Syrian Freedom

U.N. monitor says violence increasing across #Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations monitors in Syria said on Monday violence was intensifying across the country, blaming both President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebel fighters for ignoring the plight of civilians.

“It is clear that violence is increasing in many parts of Syria,” General Babacar Gaye, head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, told journalists in Damascus.

“The indiscriminate use of heavy weapons by the government and targeted attacks by the opposition in urban centers are inflicting a heavy toll on innocent civilians.

“I deeply regret that none of the parties has prioritized the needs of civilians.”

Activists say more than 18,000 people, including soldiers, rebels and civilians, have been killed since the start of the Syrian uprising against Assad in March last year.

Assad’s forces are battling to regain control of the biggest city, Aleppo, from rebel fighters who went on the offensive last month, seizing districts of the capital and the northern commercial hub, as well as several border crossings.

Free Syrian Army rebels also control towns and villages in a wide swathe of territory near the northern border with Turkey.

Assad’s forces have hit back, regaining much of Damascus and bombarding opposition strongholds in and around the capital. Residents reported overnight shelling from the Qassioun mountains overlooking north Damascus into Jobar neighborhood.

13/08/2012

Activists also reported shelling in the northern Damascus suburb of Tell, which they say has been under rebel control for two weeks, and in Muadamiya suburb, where they said four men had been found executed after troops pulled out.

State television said the army was battling rebels in the city of Homs and had attacked “terrorist lairs” in the town of Talbiseh to the north.

The mandate for the U.N. monitors, whose original mission was to observe an April ceasefire that never took hold, expires on August 19. Their numbers have already been cut to a third because violence has made it impossible for them to move around.

“But the remaining 100 observers, along with our civilian colleagues, will operate till the last minute,” Gaye said.

“I call on the parties to cease military operations and come to the (negotiating) table,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues had delivered the same appeal in person to the government and the Syrian opposition abroad.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Algerian diplomat tipped as UN envoy to #Syria

Lakhdar Brahimi has served as a UN special envoy in Iraq after the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein [Reuters]

10/08/2012

Diplomats have said Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign affairs minister, is a strong candidate to replace Kofi Annan as the United Nations’ peace envoy to Syria.

Brahimi’s possible appointment could be announced as early as next week, but the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said late on Thursday that there could be last-minute changes if a key government has concerns about the choice.

The former Algerian foreign affairs minister has a long history as a diplomatic troubleshooter, and will if appointed face tough challenges in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is using his security forces to try to crush a 17-month-old uprising.

Brahimi, 78, has served as a UN special envoy in a series of challenging circumstances, including in Iraq after the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and in Afghanistan both before and after the end of Taliban rule. He was posted in South Africa as it emerged from the apartheid era.

Syria, however, may present an unusually vexing assignment, in part because international action to try to end the violence has been stymied by the disagreements between the five veto-holding permanent members of the UN Security Council.

While the security council united in April to approve the deployment of 300 monitors to Syria to observe a failed ceasefire as part of Annan’s peace plan, Russia and China vetoed three other resolutions that criticized Syria and threatened sanctions against Damascus.

‘Finger-pointing’

Annan, a former UN secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said last week he would step down as the special envoy because he was unable to do his job with the UN Security Council hopelessly deadlocked over Syria.

In announcing his resignation, Annan explicitly blamed “finger-pointing and name-calling” at the Security Council for his decision to quit, but suggested his successor may have better luck.

In accepting Annan’s resignation, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked him for having taken on “this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments”.

A spokesman for Ban, who is expected to formally name Annan’s successor, was not immediately available for comment.

Kofi Annan to put new #Syria ‘approach’ to rebels after Assad talks

International envoy Kofi Annan said he agreed with President Bashar al-Assad on Monday on a new “approach” to end Syria’s 16-month-old conflict that he would put to the rebels.

UN-Arab envoy Kofi Annan and Syrian President Bashar Assad Photo: AFP

11:38AM BST 09 Jul 2012

Stepping up political efforts to halt the carnage which monitors say has cost more than 17,000 lives, the UN-Arab League envoy was reportedly to travel on to Iran, Syria’s close ally.

“We discussed the need to end the violence and ways and means of doing so. We agreed an approach which I will share with the armed opposition,” Annan said after meeting Assad in Damascus.

The former UN chief said he had a “constructive” meeting with Assad, on his third such mission for talks on his six-point peace plan for Syria since he was appointed in February.

“I had constructive and candid talks with President Assad,” he told reporters at a Damascus hotel, echoing Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi who termed the meeting “constructive and good”.

The meeting came a day after nearly 100 people were reportedly killed in Syria and at a time of apparently uncompromising anger from the opposition.

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) slammed Annan’s decision to meet Assad, saying thousands have been killed in the country despite an April ceasefire that is a key point of the envoy’s plan.

Ahead of his trip to Damascus, Annan admitted his peace blueprint has so far failed to stem the bloodshed in Syria, in remarks published by French newspaper Le Monde.

He also expressed frustration that while Moscow and Iran are mentioned by some as stumbling blocks to peace, “little is said about other countries which send arms, money, and have a presence on the ground.”

And, in an defiant interview late on Sunday, Assad told German public broadcaster ARD that many countries were undermining Annan’s initiative.

The United States is “part of the conflict. They offer the umbrella and political support to those gangs to … destabilise Syria,” said the embattled Syrian leader.

Assad said the Annan plan had failed because “many countries don’t want it to succeed.”

His decision to travel to Damascus and hold talks with Assad was criticised by the SNC, the main opposition group in exile which cited the high death toll since they agreed an April 12 ceasefire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, estimates that 5,898 people have been killed since the truce was announced.

“In this context, Annan chose to meet with the symbols of the Syrian regime, while abstaining from the Friends of Syria conference in Paris,” the SNC said, asserting that Syrians “cannot justify these steps”.

It also questioned Annan’s support for Iran to play a diplomatic role, saying that “Tehran’s support for its allies in the Syrian regime makes them partners in the aggression on the Syrian people.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his part, has accused the United States and its allies of opposing Assad’s regime with the goal of dominating the Middle East and propping up Israel.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s on Sunday warned time was running out to save Syria from a “catastrophic assault”.

“The sooner there can be an end to the violence and a begetting of a political transition process, not only will fewer people die, but there’s a chance to save the Syrian state from a catastrophic assault,” she said in Tokyo.

“It should be abundantly clear to those who support the Assad regime their days are numbered,” Clinton said.

Meanwhile, the Syrian navy staged live fire exercises at the weekend to “simulate the scenario of repelling a sudden attack from the sea,” state news agency SANA reported.

Republican US Senator John McCain on Sunday took President Barack Obama’s administration to task for what he called its “shameful and disgraceful” response to the bloodshed in Syria.

“The fact is that the United States has played no leadership role,” McCain told CBS television, referring to efforts to halt Syria’s crackdown.

On the ground Monday, the Syrian army clashes with rebels in several main cities across the country, including the capital Damascus, Deir Ezzor in the east and Homs in central Syria, the Observatory said.

The Khaldiyeh neighbourhood of Homs came under fierce shelling by regime forces attempting to storm the rebel stronghold.

In the northern city of Aleppo, battles between the two took place in several neighbourhoods, while a roadside bomb targeting a security patrol killed two members of the security forces.

Regime forces also bombarded areas in rural Damascus and the southern province of Daraa, where clashes broke out near the Jordanian border, the watchdog said.

Source: AFP

(06/07/2012) Al-Latamna, Hama, #Syria | UN observers were present to view the destruction by helicopter gunships

#Syria defections hurt army morale, core intact

As Syrian army defections multiply, the backbone of the regime remains grounded on a loyal core of officers motivated either by conviction or fear of a post-revolt purge of their ranks.

The most prominent desertions have been the June 22 defection of a pilot who landed his fighter in Jordan and that of 85 soldiers who escaped to Turkey on Monday.

Such events offer inspiration for the increasingly organised rebels which, according to activists and monitors, have inflicted heavy losses on government troops in past weeks.

“These defections hurt the morale of the army,” Riad Kahwaji, who heads the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), told AFP.

But “you don’t have the kind of scale of defections that would make an impact,” said Aram Nerguizian, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The scale of defections in the Syrian army, one of the largest in the Arab world, is hard to quantify, despite widespread videos and news reports of dissent.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “tens of thousands” of soldiers have fled since the anti-regime revolt broke out in March 2011, but not all have joined the armed rebellion.

British military analyst Paul Smyth points out that “the number of people who have deserted is still quite low considering the size of the Syrian military, which is quite large.”

“Any army which has been fighting in various parts of a country for over a year has obviously maintained a certain degree of cohesion,” said Smyth, founder of defense consulting firm R3IConsulting.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that in 2010, a year before the revolt, the Syrian army could count 325,000 troops under its command.

This number does not include an additional 300,000 reservists.

Either “people are not leaving the army because they are genuinely still loyal to the regime, or they are frightened of reprisals that may happen to their families,” said Smyth, a retired British officer.

“Probably both are true,” he added.

Testimonies from deserters often cite disobeying orders to shoot civilians as the prime cause of defections.

Kassem Saadeddine, spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, said that soldiers who were reluctant to defect for fear of reprisals were supporting the rebels with weapons, intelligence and logistics.

But in elite units, the backbone of the army, numbering approximately 100,000 men, there have been no visible cracks.

“In Syria, there are two armies: the military itself and the army defending the regime,” Kahwaji said.

These include the dreaded fourth division of the First Army Corps, led by the younger brother of President Bashar al-Assad, Maher, which Kahwaji said “is the best equipped and better paid.”

The special forces, the Republican Guard and some of the fifth and ninth divisions are also “darlings of the regime”.

But in a majority Sunni country led by the Assad clan, hailing from the minority Alawite faith, loyalty to community has become more pronounced as the conflict takes an increasingly sectarian bent.

“Every major unit within the Syrian armed forces that has the ability to shape the security outcome is either directly or indirectly controled by Alawite officers,” Nerguizian told AFP.

“While these defections are not insignificant, they are still mainly Sunni soldiers who don’t have the kind of access to command and control” needed to cause “shifts within the Alawite command structure.”

Even many Sunni officers are hesitant to take the plunge.

“Many now believe that even if Assad were to go, the country will be embroiled in instability for years,” Nerguizian said. “There are still far too many within the military who prefer some kind of continuity over years of instability.

“Even if they support the opposition, they fear the prospect of an Iraq-style ‘de-Baathification’,” the analyst said, referring to the dissolution of the Baath — the ruling party in Syria — after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

“They are going to hang in there with the hope of some political settlement.”

According to experts, the status quo is likely to drag on, especially given NATO’s reluctance to intervene in the conflict.

“The regime cannot decapitate the opposition by force and vice versa. It is a real war of attrition,” said Nerguizian.

Military Confidant of #Syria’s Assad Is Reported to Have Defected

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ALAN COWELL

Published: July 5, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Manaf Tlass, a general in Syria’s elite Republican Guards and a member of the Damascus aristocracy who grew up around President Bashar al-Assad, was reported to have defected on Thursday.

If confirmed, it would be the first such desertion from within the gilded circle around the president since the uprising against him began in March 2011, and the kind of embarrassing departure long anticipated to indicate that the regime’s cohesion was cracking.

“Manaf is one of the regime’s main figures,” said Bashar al-Heraki, a member of the Syrian National Council, the main political group in exile. Mr. Heraki, the head of the council’s military liaison committee, said General Tlass would soon publicly declare his defection, but he declined to confirm reports that the general was in Turkey.

“It is a negative sign for this regime, it has started to lose control,” Mr. Heraki said.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group with contacts inside Syria, said at least three people within the country had confirmed that General Tlass had left, but it was not completely certain that he had defected. “If he does announce it, it will be the first real defection from the regime,” said the director, who goes by the pseudonym Rami Abdul-Rahman for reasons of personal safety.

General Tlass was the son of another general, Mustafa Tlass, who was a close confidant of President Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president. Mustafa Tlass served as his defense minister from 1972 to 2004. As one of the regime’s most prominent Sunni Muslims, he helped disguise the fact that the elder Mr. Assad built an inner circle composed mostly of his own minority Alawite sect.

The elder Mr. Tlass was also said to have played a key role in the anointment of Bashar al-Assad as his father’s heir after his firstborn son, Basil, died at the wheel of his Mercedes.

At the official memorial service for Basil, the elder Mr. Tlass said from the podium that he could see the light of Basil’s eyes shining from Bashar’s. Bashar soon became the heir-apparent, ending his medical career and sent for military training where the elder Mr. Tlass quickly promoted him and where he became friends with Manaf.

In the second generation of the elite, families with two sons often divided their roles, with one going into business and the other joining the armed forces. It was true of Bashar’s first cousins, the Makloufs, and it was also true for the Tlass family.

Firas Tlass became a business tycoon, while Manaf, a handsome, charismatic figure, became an officer in the Republican Guards, one of the elite units that has been used repeatedly to try to crush the rebellion by force.

“He’s a close friend to Bashar,” said Mr. Heraki, “So it is not only a strong strike against the regime, but the strongest message yet to Bashar that he is no longer safe, and message to other officers thinking about defecting.”

Word of General Tlass’s reported defection came as the officer commanding United Nations monitors in Syria said that violence there had reached “unprecedented” levels, making it impossible for his unarmed observers to resume their work, which was suspended last month.

The suspension was one of the most severe blows to months of international efforts to negotiate a peace plan to forestall adescent into civil war.

At the time, the United Nations said the monitors would not be withdrawn but would be locked down inSyria’s most contested cities, unable to conduct patrols.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood of Norway, who commands the United Nations monitors, told reporters on Thursday that “the escalation of violence, allow me to say to an unprecedented level, obstructed our ability to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue.”

It would be impossible to revive his mission without a cease-fire, General Mood said.

But, in the third installment of an interview which Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper has published this week, Mr. Assad showed no readiness to heed either cease-fire calls or a plan proposed by Kofi Annan, the special envoy on Syria, for a transitional government.

The series of excerpts from the interview, conducted last Sunday in Damascus, has provided a rare insight into Mr. Assad’s thinking both on his plight at home and on regional relationships, strained by the action of Syrian gunners who shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean last month.

Turkey’s military said in a statement on Thursday that the bodies of the two pilots, found a day earlier at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean 8.6 nautical miles from Syria’s shoreline, were recovered and sent to the Turkish town of Malatya, home to their air base, where the doomed F-4 Phantom took off on its final mission June 22. A memorial service was planned there for Friday.

The military statement also included photographs of what were described as 31 pieces of their downed plane recovered in the search, which was aided by Robert Ballard, the American undersea explorer and his vessel, the Nautilus, perhaps best known for discovering the remains of the Titanic in 1985.

Turkey says Syria brought down the plane over international waters, but Syria says it was in Syrian airspace at the time.

In discussing the incident with Cumhuriyet, Mr. Assad also ranged over the broader issue of his survival through 16 months of uprising, his determination to put down the revolt and his insistence that he has the support of the bulk of Syrians.

“Everybody was calculating that I would fall in a small amount of time,” Mr. Assad told the newspaper. “They all miscalculated.”

His country, he said, was under attack by Islamist militants sponsored by Arab adversaries and faced the hostility of both the West and neighboring Turkey, a NATO member with whom Mr. Assad once had friendly relations.

“The big game targeting Syria is much bigger than we expected,” Mr. Assad said. “The aim is to break up Syria or trigger a civil war. The fight against terrorism will continue decisively in the face of this. And we will defeat terror.”

“The overwhelming majority of the people think like me on this subject,” he said.

UN mission in #Syria to stay suspended

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations mission in Syria will remain suspended because the conflict between government and opposition forces is intensifying, a top UN official told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

And UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has still not secured agreement on a political transition plan that all the major powers can back so that an international meeting on the conflict can go ahead this week, diplomats said.

Herve Ladsous, UN peacekeeping chief, said civilians in Syria face “increasing danger” and “conditions are not conducive to resume operations,” diplomats at a closed Security Council meeting on the conflict said.

The almost 300 unarmed UN monitors halted operations on June 16 as President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown against opposition groups intensified.

Ladsous said the UN mission was still trying to help humanitarian workers. But he added that the Syrian government was throwing up obstacles such as refusing to allow satellite telephones, which the UN official said were “key tools.”

The UN is working on options for the mission when its mandate ends on July 20. Diplomats expect the mission to be cut back to a mainly civilian operation.

Annan’s deputy envoy, Nasser al-Qudwa, told the council there were “massive” rights violations in Syria with more civilians being killed each day and growing attacks on government forces by opposition fighters, the diplomats reported.

With Syrian activists now estimating more than 15,000 people have died in the 15-month old conflict, France demanded at the meeting that UN rights chief Navi Pillay brief the Security Council on Syria to keep up pressure on Assad.

Qudwa said foreign ministers from the major powers and other key countries around Syria could meet in Geneva on Saturday to discuss political efforts to implement Annan’s floundering six-point peace plan.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accepted an invitation to Saturday’s Geneva meeting, the country’s UN envoy said. But diplomats added there is not yet an accord on a political plan so that Annan can officially convene the meeting.

“We attach great importance to this meeting. As you know Russia proposed an international conference on Syria and this is very much in line with our thinking,” Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters.

Because of the “grim” situation in Syria “we need to work even harder,” he added. Russia wanted the Geneva meeting to “provide a powerful impetus for political efforts to put an end to the conflict in Syria.”

The United States, Britain, France and China — the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council — have not yet said whether they will attend the Geneva meeting.

The main powers have been in intensive consultations in recent days on a political plan for Syria that would tempt Assad into talks on his future.

Qudwa said the Geneva meeting should identify measures to secure implementation of Annan’s peace plan and agree on guidelines for a political transition.

Because of the growing death toll, the Geneva meeting must not be a “talking shop” which is why the key states must agree on the guidelines, Qudwa was quoted as saying.

He added that a decision on whether to hold the meeting depended on “agreement on the scope of participation and an intention to reach an outcome,” Council diplomats said.

Annan has said he wants key states that can influence Syria, as well as the main powers, at the Geneva meeting. Annan and UN leader Ban Ki-moon have both spoken in favor of Iran taking part. The United States opposes Iranian involvement.

Syrian opposition says U.N peacekeepers to #Syria should be armed

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Syrian opposition says U.N peacekeepers to Syria should be armed

Syria is on the edge of a collapse or a sectarian civil war, I don’t think we can rule anything out, says Hague. PHOTO: AFP

More than 8,500 people have been killed in the uprising, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

The Syrian opposition group known as the Syrian National Councilhas urged the United Nations to send armed peacekeepers to Syria.This request comes on the eve of the opening of the G20 summit in Mexico, where Syria is expected to be on the agenda of U.S. President Barack Obama during his meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

According to AFP news, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are expected to hold talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit in beginning on Monday in Mexico.

The SNC said it was “surprised” by the decision of UN mission chief in Syria Robert Mood to suspended operations of its 300 observers.

Syrian National Council is expected to hold another conference in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, supported by the Arab League. The date of the meeting has not been announced yet.

According to a report by Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) dated Thursday, violence killed at least 3,353 people since April 12, the date of formal entry into force of the un cease-fire.

According to the Observatory so far violence in Syria has killed more than 14,400 people since an uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad erupted in mid-March 2011.

On the ground, The Syrian regime forces on Sunday intensified its bombing against Sunni neighborhoods of the city of Homs, in part controlled by the rebels, killing at least eleven people and wounding dozens more.

“Dozens of wounded were not treated after all local hospitals have been under the control of the Shabbiha (pro-regime militias). The dead are the lucky ones,” he said. This came one day after the UN observers suspended their operations following the upsurge in violence.

On Saturday, Shabbiha and forces loyal to al-Assad attacked towns and villages around Damascus, murdering dozens of civilians, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Regime forces conducted sweeps in which groups of young men were arrested.

Meanwhile, also on Saturday official Syrian News Agency (SANA) reported that Syrian security forces stormed a den of an armed terrorist group near Damascus and killed al-Qaida-linked terrorist ring leader Walid Ahmad al-Ayesh, following armed clashes.

According to SANA, al-Ayesh was the mastermind behind all the car bombings in Damascus in recent months that killed and injured hundreds. A large number of weapons and ammunition were reportedly seized by Syrian authorities during the operation.

06/08/12 #Syria UN monitors visit Al Qubair

UN’s #Syria monitors sift through debris of al-Qubair attack

Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 June 2012 19.06 BST

Hillary Clinton met Kofi Annan in Washington to discuss the Syria crisis. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

UN monitors on Friday entered for the first time the Syrian village where up to 78 people were reportedly killed in cold blood on Wednesday, the latest in a series of atrocities that have underlined the gravity of the escalating crisis.

The observers were met with scenes of burned-out houses, charred human remains and the clear impression that a “terrible crime” had occurred in Mazraat al-Qubair near Hama, according to a BBC correspondent following the UN team. On Thursday the monitors were fired at and their access blocked by Syrian forces.

“It is not hard to verify. As soon as you walk into the first house, you are hit by the stench of burnt flesh,” reported Paul Danahar. “You can see that a terrible crime has taken place. Everything has been burnt, houses have been gutted. The most distressing scenes were at the house next door. I walked in and saw brains lying on the floor. There was a tablecloth covered in blood and flesh and someone had tried to mop the blood up by pushing it into the corner, but it seems they had given up because there was so much of it around.”

In a video clip posted on the internet, a Syrian woman named Lathat calmly described how the hamlet had been attacked by “regime forces and Shabiha” (government militia) who killed children, including two of her daughters, with knives and axes. “The army came with the Shabiha with a tank,” she said. “May God take revenge on Bashar al-Assad.” Like much material emanating from Syria, it was impossible to verify independently.

Syrian state media have said nine people in al-Qubair were killed by “armed terrorist gangs” – official terminology for all opponents of Assad. Damascus similarly denied responsibility for the killing of 108 people, including 39 children, in Houla two weeks ago.

Opposition sources reported heavy fighting in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Souseh, home to many government buildings, after a huge anti-regime demonstration on Thursday. Protests were reported across the country on a day opposition groups dubbed a “Friday of unity between rebels and traders” – symbolising the solidarity that they say is needed to bring down the regime. Parts of Homs came under heavy mortar and shellfire, activists said.

Film clips posted online also showed demonstrations in Aleppo, Syria’s second city, and in Deraa, where the uprising began in March 2011. An estimated 15,000 people have been killed since then.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission reported a total of 26 dead nationwide. Another opposition group gave a total of 31. Another film clip from the Idlib area was said to show Syrian soldiers mocking corpses they were moving into a building before blowing it up — apparently to blame the attack on the rebels of the Free Syrian Army. Activists said it was filmed on March 21.

Diplomatic efforts to tackle Syria meanwhile continued in Washington, where Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, met Kofi Annan, whose six-point peace plan is in danger of collapsing. Annan, envoy of the UN and Arab League, has admitted that his plan is not being implemented by Assad and warned against allowing “mass killings to become part of everyday reality in Syria”. Annan wants stronger backing from an international contact group that would include all five permanent members of the UN security council as well as regional powers such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. But the US and its western partners firmly oppose membership for Iran, a close Syrian ally.

In Moscow, a senior US official, Fred Hof, urged Russia to throw its weight behind the element of the plan that would see Assad step down. But Russia, like China, still says it opposes regime change.

As the debate over responses to the crisis continues, the former UK foreign secretary, Lord Owen, has urged Turkey to lead a Nato threat to intervene in Syria as a way of ending the “devastating” impotence of the international community. Owen, foreign secretary between 1977-79, writes in the Guardian: “The challenge is to hammer out guidelines for a Turkish-led Nato military threat to intervene in Syria to support Kofi Annan’s diplomacy when needed. Russia and the Arab League have key roles as have the US, UK and France but the scale of the humanitarian tragedy in Syria demands speedy solutions.”

Heavy weapons, drones, gunfire used against UN monitors in #Syria, Ban says

Updated: Jun 07, 2012 10:19 PM BST

Source: AFP

NEW YORK — Heavy weapons, armor-piercing bullets and surveillance drones have been used against UN observers in Syria to hamper their efforts to monitor the worsening conflict, UN leader Ban Ki-moon told a Security Council meeting Thursday.

Diplomats inside a closed council briefing on Syria quoted Ban as saying the tactics had been used to try to force the unarmed monitors to withdraw from areas where government forces have been accused of staging attacks.

Ban said the heavy shelling had been used to deter a UN Supervision Mission in Syria convoy, drones had monitored the movements of observers and the armor-piercing bullets had been fired at UN vehicles.

According to UN officials, UN vehicles are shot at almost every day in Syria.

Ban told the 15-nation council that UN observers had seen Syrian military convoys approaching villages and tried to stop tank assaults against populated areas but had been “ignored.”

Ban and UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan briefed the Security Council shortly after a new massacre in a Syrian village in which dozens of people were reported killed.

Ban said small arms shots were fired at the UN convoy that tried to get into the village of al Kubeir.

Ban said that according to preliminary evidence, the Syrian army had surrounded the village and militia had entered al Kubeir and killed civilians with “barbarity,” according to diplomats at the meeting.

#Syria Annan Meets Syria’s Assad to Urge Compliance with Truce

International peace envoy Kofi Annan has met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus to urge compliance with a cease-fire torn by clashes between government troops and rebels.

A U.N. spokeswoman said Mr. Annan would raised two main issues in Tuesday’s meeting: his six-point peace plan for Syria and the killings of at least 108 civilians in the flashpoint town of Houla last Friday.

Mr. Annan’s spokesman said the special envoy “conveyed in frank terms his view to President Assad that the six-point plan cannot succeed without bold steps to stop the violence and release detainees, and stressed the importance of full implementation of the plan.”

Mr. Annan mediated a cease-fire between government and rebel forces last month but it has failed to hold.

In the latest violence on Tuesday, Syrian rights activists said at least 19 people were killed across Syria in attacks related to the uprising.

U.N. spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh told VOA U.N. observers have remained in Houla since Saturday and have been talking to residents to find details of the Friday incident.

The U.N. human rights office in Geneva said Tuesday the monitors found that fewer than 20 of those killed in Houla were struck by artillery and tank fire. It said witnesses told the observers that most of the other victims were killed in their homes in two waves of summary executions by pro-government militiamen.

The Syrian government denies any role in the Houla killings and blames them on “armed terrorists” whom it accuses of driving a 15-month revolt against Mr. Assad.

After arriving in Damascus on Monday, the former U.N. secretary-general said he was “shocked and horrified” by the Houla massacre, calling it “an appalling crime.”

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement a day earlier blaming some of the deaths directly on “government artillery and tank shellings.” The statement also condemned shootings and stabbings of the other victims but did not say who was responsible.

French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday he is expelling the Syrian ambassador in Paris in response to the massacre. Australia expelled two Syrian diplomats from Canberra in a similar protest. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said he expects other countries will do the same in the coming days.

Speaking on Monday, Mr. Annan appealed to “everyone with a gun” in Syria to resolve the country’s conflict peacefully. Government and rebel forces have continued fighting each other despite accepting a truce that he brokered in April.

The U.N.’s Ghosheh said U.N. monitors have not been able to get into a district of Hama city where activists said government forces bombarded residential areas from Sunday into Monday in retaliation for rebel attacks. She said security problems were preventing observers stationed in Hama from entering the district to check on activist reports that more than 34 civilians were killed in the fighting.

The office of British Prime Minister David Cameron said he and French President Hollande have agreed to increase international pressure on the Assad government to end what they consider to be the “bloody suppression of the Syrian people.” Mr. Cameron and Mr. Hollande discussed the crisis in a Monday phone call.

The two leaders also reiterated their support for Mr. Annan’s peace mission and agreed to work with Syrian ally Russia to find a resolution to the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that evidence indicates Syrian government and rebel forces both are to blame for the Houla massacre.

In Washington, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, warned that “atrocities” such as the Houla killings could trigger international military intervention. But, he added the international community should first put greater diplomatic pressure on Mr. Assad.

The United Nations says more than 10,000 people have been killed in Syria since the government began its crackdown on dissent in March 2011.

#Syria : UN enquiry should investigate Houla killings

(New York) – Kofi Annan should push Syria’s government to allow the UN-appointed Commission of Inquiry access into the country to investigate the May 25, 2012, killing of at least 108 Houla residents, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of an impending visit by the UN envoy to Damascus. The Syrian government has so far refused entry to the UN-mandated commission. Human Rights Watch also reiterated its call to the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Following a May 26 visit to Houla, a region made up of several villages about 20 kilometers northwest of the restive city of Homs, UN monitors confirmed the killings and condemned the “brutal tragedy.” The head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria, Maj Gen Robert Mood, told the media that some of the dead had been killed by shelling and others shot at close range, but did not attribute responsibility for the close-range killing. According to survivors that Human Rights Watch interviewed and local activists, the Syrian army shelled the area on May 25, and armed men, dressed in military clothes, attacked homes on the outskirts of town and executed entire families.

All of the witnesses stated the armed men were pro-government, but they did not know whether they were members of the Syrian army or a pro-government militia, locally referred to as shabeeha. Houla’s towns, overwhelmingly Sunni, are surrounded by Alawite and Shia villages, and sectarian tensions have been high since last year. At a press conference on May 27, a spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry categorically denied the army’s responsibility for the killings and announced that the government had formed a military judicial committee to conduct an investigation.

“There’s no way a Syrian military commission can credibly investigate this horrendous crime when so much evidence suggests pro-government forces were responsible,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Annan should insist that Syria grant access to the UN commission of inquiry to investigate this and other grave crimes.”

Residents and survivors described to Human Rights Watch how the attack on Houla unfolded. At midday on May 25 protesters gathered in Taldou, Houla’s largest town. According to a witness, at around 2 p.m., soldiers from an army checkpoint opened fire to disperse nearby protesters but he did not know whether anyone was injured or killed at that moment. An opposition activist from Houla told Human Rights Watch that armed members of the opposition subsequently attacked the checkpoint from which the army had fired, and that the Syrian army responded by intensely shelling various neighborhoods in Houla.

One resident of Taldou told Human Rights Watch:

At around 2:30 p.m., the army located on the outskirts of town started shelling the neighborhood. Initially, they used tanks, but after couple of hours they started using mortars. The shelling was coming from the direction of the Air Force military college located at the entrance of Houla. Around 7:00 p.m., the shelling intensified and whole buildings were shaking. The army started firing some sort of rockets that would shake an entire area.

At around 6:30 p.m., just as the shelling intensified on parts of Houla, armed gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked homes situated on the outskirts of town on the road leading to the Houla dam, three survivors of the attacks told Human Rights Watch. Most of those killed belonged to the Abdel Razzak family. Local activists provided Human Rights Watch with a list of 62 dead members from the Abdel Razzak family. According to survivors, their family owns the land and farms next to the national water company and the water dam of Taldou, and lives in eight or nine houses next to each other, two families to a house.

An elderly woman from the Abdel Razzak family who survived the attack told Human Rights Watch:

I was in the house with my three grandsons, three granddaughters, sister-in-law, daughter, daughter in-law and cousin. [On May 25] around 6:30 p.m., before sunset, we heard gunshots. I was in a room by myself when I heard the sound of a man. He was shouting and yelling at my family. I hid behind the door. I saw another man standing outside by the entrance door and another one inside the house. They were wearing military clothes. I couldn’t see their faces. I thought they wanted to search the house. They walked in the house; I didn’t hear them break in because we never lock the doors. After three minutes, I heard all my family members screaming and yelling. The children, all aged between 10 and 14, were crying. I went down on the floor and tried to crawl so I could see what was happening. As I approached the door, I heard several gunshots. I was so terrified I couldn’t stand on my legs. I heard the soldiers leaving. I looked outside the room and saw all of my family members shot. They were shot in their bodies and their head. I was terrified to approach to see if they were alive. I kept crawling until I reached the back door. I went outside, and I ran away. I was in shock so I don’t know what happened later.

A 10-year-old boy from the Abdel Razzak family told Human Rights Watch that he saw men wearing military clothes shoot his 13-year-old friend:

I was at home with my mother, my cousins, and my aunt. Suddenly I heard gunshots. It was the first time I heard so many gunshots. My mother grabbed me and took me to a barn to hide. I heard men screaming and shouting. I heard people crying especially women. I looked outside the window. I was peeking sometimes but I was afraid they would see me. Men wearing [uniforms] like army soldiers, green with other colors [camouflage] and white shoes, entered our house. They went outside after a couple of minutes. Then across the street I saw my friend Shafiq, 13 years old, outside standing alone. An armed man in military uniform grabbed him and put him at the corner of a house. He took his own weapon and shot him in the head. His mother and big sister – I think she was 14 years old – went outside and started shouting and crying. The same man shot at both of them more than once. Then the armed men left and the FSA soldiers came.

The boy’s mother confirmed many of the details to Human Rights Watch:

At around 6:30 – 7:00 p.m., we started hearing the sound of gunshots. They were very close to us. We ran and hid in the barn. After the armed men left, and I heard the sound of their cars driving away, my sister and I went outside. I saw Shafiq [the 13-year-old friend of her son] on the ground dead. I saw three families: three women, two of them with children. All of them were shot. Some were shot in the head and others had multiple shots in the body. One of the children survived. She is 14 years old. She was shot twice in the leg. I also saw my cousin who was shot in the chest. A 13-year-old boy who was paralyzed was shot three times in his chest as well.

“As long as gunmen can operate with impunity, the horrors in Syria will continue,” said Whitson. “Russia should stop shielding the Syrian government at the Security Council and agree to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.”

Human Rights Watch also urged other countries to join the calls for accountability by supporting a referral to the ICC as the forum most capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting those bearing the greatest responsibility for abuses in Syria.

Previous announcements by Syria’s government that it would launch investigations have led to no visible results. On March 31, 2011, barely one month after the start of the uprising, the Syrian government established a judicial committee to “launch an immediate investigation into all fatalities or injuries sustained by civilians and military personnel and into all other related offences and to deal with complaints in that connection.” Aside from summary statements by President Bashar al-Assad that the work of the committee is ongoing and that some individuals have been arrested and are being investigated, little is known about its work and any results.

#Syria United Nations ceasefire in tatters after 92 killed in Syrian violence

The bodies of people whom anti-government protesters say were killed by government security forces lie on the ground in Huola Photo: Reuters

By Colin Freeman, and Ruth Sherlock in Beirut

6:50PM BST 26 May 2012

In one of the bloodiest incidents to date in the 15-month long uprising, 92 people were killed after a 12-hour regime assault on Houla, in the central province of Homs.

Anti-government activists claimed that troops had first shelled several villages and then sent in gangs of pro-regime thugs to “massacre” local families in their houses.

Amateur videos released on YouTube showed footage of the mangled bodies of 14 child victims lying in rows in a makeshift morgue set up at a local mosque.

In one horrific scene, a man held up the limp corpse of a boy aged around seven years old, a gaping hole where the child’s nose and mouth should have been. “This child, what did he do to deserve this?” he screamed.

Unarmed UN monitors, who had reportedly been prevented from visiting the area on Friday because of the fighting, were reduced to documenting the attack’s horrific aftermath when they finally reached the scene on Saturday afternoon.

Major General Robert Mood, the UN mission chief in Syria, said that of the 92 bodies his staff had counted in Houla, at least 32 were “under the age of 10”. He described it as a “brutal tragedy”.

The bloodshed, which began on Friday and was reported to have continued into the small hours of Saturday morning, was amongst the worst single incidents since the popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 15 months ago. It was also a severe blow to the credibility of the UN-backed peace plan that was supposed to introduce a ceasefire in early April. Critics said it was clear that the plan, backed by 250 UN monitors on the ground, was already in tatters.

On Saturday the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, called for an urgent session of the UN Security Council to discuss the killings, placing the blame squarely on the Syrian government.

“There are credible and horrific reports that a large number of civilians have been massacred at the hands of Syrian forces in the town of Houla, including children,” he said.

“The Assad regime must ensure full and immediate access to Houla and other conflict areas in Syria for the UN monitoring team, and cease all military operations.”

However, the main Syrian rebel coalition, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said it was time for the international community to overcome its reluctance to get directly involved in the conflict, and to carry out strikes on regime forces.

The Friends of Syria group, which includes the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Saudi Arabia, has previously ruled out such action because of the risk of getting embroiled in what many fear is already a low-level civil war.

But General Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, head of the Turkey-based FSA military council, said regime opponents had lost all faith in the UN Security Council, on which Damascus has Russia as a powerful backer.

“We are calling urgently on the Friends of Syria to create a military alliance, outside of the UN Security Council, to carry out targeted strikes against Assad’s gangs and the symbols of his regime,” Mr Sheikh said.

Houla, a loose collection of villages with a population of about 40,000, lies on a plain around 25 miles north-west of the city of Homs, itself the subject of a brutal siege by President Assad’s forces in February.

The settlement is home mainly to members of Syria’s Sunni Islam majority, but borders areas dominated by President Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

While eyewitness reports of Friday’s violence were confused and often contradictory, it followed an anti-government demonstration in Houla after Friday’s midday prayers. Some claimed that rebel gunmen had earlier courted trouble by opening fire on checkpoints manned by government troops.

Whatever the spark, the scale of the ensuing attack appears to have been brutal even the standards of the Assad regime.

Mousab Azzawi, of the Syrian Network of Human Rights, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The operation started about midday, with the use of about 50 or 60 mortar shells. Then they started to use tanks and heavy artillery for two hours. After that they deployed about 13 or 14 cars with mounted guns, and raided houses at random. They took people out and started shooting indiscriminately.”

In one household, he claimed, the gunmen slaughtered two entire families, ranging from grandfathers to children.

“They did not kill them immediately by shooting. But they cut their throats with knives. That is a very worrying signal, that the regime is trying the maximum they can to push the people to a civil war.”

One local eyewitness, who gave his name only as Mohammed, added: “At about 7pm on Friday, a lot of Shabiha (pro-regime militiamen) came from three nearby Alawite villages. They killed some kids by knife, some by gun and some by suffocation. I saw with my eyes dozens of bodies of women and children.”

In video footage shot in the local mosque, a shaking camera panned over the children’s corpses, which were laid shoulder to shoulder and included some who looked under five years old.

In a corner, more corpses of men and women lay under patterned blankets, including what was said to be one entire family. “We’re being slaughtered like sheep here,” said one voice.

“Where are the UN observers?” pleaded another.

It was claimed that the majority of casualties had been inflicted at close quarters, rather than by shelling.

Chaotic scenes followed when the group of UN observers finally arrived in Houla on Saturday.

“The people begged the observers to come with them to evacuate the bodies,” said Maysara Al-Hennawi, another resident. “They refused to help us and they said that we should negotiate with the regime, and then they left.”

Thousands of locals took advantage of the presence of the observers to flee the area, he added, making their way through fields and rivers.

The Syrian government also broadcast footage of the casualties, blaming them instead on “armed terrorist” groups which it said had also killed several government troops. Damascus has long accused activist groups of exaggerating and falsifying accounts to draw international attention to their plight, a charge which independent observers say has sometimes been justified.

There seemed little doubt about the veracity of the video footage of the corpses in the latest incident, though, which surfaced amid reports that Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, was to visit Damascus this week to try to patch up the ceasefire.

On Saturday, one demonstrator in Houla held up a sign reading: “Kofi Annan is single-handedly responsible for the Houla massacre.”

The scale of the task facing Mr Annan was spelt out in a report leaked on Friday from the current UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, which conceded that rebel groups now controlled “significant” parts of some Syrian cities and that there was “considerable physical destruction” across the country.

“There is a continuing crisis on the ground, characterised by regular violence, deteriorating humanitarian conditions, human rights violations and continued political confrontation,” said the report, which is to be debated by the Security Council this week.

More than 12,600 people are now estimated to have died in Syria in the revolt against Mr Assad’s rule, including nearly 1,500 since the UN-backed truce officially come into effect, according to the Observatory for Human Rights.

In a sign that the regime’s grip on the country was slipping further, tanks were deployed by the government for the first time this weekend in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city. The city, a key commercial hub, had previously been considered a pro-regime bastion, but saw large street protests on Friday.

While neither side in the struggle is really seen to have properly observed the ceasefire, the Free Syrian Army on Saturday warned that unless there was an immediate halt to regime violence, it would abandon any commitment to it at all.

“We announce that unless the UN Security Council takes urgent steps for the protection of civilians, Annan’s plan is going to go to hell,” a statement read.

The group’s calls for foreign military intervention are currently opposed at the highest level. Only last week, however, the UN explicitly urged foreign states not to supply arms to either the government or rebel forces.

“Those who may contemplate supporting any side with weapons, military training or other military assistance, must reconsider such options to enable a sustained cessation of violence,” UN secretary-general Mr Ban told the Security Council in a letter on Friday.

Syrian crisis turns ugly #Syria

The Syrian crisis in recent weeks has moved one dangerous step closer to civil war. The ceasefire which Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy, proudly engineered on April 12 is now barely alive. The presence of some 200 UN monitors, due to be increased to 300 by the end of the month, has somewhat reduced the violence, but has by no means put an end to it.

While there are fewer largescale battles, such as the one which destroyed whole quarters of the central city of Homs in March, clashes continue daily right across the country. If the violence is unchecked, the battle for Homs — with its tit-for-tat massacres — could come to seem a mere foretaste of the horrors to come. Sectarian passions are being fuelled and, for the moment at least, neither side is ready to put up its guns.

On the contrary, rebel fighters, increasingly well armed and funded from abroad, and more than ever determined to topple President Bashar Al Assad, have launched what amounts to an urban guerrilla war. They reject any negotiation that might leave him in place. In recent weeks they have been joined by dozens, possibly hundreds, of Islamist extremists, flowing into Syria across the Lebanese, Iraqi and Jordanian borders.

Some of these extremists, apparently loosely linked to Al Qaida, are widely believed to have carried out the suicide bombings which have struck terror into the population. Of the 11 major incidents recorded so far, the two most lethal were in Damascus on May 10, which killed 55 people and wounded close to 400. The morale of the population has plummeted. No one is safe and nowhere is secure.

The violent emergence of the extremists is by no means to the benefit of the opposition since it lends credence to the regime’s argument that it is fighting “terrorist gangs”. It tends to tilt the ‘silent majority’, ever anxious for security, to the government’s side. It also scares off some of the opposition’s western backers.

The regime is evidently under great stress. It is finding it increasingly difficult to track down and destroy the swift-footed rebel groups, who carry out daring hit-and-run operations. For all its military superiority, Syria’s conventional army is not trained or equipped to fight a guerrilla war. Casualties among the military have risen, stoking a thirst for revenge. The hard men of the regime, who have borne the brunt of the fighting, see the situation as one of ‘kill or be killed’.

Bloody stalemate

Since the army and security forces remain loyal, the regime seems in no immediate danger of being overthrown. The result is a bloody stalemate, punctuated by acts of extreme violence by the regime and its enemies. Each side knows that whoever wins the battle will give no quarter to the other.

Meanwhile, the fighting has spilled over to Lebanon, especially to the mainly Sunni town of Tripoli, close to the Syrian border, which has become something of a rear base for the armed Syrian opposition. Gun battles have raged between pro- and anti-Syrian factions, and Beirut itself has not been spared.

Merciless as they are, these local skirmishes are overshadowed by the regional and international struggle for control of Syria. Two contests stand out: one which pits Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies against Iran, and another which pits the US against Russia. A sub-theme is the tension between Iran and Turkey, the result of their alignment on opposite sides of the conflict: Iran is Syria’s main regional ally while Turkey is the leading external prop of the Syrian opposition, providing house-room to the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army and to large numbers of Syrian refugees.

American policy is showing alarming signs of incoherence. Washington supports the Annan peace plan while at the same time seeking to ensure its failure.

While Annan is striving to make the ceasefire hold as a necessary prelude to ‘Syrian-led’ negotiations, the US, under pressure from Israel and a pro-Israeli Congress, as well as from Republican hawks, is unashamedly seeking Al Assad’s ouster. The prime objective of US and Israeli policy is to isolate and weaken Iran and sever its ties to the Hezbollah. Israel would like to bring down the whole Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah ‘resistance axis’, which has emerged in recent years as the main obstacle to its regional dominance.

By a curious twist of fortune, in opposing the Syrian regime the US finds itself in the invidious position of being on the same side as Al Qaida.

The US is actively supporting the Syrian rebels, Islamists prominent among them, providing them with sophisticated communications equipment and intelligence, while pressing Qatar and Saudi Arabia to do more to help them.

In fact, the US seems to be coordinating the flow of funds and weapons to the rebel fighters. A Washington Post article on May 15 by Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly — based it would appear on an official leak — reported US officials as saying that “the United States and others are moving forward toward increased coordination of intelligence and arming for the rebel forces”.

Opposition figures were said to be in direct contact with US State Department officials “to designate worthy rebel recipient of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles”. But one cannot arm the rebels while calling for a ceasefire!

There are limits, however, to what the US is prepared to do to bring down the Syrian regime. It is not ready to commit its own forces — no US boots on the ground and no strike aircraft attacking Syrian targets — and it will not risk an open clash with Moscow, which could have damaging repercussions on American interests elsewhere.

The US is not the only country guilty of incoherence. It is surely not an Arab or a Muslim interest to deepen the centuries-old divide between Sunnis and Shiites. Only their common enemies benefit when they fight. Nor is it an Arab or a Muslim interest to make an enemy of Iran. As I have often argued in this column, the Gulf states would be wiser to keep clear of Israeli-Iranian or US-Iranian quarrels. Geography dictates that Iran and the Gulf states, facing each other across the narrow strip of water, share many strategic and commercial interests. They are made to be partners, not opponents.

Surely the tragic history of Iraq and Lebanon underlines the urgent necessity to prevent Syria’s descent into the abyss of a full-scale sectarian civil war, which could have disastrous consequences across the region. Already, the fabric of Syrian society is being torn apart. The conflict must be demilitarised; the Annan peace plan must be given a chance to succeed; and every effort must be made to resolve the Syrian conflict by negotiations before it is too late.