10/11/12 By Herve Bar

MAARET AL-NUMAN, Syria — Blown-up buildings, deserted streets and corpses of regime soldiers bear testimony to a fierce 48-hour battle before the town of Maaret al-Numan fell to Syrian rebels.

The capture of Maaret al-Numan on Wednesday was a major breathrough for the rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, especially after they cut off the highway linking Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.

Rebels say the fight to capture Maaret al-Numan began on Monday afternoon when the local military council attacked eight army checkpoints in the eastern part of this strategic town, which in normal times has a population of around 125,000.

Within 48 hours the rebels captured the checkpoints located at crossroads of the town, including a former prison and cultural centre, said Firaz Abdel Hadi, a rebel media official.

Sixteen rebels were killed by a landmine when they entered the cultural centre after it had been abandoned by members of the regime’s military intelligence when it came under attack.

In the basement lay the bodies of around 65 prisoners who the rebels say were executed by their captors minutes before fleeing.

Most of the victims are suspected to have been supporters of the anti-regime uprising or soldiers suspected of trying to defect, said a survivor who was miraculously saved after two bodies fell on him.

The walls of the building are riddled with bullets and stained with blood — witness to the massacre as soldiers fled. Thirty soldiers managed to escape wearing civilian clothes as the rebels advanced.

“Two RPGs were enough to send 50 soldiers fleeing,” boasted Abdel Hadi, laughing.

By Wednesday all loyalist positions in the town finally fell to rebels as Assad’s troops took refuge in two military camps on the outskirts of Maaret al-Numan, at Wadi Daif and Hamdiyeh.

For the regime, the imperative was not to control the whole town, since its western sector had already been in rebel hands for the past two months, but to defend the highway from Aleppo to Damascus.

Syria’s army uses the highway to send reinforcements to the commercial capital in northern Syria.

On Thursday, rebels had control of nearly five kilometres (three miles) of the four-lane highway.

Fighting continued further east around Wadi Daif and Hamdiyeh which rebels had surrounded, blocking columns of regime tanks sent as reinforcements from Damascus to Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

Syrian troops tried during the night to retake Maaret al-Numan but failed, rebel commander Akram Sale told AFP, adding that four rebels were killed overnight.

On Tuesday, a bomb dropped by a MiG fell just metres away from the famous museum Alma Arra, damaging part of its mosaic collections and pottery, some dating back to 3,000 BC.

The museum which was previously occupied by regime troops is renowned for its mosaic collections, said to be the largest in the Middle East.

The rebels said that almost 300 people were killed in the three days of fighting in Maaret al-Numan, including 55 civilians, 46 rebel fighters and 190 Syrian army soldiers.

#Syria 10/09/12 Assad forces destry residential buidings in Damascus suburb

07/09/12

#Syria, Hama | Security Forces Can be seen blocking off the town

25/08/12

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Security forces in Syria have arrested a filmmaker and an actor who helped people made homeless or jobless by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, their friends said on Friday, part of an apparent crackdown on the country’s secular intelligentsia.

Arwa Nairabiya - who founded the “Damascus Dox Box” documentary film festival - was arrested at Damascus airport on Thursday evening before boarding a plane to Cairo, fellow filmmakers and relatives said.

Secret police agents also raided the home of Mohammad Omar Oso, an actor who had starred in several popular television series, and took him to an unknown destination, the Damascus Media Centre activists’ group said in a statement.

Thirty-five year-old Nairabiya was part of a new generation of Syrian filmmakers who had defied a state ban on independent film production even before the revolt against Assad began 17 months ago.

“It seems it is a crime to establish an independent cinema movement in Syria,” said fellow Syrian director Ahmad Malas, in a video statement recorded at an undisclosed location outside Syria. “We call for freedom for Arwa Nairabiya, actor, producer and graduate of the Syrian Higher Cinema Institute who is always smiling.”

One of Nairabiya’s friends, speaking from Damascus on condition of anonymity, said he feared for his safety. “We pray that Arwa gets off lightly. The regime has been brutal toward Syria’s intellectuals,” the friend said.

The Syrian state has a Soviet-like monopoly on cinema and television production. The establishment shunned Oso, who is also in his 30s, when he refused to join the state-controlled actors’ guild and sign statements declaring support for Assad at the start of the revolt, his friends said.

Nairabiya has championed the cause of human rights and freedom of expression in the face of state attempts to control culture through institutions that monopolize teaching of art, film and dance to support the personality cult of Assad.

ARTISTIC EXPRESSION REPRESSED

Syrian security forces, who have arrested tens of thousands of people since the uprising began, do not comment on detentions, which human rights groups say are arbitrary.

Assad has claimed to have introduced what he regards as far-reaching political reforms in response to pro-democracy street demonstrations, yet strict state restrictions on freedom of speech and artistic expression have remained in place.

Three months ago, Assad’s forces shot dead Bassel Shehadeh, another young filmmaker who had abandoned a Fulbright scholarship in the United States to document a military crackdown on the central city of Homs.

In another incident, authorities blamed “treacherous hands” for the killing earlier this month of director Bassem Mohiedine in a Damascus suburb rocked by clashes between the military and rebels. No one has claimed responsibility for his death.

In a third case, the relatives of sculptor Wael Qastoum said he died last month after being tortured in a Damascus prison.

Qastoum, a Christian from Homs, had spoken out against state repression, said a relative who asked not to be named.

Other leading cultural figures have been badly beaten. Secret police agents last year assaulted Ali Farzat, the country’s best known cartoonist, and broke both of his hands.

Witnesses said pro-Assad militiamen, known as shabbiha (ghosts) beat novelist Khaled Khalifa earlier this year after he attended a funeral for Rabih Ghaza, an activist who was found shot and stuffed in the trunk of his car near a security branch in Damascus.

Many of the new generation of filmmakers have been inspired by French-educated Syrian director Omar Amiralay, who made international award-winning films that chronicled what he regarded as Syria’s demise under the Assad family’s rule.

Amiralay died of natural causes at age 66 one month before the uprising broke out, having famously warned Assad that Syria “is marching steadfastly on its hooves to its own demise, after being betrayed by its rulers.”

(Editing by Andrew Osborn and Todd Eastham)

19/08/12

#Syria, Aleppo -capturing of the Mukhtar Shabih of Sekariye neighberhood by FSA! (ENGLISH TRANSLATION BELOW)

In  the name of God, the Battalions “Swords Aleppo “of Salaheddine and Saifel doule neigherhoods announce detaining the shabiha Mukhtar Sikari neighberhood Abdel fatah el Toutunji (Abou  Mohamed) who was cooperating with the officer   Abbas Deputy Chief of Colonel kIfah, Head of the Security Forces in Aleppo.
-Tell me the shabiha names with whom u were cooperating… all of them!
-Zekariya nehme . Mahmoud falaha .Zakariya falaha . Ali sherif .Adnan youn .Mohamed zar .

17/08/2012 Damascus, #Syria: Four martyrs were slaughtered by the Security Forces in Qadam

13/08/2012 Douma, Damascus, #Syria: The  Free Syrian Army arrests a man from an armed gang (with translation)

The Martyrs Brigade of Douma arrested one element of an armed gang who are  robbing citizens and are supported by Assad security  forces. They are committing these crimes in the name of the FSA .

In the name of God. We have  arrested with the help of God, a member of a military gang in a Damascus suburb. This group is robbing and stealing in the name of the FSA:

Q: What is your name?

A: My name is Maher Ali Ghanoum 

Q: What is your crime ?

A: I am a member of a group of 51. We steal and rob in the name of the FSA 

Q: Who is supporting you? Who is giving you arms?

A: The security forces 

Q: Why?

A: There is a group who supplies arms to us and information ( of the people and places to steal )

13/08/12

(AFP) – 2 hours ago 

DAMASCUS — The Old City of Damascus, whose souks were once bustling with shoppers, was swarming with security forces Monday after the regime launched a massive sweep, barging into shops and rounding up residents.

Opposition monitors said government forces had conducted their biggest security operation in the heart of Damascus since President Bashar al-Assad’s regime launched its brutal crackdown on protesters 17 months ago.

Checkpoints have been erected across the historic Old City by government forces, as merchants sit idle in their shops in the winding streets of the bazaars.

“This is not the first time there have been raids in central Damascus, but this is the first time something like this has happened on such a large scale,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based Observatory said 22 people had been arrested and that security forces also swept into a graveyard “under the pretext of searching for weapons”.

The Syrian Revolution General Council, a network of activists on the ground, said that during the raids armed forces had broken down the doors of shops which had been closed in a show of defiance against the regime.

As security forces raided the Old City and several other districts of the capital, shells slammed into rebel strongholds in Damascus province from before dawn Monday, according to the watchdog.

The Observatory said more than 53 people including 44 civilians had been killed in the past 48 hours in the province of Damascus alone.

On the long cobblestone street of Medhat Pasha in the Old City, numerous checkpoints were set up to inspect cars and identification cards, especially youths, an AFP reporter said.

“On Medhat Pasha there are more than 70 checkpoints,” a merchant sighed at his mosaics shop. “I live in Qaboon where the shelling went on all morning. What happens next?”

Nearby, a soldier stopped a man in his early 20s, demanding where he was from. Others passed through the checkpoints, keeping their eyes focused straight ahead.

“They are inspecting the identities of young people, looking for members of the Free Syrian Army,” said a linen dealer on Medhat Pasha, referring to the armed rebel group fighting the regime.

He said the security forces were also looking for young people from the central city of Homs, whose rebel-held districts have suffered successive army bombardments, forcing thousands to flee.

Merchants said security forces were also deployed in the souks of Bzouriyeh, Hariqa and Hamidiyeh after taking up positions in several historic houses in the Old City on Sunday.

“Since early morning they stormed the safehouses of the armed men,” a jeweller in Hariqa told AFP, adding that the police burst into every house in the area.

Many merchants emptied their storefronts, displaying only some gold bullion to remind people of a safe investment during times of war.

Security forces also carried out raids and arrests in the central Damascus neighbourhoods of Qaimreya, Qashla and Shaghur, the Observatory said.

At least 50 people were killed in across Syria on Monday — 28 civilians, 13 soldiers and nine rebels — according to the watchdog.

On Sunday, the death toll reached 150, with the majority in Damascus province, where 26 civilians and seven rebels were killed.

More than 21,000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-regime revolt broke out 17 months ago, according to the Observatory. The toll is impossible to verify, and the United Nations has stopped maintaining an independent count.

14/08/2012

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Grisly footage of apparent atrocities in Syria triggered outrage Monday, as regime forces bombarded rebel strongholds around Damascus and launched a mass raid in the historic heart of the capital.

The graphic videos posted on YouTube showed what appeared to be rebels callously throwing bodies off a post office building in a city near the northern metropolis of Aleppo, while another showed a man, blindfolded and bound, as his throat was savagely cut.

Fighting was also raging in the northern metropolis of Aleppo, where security forces were advancing on an opposition-held district but where all communications have reportedly been cut.

With the international community deadlocked over how to end 17 months of bloodshed, the opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council appealed for the establishment of no-fly zones.

And in a new blow for embattled President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s top representative at the UN Human Rights Council said he has defected, the latest in a line of senior officials to flee the regime.

International concern is mounting over how to end a conflict that has triggered a major humanitarian crisis and sent hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing, with at least 100 people being killed daily.

Foreign ministers of Muslim states hold talks in Saudi Arabia Monday while the UN Security Council — which has so far failed to reach a consensus on how to stop the bloodshed — meets on Thursday to debate the future of its mission.

In one shocking amateur video posted Monday, several bodies were seen crumpled on the ground outside a post office building in Al-Bab city before another three are hurled from the rooftop as the crowd cries “This is a shabiha,” referring to the pro-government militia.

In another, a group of men forced a blindfolded man, with his hands tied behind his back, down to the ground in Aleppo while an assailant forced what appeared to be a small knife repeatedly across his throat as his blood spurted.

“If these videos are confirmed, such atrocities harm the revolution. They only benefit the regime and the enemies of the revolution,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Both sides in the increasingly vicious conflict have been accused of human rights violations as reports of cold-blooded killings mount, although the authenticity of the latest videos could not be verified.

Also Monday, security forces arrested residents in a major operation in the heart of Damascus, including the historic Old City, while shells slammed into rebel strongholds around the capital from before dawn, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

It was biggest operation of its kind in the city since the launch of the uprising against Assad, the Observatory said.

It said 21 people had been arrested and that security forces also swept into a graveyard “under the pretext of searching for weapons”, while other activists said the troops had broken down the doors of shops closed in a show of defiance against the regime.

The Observatory said 50 people had been killed on Monday, including 28 civilians in violence across the country.

In Aleppo Monday, government troops were advancing on the southwestern rebel stronghold of Sukari, security sources in Damascus said. The Observatory meanwhile said opposition fighters attacked a key air force intelligence branch in the western Zahraa district.

Fighting also broke out in the southwestern district of Salaheddin, which rebels fled last week but has seen continued clashes since, it said.

The fate of Aleppo — Syria’s largest city — is seen as potential turning point in the conflict whose outcome will have major repercussions for Syria’s neighbours and the military and geopolitical balance of power in the region

More than 21,000 people have been killed across Syria since Assad’s regime launched its brutal crackdown on dissent, with fighting escalating after the failure of former envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

Abdel Basset Sayda, who heads the opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP that the rebels wanted “two no-fly zones, one in the north, close to the Turkish border, and another in the south, close to the border with Jordan,” in addition to “safe places for refugees and humanitarian corridors.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Turkey at the weekend, after Washington imposed a new round of sanctions on Syria, saying their “number one goal” was to hasten the end of Assad’s regime.

Foreign ministers of Muslim states were meeting Monday in Jeddah ahead of an Islamic summit Tuesday hosted by regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia on the Syria crisis.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said she will visit Syria and Lebanon from Tuesday.

A truck carrying food and medical supplies to Syria prepares to leave the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday. (AFP)

05/07/2012

RAMALLAH: An aid convoy left the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday carrying food and medicine in a symbol of support for Palestinian refugees caught up in the crisis in Syria.
“Today the first convoy will leave from here, from the West Bank, from Palestinian soil toward Syria,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said at a press event marking the event.
An official donations drive netted around $650,000 worth of food and medical aid from Palestinian companies, businessmen, and individuals during the charitable month of Ramadan.
A one percent cut of salaries from the Palestinian Authority’s cash-strapped public sector went toward the convoy.
Sixteen trucks loaded with flour, rice, sugar, lentils, chickpeas, pasta and medicine drove through Abbas’s presidential compound before leaving for Jordan bound for Damascus via the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has continued to service the camps despite the violence.
Syria is home to nearly 500,000 UN-registered Palestinians, and their descendants, who were expelled or fled from their homes during the 1948 war of Israel’s creation. Palestinians say an additional 120,000 Palestinians reside in Syrian cities.
At least 20 Palestinians were killed and 65 wounded on Thursday when three mortar rounds exploded in a busy street in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus, home to about 100,000.
Palestinians have largely stayed out of the war in Syria between President Bashar Assad’s security forces and rebels trying to topple the government. Leaders have sought to avoid commenting on the situation and embroiling their exiles.
“We are not a part of this conflict,” said Mohammad Shtayyeh, head of the aid campaign.
Around 400 Palestinians have been killed in Syria so far, mostly by snipers, Shtayyeh said. Anti-Assad activists and sympathetic Western and Arab governments say about 20,000 people have been killed since the revolt began 18 months ago.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank staged several rallies in past months against Assad’s regime, and some mosque preachers have prayed for his removal in Friday sermons.

29/07/12

#Syria, Aleppo | | the arrest of security, first assistant criminal 

Dark images of horror and despair smuggled out of #Syria

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) — The corpses lay strewn in the restive Syrian city of Douma, all slain in what residents there call a government-backed “massacre.”

The scene in the aftermath of the assault, punctuated by images of grief-stricken people and blood-covered pavement, was recorded last month by opposition activists who braved the wrath of Syrian security and slipped into the suburban Damascus city to bear witness to the tumult with their cameras.

The three-man media team moved about the pockmarked urban battleground in shadows and whispers. Edging step-by-step and block-by-block, they hugged buildings’ walls to avoid catching the eyes of rooftop snipers. But they would pick up the pace amid bursts of gunfire.

That was at the end of June. The intense bombardment of Douma bySyrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the days that followed trapped the activists for more than a week, with government forces blocking the routes out of town and shelling forcing them to take shelter.

Bracing for a Syria showdown

The footage — just delivered to reporters in Lebanon — also highlights the resolve of a guerrilla force of activist-journalists: brave souls who’ve risked their lives since March 2011 to record examples of the regime’s actions.

The carnage is the latest example of what activists say is relentless abuse against civilians by al-Assad’s security apparatus over the past 16 months.

Douma, a major city in the province of Rif Damashq — meaning Damascus countryside, which includes the suburbs that surround the capital city — has been consumed by bloodshed since the protests last year morphed into a nationwide uprising against the regime.

These latest sights, recorded by the activists at a dingy building in the dark of night, bear witness to the grim conflict in cities, towns and villages across Syria.

The people seen dead in the scene were among 45 people killed in an attack. Residents say Syrian security forces raiding a building in search of weapons wiped out members of several families.

One image shows a little girl sprawled among the dead, many of the bodies covered in bloody funeral sheets.

A man points to a body and says “he was executed, a civilian.” He points to a second corpse and says, “This is his cousin, shot because he tried to save him.”

Another man said security forces ordered men and women into two rooms and executed them, one after the other.

CNN cannot independently verify these accounts.

But the aftermath rings true for Syrians caught in the maelstrom of what is now called a civil war and the sight has become routine in areas where resolute residents have not buckled under to regime soldiers and their militia allies.

Residents prepared the bodies for burial by unceremoniously wrapping up the dead in funeral sheets and removing them from the building where they were found.

It is only now that the activists who filmed the grisly scenes were able to get the footage to Lebanon.

The risk, the activists say, is worth it. Syrians activists say the world needs to get one more glimpse of the horror and despair engulfing Syria.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday it would not agree to a threat of sanctions to end the 16-month conflict in Syria as a deeply divided U.N. Security Council began negotiations on a resolution to extend a U.N. monitoring mission there.

The 15-member council must decide the future of the U.N. mission, known as UNSMIS, before July 20, when its 90-day mandate expires. UNSMIS was deployed to monitor a failed truce as part of international envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

Russia has proposed extending the mission for 90 days, but Britain, the United States, France and Germany countered with a draft resolution to extend the mission for just 45 days and place Annan’s peace plan under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter.

Chapter 7 allows the council to authorize actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention. U.S. officials have said they are talking about sanctions on Syria, not military intervention.

The Security Council is currently due to vote next Wednesday.

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have killed more than 15,000 people since a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters began in March 2011, some Western leaders say. Damascus says rebels have killed several thousand of its security forces.

“We are definitely against Chapter 7. Anything can be negotiated, but we do not negotiate this, this is a red line,” Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Alexander Pankin told reporters.

The opening stance by Russia, a key ally of Syria, was no surprise to Western diplomats. Russia and China previously vetoed U.N. resolutions designed to pressure Assad.

“They would say that at this stage wouldn’t they,” said Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant. “It’s clear that there’s very strong support for the text.”

Negotiations are unlikely to move quickly. After the first round of talks on Thursday, French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said that negotiators started 10 miles apart, and “now we are 10 miles less 5 centimetres.”

‘TIME TO ACT’

The Western-backed draft resolution in particular threatens the Syrian government with sanctions if it does not stop using heavy weapons and withdraw its troops from towns and cities within 10 days of the adoption of the resolution.

A Western diplomat, who did not want to be named, said the resolution had been drafted with the strongest possible language and action because “it’s long past time for the council to act.”

“It’s frankly outrageous that the council would leave unarmed observers twisting in the wind and not use all the tools they have at their disposal,” he said. “We’re now at the point where 100 or more people are dying a day.”

Opposition activists said more than 200 people, mostly civilians, were massacred in a Syrian army and militia onslaught in a village in the rebellious province of Hama on Thursday.

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar Ja’afari said on Wednesday that countries raising the threat of sanctions were not helping efforts to end the conflict and maintained that Damascus was committed to Annan’s peace plan.

Annan asked the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to make clear to Syria’s government and opposition there would be “clear consequences” for not complying with his plan to broker peace in a conflict that has killed thousands.

“The United States is determined to support him (Annan) because our experience of the last year makes it absolutely clear that the Assad regime will not do anything without additional further pressure,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday during a visit to Cambodia.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has recommended a shift in the emphasis of UNSMIS’ work from military observers - who suspended most of their monitoring activities on June 16 because of increased risk amid rising violence - to the civilian staff focusing on a political solution and issues like human rights.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Peter Cooney)

A picture released by the Syrian opposition shows smoke rising from a Homs neighborhood Wednesday.

Are you in Tremseh in Hama? Send photos and stories to CNN iReport.

(CNN) — Syrian protesters Friday demanded the removal of international envoy Kofi Annan after government forces shelled a village a day earlier, killing hundreds, opposition activists said.

Annan, a former U.N. chief, is serving as a special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and the Arab League.

He brokered a peace plan in Syria in April, but opposition fighters and regime forces have largely shunned its mandates, including a call to lay down their weapons.

Protesters took to the streets in solidarity with victims of the late Thursday attack that left at least 220 dead in the village of Tremseh in Hama province, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria.

Regime forces targeted the village with relentless shelling for hours, leading to the “massacre,” the opposition group said.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition group, issued a conflicting toll. It said it received reports of 160 deaths in the village, but has documented only 40.Regime forces targeted the village with relentless shelling for hours, leading to the “massacre,” the opposition group said.

CNN cannot independently verify reports from Syria because the nation has restricted access by international journalists.

If confirmed, the death toll reported by the LCC would make Thursday the bloodiest day in Syria since the uprising against the government started 16 months ago.

“We had some hope about the Annan mission, and that hope died with the new massacre in Tremseh,” said Ahmed, an activist from Homs who did not want all names used for safety reasons. “And what is Annan going to do?”

The government painted a different picture of the attacks.

In a report in state media, Syria said more than 50 people were killed in Tremseh, maintaining its stance that “armed terrorist groups” are to blame. The government said residents called security forces for help after the terrorist groups raided the neighborhood.

Regime forces arrested some of the members of the terror groups and confiscated their weapons, the government said.

The conflict in Syria has left world leaders scrambling to find a solution in a series of talks that have included Annan.

On the main Facebook page for the uprising, opposition leaders accused Annan of failing to stop the killing of civilians.

They demanded his removal from his role as special envoy and urged protesters to make that the theme of Friday protests.

President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on civilians has sparked international condemnation, but the support of allies such as Russia and China has protected the Syrian regime and hindered a resolution by the United Nations.

Annan brokered the six-point peace plan in April, and Syria accepted the plan, which proposed an end to the violence, access to humanitarian groups and an inclusive political dialogue.

“Kofi Annan is doing, so far, difficult but good work,” al-Assad said Sunday. “There are many obstacles, but it shouldn’t be a failed plan.”

Russia and China, which are permanent U.N. Security Council members, have vetoed draft resolutions that would have condemned the Syrian regime.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday discussed dueling draft resolutions on Syria. Ambassadors remain at odds over whether a Western-backed resolution should invoke a U.N. charter mandating sanctions and ultimately leading to an authorization of the use of force.

Syrian activists and political opposition groups have said the Security Council meetings are not yielding results, and they urged their fighters to mobilize and intensify their efforts to oust the regime.

“We keep hearing about the reports they keep submitting to the Security Council, but to no avail, and the empty promises of protecting the Syrian people, without any serious action on the ground,” the Syrian National Council said in a statement.

The U.N. Security Council discussions at the ambassador level are scheduled to resume Friday. Annan plans to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the regime has suffered a series of setbacks. Syria’s ambassador to Iraq defected Wednesday and joined the opposition, days after the son of a former defense minister cut ties with the government.

CNN’s Ivan Watson, Saad Abedine and journalist Shiyar Sayed Mohamed contributed to this report.

Russia has circulated among UN Security Council members a draft resolution to extend its mission in Syria for three months so it can shift focus from monitoring a non-existent truce to securing a political solution to the conflict.

The deeply divided council must decide the future of the mission, known as UNSMIS, before July 20 when its initial 90-day mandate expires.

International envoy Kofi Annan is due to brief the council on Wednesday on his bid to broker peace in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have killed more than 15,000 people since a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters began in March 2011, some Western leaders say.

Damascus says rebels have killed several thousand of its security forces.

The Russian draft resolution is unlikely to satisfy the United States and European council members, who have called for a resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows the council to authorise actions ranging from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military intervention.

US officials have said they are talking about sanctions on Syria, not military intervention.

Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador, Alexander Pankin, said a resolution under Chapter 7 would be “counterproductive” in what he described as a “delicate situation”.

Russia and China have previously vetoed U.N. resolutions designed to pressure Assad.

“There is no mention of Chapter 7 (in the Russian draft) and that’s a matter of principle for us because we believe the special envoy is doing a commendable job,” Pankin told Reuters.

“(The draft) is a continuation of the mission bearing in mind the recommendations of the Secretary-General.”

MORE PRESSURE

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has recommended the emphasis of UNSMIS’ work shift from military observers - who suspended most of their monitoring activities on June 16 because of increased risk amid rising violence - to the roughly 100 civilian staff focusing on a political solution and issues like human rights.

The mission would keep its current mandate for up to 300 unarmed observers under this option, but significantly fewer likely would be needed to support the new focus.

The Russian draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, does not specify a number, but “stresses the need for UNSMIS to have a military observer capability to conduct effective verification and fact-finding tasks”.

It also “calls upon all Syrian parties to guarantee the safety of UNSMIS personnel without prejudice to its freedom of movement and access, and stresses that the primary responsibility in this regard lies with the Syrian authorities”.

The resolution also strongly urges all parties to cease all violence and stressed “that it is for the Syrian people to find a political solution and that the Syrian parties must be prepared to put forward effective and mutually acceptable interlocutors” to work with Annan toward an agreement.

One Security Council diplomat, who did not want to be named, described the Russian draft as “basically a rollover”.

“At the very least it needs to be combined with some real pressure on the parties,” he said.

Annan met with Assad in Damascus on Monday before travelling to Iran and Iraq for talks on the conflict.”The council will need to address the Syria situation in a more comprehensive way.”

Annan said Assad had suggested easing the conflict on a step-by-step basis, starting with districts that have suffered the worst violence.

- Reuters