)

Russia told its citizens to leave Syria amid escalating violence on Tuesday. It cautioned its nationals to use extra care because both army and commercial planes are being targeted around the country.

Moscow is also refusing to meet Syrian requests for certain arms shipments — including more of the training planes that President Bashar Assad’s regime has been utilizing as bombers, and intercontinental-range SS-17 ballistic missiles — Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Tuesday. Russia, which has been supplying the Syrian regime with weapons for over four decades, has been criticized in the West for aiding Assad in the bloody 18-month uprising.

Moscow had previously hinted it will not send the regime any more weapons, adding that shipments to date represent its fulfillment of existing arms agreements rather than new arms deals.

Russia is also reported to be contemplating scaling down operations at its military base in Tartus, western Syria, if the security situation becomes critically dangerous.

According to independent Russian news agency Interfax, Russia admitted it had previously considered evacuating personnel from Tartus, but decided the situation was stable enough to stay.

Tartus, Russia’s only naval facility outside the landmass that comprises the former Soviet Union, is referred to as Moscow’s gateway to the Mediterranean. It hosts storage facilities, military specialists, and ships that come to be resupplied.

Source: timesofisrael.com

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE Urge Their Citizens to Leave Lebanon Immediately

16/08/12

#Syria, by Naharnet Newsdesk 23 hours ago

Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Awadh Asiri on Wednesday urged all Saudi citizens in Lebanon to leave the country “immediately,” after media reports said a Saudi man and his son were kidnapped by al-Meqdad clan in retaliation for the abduction of one of its members in Damascus by the Syrian opposition.

Later on Wednesday, the UAE and Qatar also urged their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

“Unfortunately, the situation is very dangerous,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan said on Twitter.

Qatar for its part cited “the instability of the security situations” in Lebanon, in remarks carried by its official news agency.

Speaking from Mecca to Lebanon’s National News Agency, Asiri said he asked all Saudi citizens to leave Lebanon immediately “after the threats have become public.”

He also asked all Saudis “not to visit Lebanon at all amid the current circumstances.”

The Saudi ambassador added that he is not aware of “the abduction of any Saudi citizen in Lebanon.”

Al-Meqdad family announced earlier on Wednesday that its military wing has so far kidnapped more than 20 Free Syrian Army members in Lebanon, as well as a Turkish national, promising a “hefty catch.”

The military wing told LBCI television: “We may take escalatory measures depending on the latest developments.”

“We have a bank of targets in Lebanon and we are capable of reaching regional targets,” it warned.

Al-Meqdad family also held Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey responsible for the kidnapping of Hassan.

Source: naharnet.com

#Syria: UN relief chief ‘horrified’ by violence, urges unrestricted access for aid agencies

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos


9 March 2012 –

The United Nations relief chief today urged Syrian authorities to allow unrestricted access to humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to people affected by the ongoing violence, saying she was “horrified” by the destruction she had seen in some of the areas she visited during her two-day visit to the country.

Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, met with Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, and other Government ministers, who agreed to a joint preliminary assessment mission to areas where people urgently need assistance.

“While this is a necessary first step, it remains essential that a robust and regular arrangement be put in place, which allows humanitarian organizations unhindered access to evacuate the wounded and deliver desperately needed supplies,” said Ms. Amos in a statement.

“A proposal has been submitted to the Government of Syria and I ask them to consider this matter with the utmost urgency.”

Ms. Amos, who is also the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, visited the city of Homs and part of the suburb of Baba Amr with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

“Almost all the buildings had been destroyed and there were hardly any people left there. I am extremely concerned as to the whereabouts of the people who have been displaced from Baba Amr,” she said.

During her visit, Ms. Amos also went to facilities for displaced Syrians in the Hatay province on the Turkish side of the border, and met the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu with whom she discussed regional contingency planning efforts.

Last week, Ms. Amos also held consultations with the Lebanese and Jordanian governments and praised their readiness to assist Syrian exiles. “I commend all three governments for keeping the borders open for people in distress and for providing relief to them in a sustained manner,” she said.

Earlier this week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that as many as 2,000 refugees from Syria may have crossed into Lebanon in just two days.

Yesterday, Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the League of Arab States for Syria, Kofi Annan, called for an immediate end to the killings and warned against the use of force.

“I hope no one is thinking very seriously of using force in the situation. I believe any further militarization will make the situation worse,” Mr. Annan said at a joint press conference in Cairo with the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Nabil El-Araby.

The uprising in Syria is part of the broader Arab Spring protest movement that began at the start of last year and has toppled several long-standing regimes in North Africa and the Middle East.

Source: un.org

#Syria trying to cover up executions, say activists

By Albert Aji, Beirut

Thursday, March 08, 2012

The UN humanitarian chief entered the shattered Syrian district of Baba Amr, where activists accuse regime forces of trying to cover up evidence of execution-style killings and reprisal attacks following a bloody military siege.

Valerie Amos was expected to give the first outside assessment of the conditions in the neighbourhood in the central city of Homs.

The government had sealed off Baba Amr since regime forces recaptured the neighbourhood from rebels last Thursday following a deadly assault that lasted nearly four weeks. Activists accuse the government of using the past six days to try to cover up evidence of atrocities by the regime.

Khaled Erq Sousi, head of the emergency committee of the Syrian Red Crescent, said that Amos was allowed into Baba Amr. The government had rebuffed an earlier request by Amos to visit the country this month as regime troops attacked Baba Amr, finally wresting it back from rebels who had held it for months.

Amos has said the aim of her visit is “to urge all sides to allow unhindered access for humanitarian relief workers so they can evacuate the wounded and deliver essential supplies.”

Despite international appeals, the Syrian government still has not allowed any aid workers into Baba Amr, saying there was a security risk. But activists say the government has been engaged in a “mopping-up” operation to hide their activities.

After seizing Baba Amr from the rebels, regime forces appeared to be turning their attention to other rebellious areas, including the northern province of Idlib near Turkey. The shift suggested that the Syrian military is unable to launch large operations simultaneously, even though the security services remain largely strong and loyal.

According to witnesses, Syrian troops shelled the northern villages in Idlib yesterday.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad defies mounting international pressure to end the year-old crackdown on an uprising against him.

According to state news agency Sana, Assad said he will continue to confront “foreign-backed terrorism.” Since the uprising began last March, he has blamed armed gangs and foreign terrorists for the unrest, not protesters seeking change.

The UN says more than 7,500 people have been killed since Syria’s uprising began. Activists put the death toll at more than 8,000.

Despite the growing bloodshed, president Barack Obama has said unilateral US military action against Assad’s regime would be a mistake.

In Washington, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta pushed back against fresh demands for US military involvement in Syria to end Assad’s deadly crackdown on his people.

The panel’s top Republican, Sen John McCain of Arizona, said the estimated 7,500 dead and the bloodshed calls for US leadership that a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, displayed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s and that Obama eventually showed on Libya last year.



Source: irishexaminer.com

#Syria: second bid to evacuate journalists fails - Telegraph.

Volunteers from the local affiliate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were allowed to reach the Baba Amr district to remove casualties requiring treatment, including Paul Conroy, a British photographer working for the Sunday Times, and Edith Bouvier, a French correspondent for Le Figaro.

Both were both wounded last Wednesday during the same bombardment that killed Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times and Remi Ochlik, a French photographer. Recovering the two corpses had also been the aim of the operation.

However, the ICRC said: “Neither the foreign journalists nor the bodies of the two other foreign journalists were able to be evacuated. We do not know the reason why.” Three Syrian civilians were taken out of Baba Amr for treatment.

Last Friday, three ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached Baba Amr by agreement with the regime and brought seven wounded civilians out of the area. On that occasion, the ICRC said that Mr Conroy and Miss Bouvier had “refused to be evacuated” by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent when the group “offered to take them out”. The journalists, both of whom have suffered leg injuries, might have been worried about the impartiality of this organisation’s local volunteers. Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad believe the Syrian Arab Red Crescent is under the influence of the regime

Last night the journalists were understood to have been similarly reluctant, with Miss Bouvier being particularly unwilling to leave with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Personnel from the ICRC itself were able to reach Homs, but not Baba Amr.

Jacques Beres, a French surgeon who worked in a makeshift hospital in the provincial capital for two weeks, described Homs as a “ghost city” and said the area where Mr Conroy and Miss Bouvier were lying wounded was “hell”. He added: “The difficulties are huge. We really need a truce.”

Mr Beres, a co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres, a French medical charity, told reporters that Miss Bouvier had been seriously injured. “It seems that she has a fractured femur, you can’t move with such a fracture. It hurts a lot, it’s dangerous,” he said. “We must pay tribute to the courage of the journalists who went there and who are still there.”

Intense diplomatic efforts were under way to resolve the situation yesterday and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France had voiced optimism that the deadlock would be broken. “We have the beginnings of a solution,” he told French radio. “It seems that things are starting to move.”

Mr Sarkozy added that Miss Colvin and Mr Ochlik had been deliberately “assassinated” by the Syrian regime’s forces. He accused the Syrian army of intentionally bombarding a target which they knew “perfectly well” to be a rudimentary press centre used by journalists who had managed to reach Baba Amr. “What’s happening in Syria is a scandal,” added Mr Sarkozy.

The American embassy in Damascus closed earlier this month so US interests in Syria are now being handled by Poland’s mission in the country. A spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry said the country’s diplomats were co-operating with French and British efforts to “obtain the evacuation of Western journalists from Homs”. Miss Colvin was an American citizen.

However, the Polish spokesman cautioned that the situation was remained “complicated”. Any movement by members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in Homs is highly dangerous, involving crossing front lines manned by the Syrian soldiers and rebels from the Free Syrian Army. After the failure of Monday’s effort, no one can be sure that another evacuation attempt will be possible.

Avaaz: #Syria activist network frees Paul Conroy, three remain

Today, a network of Syrian activists coordinated by the global campaign organisation Avaaz helped the international journalist Paul Conroy escape into Lebanon. He had been injured and trapped in Baba Amr, Homs for six days under continuous Syrian government shelling. The three other journalists Javier Espinosa, Edith Bouvier and William Daniels remain unaccounted for.

Avaaz responded to requests from the journalists, their families and colleagues to attempt to evacuate them and worked with over 35 heroic Syrian activists each night who volunteered to help in the rescue.  

The activists have offered to support in the evacuation every night since Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin were killed by Syrian government shellfire last Wednesday, during which time they rescued 40 seriously wounded people from the same place and brought in medical supplies. Tragically this operation led to a number of fatalities as the Syrian Army targeted those escaping, during their bombardment of the city on Sunday evening. 13 activists were killed in the operation. Three activists were killed by Syrian targeted shelling as they tried to assist the journalists through Baba Amr.  

While Paul Conroy successfully escaped the city, ten activists died bringing relief supplies into Baba Amr. On the day of their evacuation, over 7,000 people had been forced to flee their neighbourhoods in south Homs in fear of massacres. This operation was carried by Syrians with the help of Avaaz. No other agency was involved.  

Ricken Patel. Executive Director of Avaaz said: “Paul Conroy’s rescue today is a huge relief but this must be tempered with the news that three remain unaccounted for and with our respects for the incredibly courageous activists who died during the evacuation attempts.  The rescue is ongoing and we are deeply disappointed that sections of the media broke this story before all the journalists are safe.  The world must now listen carefully to the human horror stories that Paul will tell and act to end this bloodbath and deliver the urgent relief and protection to the people of Syria.”

The latest reports from Avaaz citizen journalists still able to operate in country indicate that the Syrian government has moved in on the ground to neighbourhoods all over Homs, in the most savage and sustained assault since continuous shelling of the city began 23 days ago. Tens of thousands of people are now at risk, and families last night were taken hostage by pro-government militias. 62 people including women and children were confirmed dead just from yesterday’s violence. 

ENDS

For further information, please contact Beirut: Alex Renton on alex.renton@avaaz.org or +447957371902 or +961 71565495. London: Will Davies on will@avaaz.org or +447855 419901

Notes to editors: Avaaz is a global campaigning organisation with over 13 million members which campaigns to change the world from the one we have, to the one most people want. Avaaz has been working with activists on the Syrian Spring since it started, setting up a network of over 400 Citizen Journalists across the country, smuggling in medicines and international journalists to report on the unfolding story and campaigning to ensure that sanctions and political pressure are applied on the Assad regime. The organisation is entirely funded by small donations from its members.

Source: secure.avaaz.org

#Syria: Bid to rescue two wounded journalists fails

Shelling: A woman holds her daughter as she looks at a building hit by Syrian Army bombings

Attempts to evacuate two wounded journalists from the besieged city of Homs failed as ambulances carrying injured civilians left without them.

Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier, of Le Figaro newspaper, were injured in a deadly bombardment which killed war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik on Wednesday.

Teams from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent made their way into the embattled neighbourhood of Baba Amr yesterday to remove casualties but parted without the wounded journalists or the bodies of their colleagues.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said last night: “We were not able to evacuate the foreign journalists or the bodies of those journalists killed last week.
“We do not know the reason why.

“The situation on the ground is very tense and communications are very difficult.”

The ambulances left Baba Amr, which has been devastated by a month of shelling by Syrian government forces, carrying an elderly woman and a pregnant woman with her husband.

Efforts to rescue Mr Conroy and Ms Bouvier were launched last week following the rocket attack on the makeshift media centre where they were working.

On Sunday, Mr Conroy’s wife Kate said her husband had rejected an opportunity to leave Homs with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent for fear it was “not to be trusted”.

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said there was evidence of people on the ground “infiltrating” the humanitarian organisation and “posing an additional danger” to anyone seeking to leave the city.

Foreign Office officials are understood to be working alongside the French embassy to try to retrieve the journalists and are said to be pressing the Syrian ministry of foreign affairs.
Mr Conroy, 47, from Totnes, Devon, has appealed for help in a video posted on YouTube.

Lying on a sofa in a darkened room and covered in a blanket, he said he sustained “three large wounds” to his leg in the attack and was being looked after by the Free Syrian Army medical staff.

The freelance photographer and film-maker, who was also hit in the stomach by shrapnel, added that he wanted to reassure family and friends in Britain that he was “absolutely OK”.

Ms Bouvier, who suffered multiple leg fractures, was also seen begging for help in being evacuated to safety in Lebanon.

On Friday, teams from the ICRC were deployed to Homs to evacuate seven wounded and 20 women and children.

The organisation has since stressed the “urgent” need to evacuate those who require help and bring in vital assistance.

The Foreign Office has said “all the necessary work” was being done to repatriate Ms Colvin’s body and ensure Mr Conroy “gets to safety”.

The award-winning war reporter, 56, was killed after defying an order from her editor to leave the opposition stronghold of Homs because she wanted to finish “one more story” her mother Rosemarie has said.

At the time, she was the only British newspaper reporter in the city, which has become a symbol of the 11-month uprising against Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Syrian activists have accused his forces of deliberately targeting the journalists.
The Syrian foreign ministry has offered condolences to the families of Ms Colvin and Mr Ochlik but denied any responsibility for their deaths.

Source: thisislondon.co.uk

Death toll mounts as Assad sends elite Syrian troops to embattled Homs #Syria

Syrians attend a mass funeral for more than a dozen of people, whom anti-government protesters said were killed during clashes with Syrian forces in Homs. (Reuters)

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

By Al Arabiya with Agencies
 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent units of an elite armored division into Homs on Tuesday as rebel-held districts came under the heaviest bombardment of a three-week-old offensive, opposition sources in the city said. Syrian forces killed as many as 138 people on Monday, Al Arabiya reported citing activists.

Opposition sources told Reuters that tanks and troops of the Fourth Division, which is commanded by Assad’s brother Maher moved overnight into main streets around the besieged southern area of Baba Amro. The tanks had “Fourth Division Monsters” painted on them, they said.

There was no independent confirmation of the deployment. Syrian authorities tightly restrict media access to the country.

The outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria, where repression of initially peaceful protests has spawned an armed insurrection by army deserters and others.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent did manage to enter the besieged Baba Amro district of Homs and evacuate three people on Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. Foreign reporters trapped in the area were not evacuated and the bodies of two journalists killed there had not been recovered, it said, according to Reuters.

President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced that voters had overwhelmingly approved a new constitution in a referendum derided as a sham by his critics at home and abroad.

While foreign powers argued over whether to arm the rebels, the Syrian Interior Ministry on Monday said the reformed constitution, which could keep Assad in power until 2028, had received 89.4 percent approval from more than 8 million voters.

Syrian dissidents and Western leaders dismissed as a farce Sunday’s vote, conducted in the midst of the country’s bloodiest turmoil in decades, although Assad says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

Voting turnout

Officials put national voter turnout at close to 60 percent, but diplomats who toured polling stations in Damascus saw only a handful of voters at each location.

Assad says he is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist groups” and his main allies — Russia, China and Iran — fiercely oppose any outside intervention intended to add him to the list of Arab autocrats unseated by popular revolts in the past year.

But Qatar joined Saudi Arabia in advocating arming the Syrian rebels, given that Russia and China have twice used their vetoes to block any action by the U.N. Security Council.

“I think we should do whatever is necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Oslo.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe criticized the U.N. Security Council’s “impotence” on Syria, shown by the Russian and Chinese vetoes, and accused the Syrian authorities of “massacres” and “odious crimes.”

In a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Juppe said the time was ripe for referring Syria to the International Criminal Court and warned Assad he would be brought to justice.

“The day will come when the Syrian civilian and military authorities, first among them President Assad himself, must respond before justice for their acts. In the face of such crimes, there can be no impunity,” Juppe told the 47-member Geneva forum, which will hold an emergency debate on Syria on Tuesday.

Shells and rockets crashed into districts of Homs that have already endured weeks of bombardment as Assad’s forces try to stamp out an almost year-long revolt against his 11-year rule.

Source: english.alarabiya.net