03/12/12

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is accusing the Syrian government of serious violations of the 1974 agreement that separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights and is calling on both countries to halt firing across the cease-fire line.

Ban urged Syria to stop deploying troops and military equipment in the disputed zone.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Monday, Ban said recent incidents across the cease-fire line have shown the potential to escalate Israeli-Syrian tensions, and jeopardize the agreement and the region’s stability.

The report recommends a six-month extension of the 1,036-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights monitoring the 1974 agreement until June 30. Israel captured the Golan from Syria in 1967, and Syria wants the land returned in exchange for peace.

CIVIL WAR FEARS: A SYRIAN PROTESTER HOLDS UP THE REMAINS OF FIRED AMMUNITION AS UN OBSERVERS VISIT HOMS LAST WEEK. PICTURE: AFP AFP

The international community has pledged to deploy 300 ceasefire monitors to Syria by the end of the month, Mr Annan said. He warned, however, that the world can’t wait forever for the truce to work.

Mr Annan said in Geneva that there has been “a spate of bombings that are really worrying” and that the UN’s ceasefire-monitoring mission “is the only remaining chance to stabilise the country.”

“There is a profound concern that the country could otherwise descend into full civil war, and the implications of that are frightening,” he said. “We cannot allow that to happen.”

Mr Annan spoke to reporters after briefing the UN Security Council by videoconference from Geneva, where he warned that failure to prevent a civil war “will not only affect Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region.”

Mr Annan said he also told the Security Council that “unacceptable levels of violence and abuse” are continuing in Syria - that government troops are still present in and around cities and towns and human rights violations are extensive and may be increasing.

“There have been worrying episodes of violence by the government, but we have also seen attacks against government forces, troops and installations. And there have been a spate of bombings that are really worrying and I’m sure creates incredible insecurity among the civilian population,” he said.

There has been “some decrease in the military activities, but there are still serious violations in the cessation of violence that was agreed and the level of violence and abuses are unacceptable,” he said.

Mr Annan warned that his six-point peace plan aimed at halting the fighting and initiating political talks to end the 14-month conflict is not an open-ended one.

The Security Council has endorsed Mr Annan’s plan and authorised 300 unarmed military observers to monitor actions by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and opposition for three months.

The fighting between the two sides is estimated to have killed more than 9000 people.

“We may well conclude down the line that it doesn’t work and a different tack has to be taken, and that will be a very sad day, and a tough day for the region,” he said.

Yet, he also tried to sound a note of optimism.

“We’ve been small in numbers, but even where we’ve been able to place two or three observers, they’ve had a calming effect,” he said.

“And I think that when they are fully deployed and working as a team, establishing relations with the people, we will see much greater impact on the work that they are there to do

An international human rights group has accused the Syrian military of committing war crimes just before a ceasefire came into effect on 12 April.

Human Rights Watch says fighting around Idlib province, in the north, may meet the definition of an “armed conflict”, as laid down by international law.

All forces engaged in armed conflict have to comply with internationally agreed minimum standards of conduct.

Separately, activists said 15 soldiers had been killed in a rebel ambush.

The attack occurred at dawn near the village of al-Rai, in Aleppo province, where the military had “scaled up” operations since the ceasefire came into force, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Two members of the rebel Free Syrian Army also died, it added.

Another six soldiers were reportedly killed in clashes near Damascus.

Russia said it “decisively” condemned the “new terrorist sorties”.

Rebel groups, a foreign ministry statement said, had “unleashed a large-scale campaign to destabilise the situation and disrupt” the peace plan negotiated by the UN and Arab League special envoy, Kofi Annan.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network, said 10 people had been killed by security forces across the country on Wednesday, and 800 since the government agreed to Mr Annan’s plan on 27 March.

“These numbers were verified in the context of 2,400 breaches of the ceasefire by the regime’s army and shabiha [militia],” it added.

‘Broken promises’

Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said there was clear evidence Syria breached the international laws governing armed conflicts by carrying out summary executions and destroying houses as the negotiations that led to the 12 April ceasefire continued.

The group said the Syrian army killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in Idlib province in late March and early April.

“It was as if the Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause harm,” said Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at HRW. “Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another.”

The 38-page report, ‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib During Peace Plan Negotiations, documents dozens of executions, killings of civilians, and destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as detention without trial and torture.

It includes accounts of children being executed by government forces.

“The security forces also arbitrarily detained dozens of people, holding them without any legal basis,” HRW said.

“About two-thirds of the detainees remain in detention to date, despite promises by President Bashar al-Assad’s government to release political detainees,” it added.

The HRW report told how the mother of Mohammed Saleh Shamrukh - an anti-government protester from Idlib province - had to watch security forces take him away.

“I didn’t say goodbye so as to not make him sad. He didn’t say anything either. When they left, the soldiers said I should forget him,” she said.

Mr Shamrukh was executed on March 25, according to HRW.

The 12 April ceasefire is a key element of the peace plan brokered by Mr Annan. Levels of violence have declined since it came into force.

But UN monitors who are now deployed to Syria report that clashes are continuing, and that both sides continue to have heavy weaponry in civilian areas, in breach of their ceasefire obligations.

The Syrian government has not commented on the HRW report.

Officials blame foreign-backed “terrorist” groups for the violence and for killing more than 2,450 civilians and 1,340 members of the security forces since protests against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. The UN estimates that more than 9,000 people have been killed.

At least 30 people have been killed in renewed violence in Syria on Tuesday despite a ceasefire, activists say.

Nine members of one family, including four women and two children, were among 11 people killed in a mortar attack by troops on a village in Idlib province.

Twelve soldiers were also reportedly killed in the province of Deir al-Zour.

Meanwhile, the UN’s peacekeeping chief said its observers in Syria had noted violations of the 20-day-old ceasefire by both the government and opposition.

“The violations that are observed come from both sides. I would not establish the ratio,” Herve Ladsous told reporters in New York, adding that heavy weapons were still being deployed.

“Our observers have seen a number of APCs [armoured personnel carriers], for instance. They see a number of Howitzers and military equipment in most places where they are,” he added. “It is being claimed that the APCs have been disarmed, but that is not verified in all places.”

Mr Ladsous said the observers had confirmed there had been a bombing in Hama on Thursday, but that they did not know more. Both sides have blamed each other for the blast, which activists say killed up to 70 people.

An advance party of 24 unarmed military observers began work two weeks ago, with a number being sent to cities such as Hama.

Mr Ladsous said the deployment of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was being “accelerated”, and that he hoped its full complement of 300 observers would be on the ground by the end of May.

However, he revealed that UN member states had so far only offered 150 monitors, and that Syria had refused visas for three of them.

‘Outside forces’

Mr Ladsous spoke after activists said at least nine members of a single family, including four women and two children, had been killed during the bombardment of a village in the north-eastern province of Idlib.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a mortar round had hit the family’s home in Mashmashan, near the town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Elsewhere in the province, a 13-year-old boy was killed by random gunfire in the town of Maarat al-Numan, it added.

In Deir al-Zour province, in the east, troops reportedly retaliated with mortar and machine-gun fire at a village, killing at least one person, after 12 soldiers were killed by rebels.

The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an activist network, said 35 people had been killed by security forces across the country on Tuesday, including 18 in Idlib province, five in Hama and four in Homs.

The speaker of the Syrian parliament, Mahmoud al-Abrash, blamed the violence on other countries, which he said had been supporting the rebel Free Syrian Army.

“The escalation is continuing and it must be stopped from the outside - I mean those who are providing those groups with weapons and money,” he told the Reuters news agency. “They need to stop this.”

‘No other options’

Earlier the head of UNSMIS, Maj Gen Robert Mood of Norway, told the BBC World Service that his team were already having “a calming effect”.

He rejected criticism of the mission, particularly the small size of the team, and the fact that the observers are unarmed.

“There are not any other options on the table at the moment,” he said.

“We have seen this in many crises before that if you simply keep adding to the violence with more bombs and weapons and more violence, it becomes a circle that is almost impossible to break,” he added. “We are not in that situation.”

But Gen Mood acknowledged that the monitors would not be able to solve Syria’s problems on their own.

The observer mission is part of a six-point peace plan negotiated by the UN and Arab League’s special envoy, Kofi Annan.

The UN meanwhile said it had received reports that 34 children had been killed in Syria since the ceasefire came into effect in 12 April.

Definitive figures are hard to verify because until now the UN, and independent journalists, have not had free access to the country.

But Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN’s special representative for children and armed conflict, said she could confirm that in recent days at least one child had been killed at an anti-government demonstration, and that the body of a girl had been retrieved from a destroyed house in Hama.

She urged both sides to “refrain from indiscriminate tactics resulting in the killing and wounding of children”.

In a separate development, President Barack Obama moved to increase the pressure of sanctions against Syria and Iran by granting the US treasury department new powers to publicly identify foreign companies, banks and individuals who try to evade US sanctions.

The treasury said it would also be able to bar those who seek to bypass the sanctions from access to the US financial and economic sectors.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Three members of the Syrian security services used to suppress antigovernment dissent were killed in and around Damascus on Tuesday, according to the official media and activists, one of several indications that the cease-fire arranged under United Nations auspices continued to wobble. In addition, a small bomb exploded outside an Iranian culture and travel center in the center of Damascus, the Syrian capital, wounding four people but not causing much damage.

Government forces followed the pattern established since the cease-fire, resuming attacks where the United Nations had just visited, while soldiers remained largely quiet in the places where the unarmed monitors were walking around. The Damascus suburb of Douma, which staged a massive antigovernment protest when the observers visited Monday, was shelled heavily on Wednesday morning, activists said.

Only about a dozen monitors have deployed in the country so far, but Syrians have already soured on the experience, blaming the monitors for being powerless in the face of further violent attacks despite the cease-fire technically in effect since April 12. The United Nations Security Council continues to back the peace plan, however, with the full contingent of 300 inspectors expected to deploy over the next couple months. Susan E. Rice, the American envoy to the United Nations, said late Tuesday that the presence of the monitors had diminished the violence and the point was to get them all deployed as quickly as possible. She quoted Hervé Ladsous, the head of all United Nations peacekeeping operations, as telling the council that 30 observers would be in place by the end of April, and 100 within a month.

One of the issues is that Syria has rejected one monitor on the basis of his nationality and informed the United Nations that it will not accept any monitors from countries among the “Friends of Syria,” an informal grouping of some 70 countries that has supported the opposition in its quest for political change.

“The onus remains on the Syrian government to halt the violence,” Ms. Rice said, “then subsequently on both sides to maintain a cessation of violence.” Kofi Annan, the joint United Nations and Arab League envoy who negotiated the truce and who also briefed the Security Council, said that Syrian Army attacks after the monitors departed on people who staged antigovernment protests while they were there is “unacceptable and reprehensible, if true.”

Mr. Annan told the council that he had received a letter on Saturday from the Syrian foreign minister saying troops and heavy equipment had been withdrawn from populated areas, with the police now in control of security. Daily videos of tanks and armored personnel carriers patrolling and even firing in populated areas openly contradict what was contained in the letter, although Mr. Annan did not phrase it that starkly.

“The only promises that count are the promises that are kept,” Ms. Rice quoted him as saying. Ms. Rice said several council members “expressed their skepticism” about the truth of what the letter from the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. In Geneva, the spokesman for Kofi Annan, the United Nations and Arab League envoy who negotiated the plan, said on Tuesday he was aware that Syrians were being targeted after the observers passed through and that attacks recommenced.

“We have credible reports that when they leave, the exchanges start again, that these people who approach the observers may be approached by the Syrian security forces or the Syrian Army or even worse, perhaps killed, and this is totally unacceptable,” Ahmad Fawzi, Mr. Annan’s spokesman, told United Nations television.

Satellite images and other reports showed that Syria had not fulfilled its obligation under the six-point peace plan. Contrary to the agreement, Syria still deployed heavy weapons in urban centers, Mr. Fawzi said. His remarks were similar to the points Mr. Annan made in his closed briefing before the Security Council later on Tuesday.

“We are calling on the Syrian government to fully implement its commitments under the cease-fire,” Mr. Fawzi said.

He noted that cities like Homs and Hama that had been embattled for months enjoyed at least a temporary quiet while the observers were present. Two were now stationed in both cities, but he conceded that more were needed.

“With 11 or 12 monitors, you can’t be everywhere, and there are many cities that have seen destruction and have seen fighting, and we have to be present,” Mr. Fawzi said. “With up to 300, we will be able to monitor more cities than two or three at a time.”

The inspectors returned to the central city of Hama on Tuesday — but the mood had soured. Their first visit, on Sunday, prompted a huge antigovernment demonstration. On Monday, however, government forces shelled and raided two poor, mostly Sunni Muslim neighborhoods that had protested, killing around 30 people, according to activists.

“The observers were received in a very different way today,” said Manhal, an activist reached via Skype, who used only one name out of fear of retribution. “Anger and sorrow surrounds Hama, and they are the reason behind the killing,” he said. “People know if they meet them they will either be killed or arrested. I have lost faith in these visits.”

A far smaller group of people turned out this time to talk to the observers, videos posted on YouTube indicated. Some people in the Arbaeen neighborhood covered their faces with scarves when approaching the monitors.

But some still held out hope that the monitors might help. One woman swathed in black was shown pleading with Col. Ahmed Himmiche, the Moroccan commander of the advance team. “We are being slaughtered!” she yelled, her hands shaking in front of her face. “Our children are gone! Burning and killing and slaughter! For God’s sake, protect us, if you really came as observers for us!”

In northern Idlib Province, where the monitors have yet to visit, protesters in the town of Binnish used sarcasm to convey their message. In the midst of an antigovernment protest, a small group of students, dressed like observers in eggshell-blue berets and vests, wandered through the crowd. They were wearing sunglasses and tapping walking sticks, as if they were blind, and had toilet paper stuffed in their ears. “There is nothing new on the ground,” said one of the students in the video, shown on Al Jazeera.

In Damascus, an intelligence officer was shot dead in Barzeh, a northern suburb, according to a statement from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain. The man was suspected of identifying local protesters for arrest. A retired lieutenant colonel and his brother, also an officer, were assassinated on the outskirts of Damascus as well, reported SANA, the state-run news agency, which accused “terrorists” of the attack.

The official media also said that “terrorists,” their generic label for any government opposition, planted explosives that went off under the vehicle outside the Iranian Culture Center. Pictures showed the cab of the unmarked Mazda pickup truck used by the security services filled with shattered glass and blood, but no destruction to the buildings around it.

In the meantime, the renewed campaign to detain peaceful activists continued unabated. Salameh Keleh, a Palestinian-Syrian writer outspoken in his criticism of the government, was arrested Tuesday, according to the Activists News Association.

Syria has barred most independent media, making verification of claims difficult.

Special Envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council today in a closed-door session that an expanding U.N. monitoring mission still stands a chance of calming the violence in Syria, despite a spike in killings on Monday, including a report of a government attack on civilians in the town of Hama after U.N. observers left the town.

Annan, a former U.N. secretary general who is serving as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, delivered a carefully worded briefing to the council that both raised concern about the government’s conduct in recent weeks but urged the council to maintain support for his fragile diplomatic bid.

“Our patience has been tested severely-close to its limits,” he said. “But we have also seen signs that there is the possibility for the parties to implement a cessation of violence, which can lead to a political process and peaceful way out of the crisis.”

Annan said he intends to press ahead with his efforts to start political talks between the government and the fragmented political, civil and military opposition groups. He would approach the Syrian government at the “appropriate time,” he said, and request that President Bashar al-Assad appoint a representative to the talks. At the same time, he said his team is pressing the opposition to develop a “more inclusive and representative” approach to political talks.

Annan said that while it is difficult for a handful of U.N. monitors to “assess the level of violence” throughout Syria, the scale of killing had “as a whole” decreased since the U.N.-brokered cease-fire took effect on April 12. However, the violence spiked yesterday, he admitted, citing an upsurge of killing in Hama, where government forces reportedly attacked civilians in a suburb of the town following a visit by U.N. monitors.

“I am concerned by media reports that, before and after [U.N.] observer visits, government troops have been active in civilian areas and launched attacks,” he said. “I am particularly alarmed by reports that government troops entered Hama yesterday after observers departed, firing automatic weapons and killing a significant number of people.”

The move comes as the U.N. Security Council is straining to maintain its unity despite widely divergent approaches by the council’s key powers. The United States — and its European and Arab allies — have begun clamoring for a tougher approach to Syria, arguing that a resort to sanctions, and possibly stepped-up support for the armed opposition, is required to prod the government into meeting its obligations. Russia and China, meanwhile, have preferred an exclusively diplomatic strategy backed, reinforced by diplomatic pressure on both sides to pursue political talks.

Annan, meanwhile, held out the hope that a beefed up U.N. monitoring mission, which may expand to a force of some 300 unarmed observers in the coming weeks, could restore calm, citing the reduction of violence in the town of Homs following the arrival of U.N. observers. “There is a chance to expand and consolidate the cessation of violence,” he said. “Observers not only see what is going on, but their presence has the potential to change the political dynamics.”

Annan concluded that Syria’s compliance with its commitments under his peace plan — known as the six-point plan — has been “partial” at best, noting that the “gestures” the government has taken so far “do not yet amount to the full and clear signal” of its commitment to embrace political reform. But he also hinted that any political settlement he is likely to deliver will involve moral compromises.

“Under the circumstances, the peace we are trying to build could never be perfect — and we have all been shocked by events in Syria,” he said. “But if we succeed, the prospects are far better than any promised through war.”

Annan said that he had received written assurances on Saturday from Syrian Foreign MinisterWallid Moallem that “the withdrawal of massed troops and heavy weapons from in and around population centers is now complete and military operations have ceased.”  Annan said he was “encouraged” by Moallem’s pledge but that “it should be understood that the only promises that count are the promises that are kept.”

By CHARLES LEVINSON

Syrian regime forces unleashed an artillery barrage on a neighborhood of the city of Hama and executed residents who spoke with United Nations peace monitors, according to several residents, one day after protesters in the city took to the streets to welcome the observers.

Monday’s violence left 28 to 38 people dead in the city, according to reports by opposition networks.

“The regime decided to punish the people of Hama because they were brave enough to come out to meet the monitors,” said Hama resident and opposition activist Mousab al-Hamadee. “The regime wanted to send a message to other cities.”

The violence—among the worst in the city in several months, and perhaps the bloodiest day nationwide since a nominal cease-fire was to have taken effect on April 12—casts fresh doubt on the future of a monitoring mission proposed by the U.N., and on the ability of the observers to protect those with whom it comes in contact.

Eleven U.N. peace observers are now on the ground in Syria, said U.N. spokesman Eduardo del Buey, and some 20 more are due within days, tasked with monitoring the cease-fire deal brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. A full contingent of 300 observers has been authorized by the U.N. Security Council.

The regime has continued shelling restive cities since shortly after the cease-fire went into effect, however, and has refused to pull its forces out of cities as pledged. The Syrian government’s adherence to the cease-fire is “clearly insufficient,” B. Lynn Pascoe, the U.N.’s top political officer, told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. “Human-rights violations are still perpetrated with impunity.”

But the U.N. appears intent on pressing ahead with the monitors’ deployment, as U.N.officials hope a more robust peace-monitoring team can help stem violence they say has now left 10,000 dead.

“The Syrian regime should make no mistake,” said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told the Security Council. “There will be consequences should the Syrian regime continue to ignore this council’s decisions.”

But it isn’t clear what those consequences might be. Western government sought to include an explicit threat of sanctions in the council’s resolution on Saturday that authorized the 300 additional monitors. But in a compromise with Moscow, which opposes U.N. sanctions on Damascus, the language was toned down to say only that the council would consider “appropriate further measures” if Syria’s government doesn’t pull back its forces from populated areas in 15 days.

On Monday, the U.S. passed new sanctions that target telecommunications companies and government bodies in Syria as well as Iran that disrupt networks, monitor citizens or otherwise use technology to enable human-rights abuses.

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday the European Union was running out of credible sanctions against Syria. The latest ban on luxury-goods exports, passed Monday, represented the 14th round of EU sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, including an oil embargo, an asset freeze and a travel ban on senior regime officials.

In Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city and a hub of mass protests last summer, residents described artillery shelling, house raids and executions.

On Sunday, Mr. al-Hamadee and several other residents said, the U.N. observer team toured city neighborhoods speaking with residents. In many areas, they said, activists marched in the streets to greet the monitors, who left at around 3 p.m.

After the team left, security forces stormed into certain neighborhoods and began rounding up residents who had spoken to the observers, Mr. al-Hamadee said.

On Monday morning, Hama’s Arbaeen neighborhood, one of the districts the observers visited, suffered “very heavy, very indiscriminate” shelling for about four hours until 2 p.m., an activist in that neighborhood said in a conversation by Skype. Afterward, this person said, home raids and street executions began, with security forces and what residents characterized as plainclothes thugs entering the neighborhood and dragging people from their homes.

Nine young men were executed in the streets because they were alleged to have given information to the observers, Mr. al-Hamadee said. Another activist in the city said 12 people were executed. Those shot inside their homes or on the streets were civilians, rather than armed fighters with the Free Syrian Army, the activist in Arbaeen said.

Video footage posted on YouTube by Hama activist groups on Monday shows a room full of bodies of the alleged execution victims wrapped in white cloth shrouds with cardboard placards marking their names. Another video shows the bombardment of what is identified as Arbaeen, with the person shooting the footage saying: “This is the gift of the international observers and Kofi Annan to the Syrian people,” as an explosion rocks the camera and smoke rises in the air.

The Security Council resolution on the monitors calls on the Syrian government to allow the observers to “freely and privately communicate with individuals throughout Syria without retaliation against any person” as a result of the interaction, the resolution says.

With outside media all but barred from Syria, the U.N. monitors are meant in part to provide independent confirmation of events there. At the U.N., Western diplomats said their governments were unable to confirm the events in Hama that were alleged to have followed the monitors’ departure.

The state-run SANA news agency, meanwhile, said rebel gunmen assassinated a doctor and an army officer Monday in the southern province of Daraa, and shot dead two other army officers in Hama.

* Team reports abuses by both sides since ceasefire took hold

* Shelling and arrests by Syrian forces; executions by rebels

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, April 16 (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators said on Monday they had received reports of shelling and arrests by Syrian forces since the ceasefire, as well as executions of some soldiers captured by rebels, although the level of violence generally was lower.

The team led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro said it hoped the truce brokered by international mediator Kofi Annan last week would hold and help put an end to gross human rights violations that it has documented over the past six months.

In a statement, it also voiced concern at what it called the “deteriorating humanitarian situation” in Syria where tens of thousands of civilians fled escalating fighting in the run-up to the fragile ceasefire that took effect last week.

It acknowledged generally lower levels of violence in some areas, but was seriously concerned over accounts of a number of incidents since the truce.

These included “the shelling of the Khaldieh neighbourhood and other districts in Homs by government forces and the use of heavy weaponry, such as machineguns in other areas, including Idlib and some suburbs of Damascus.

“The commission is also concerned by reports of new arrests, especially in Hama and Aleppo,” it said.

The team, which reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, has not been allowed into Syria, but has interviewed refugees and gathered testimony in neighbouring countries.

“The Commission also continued to receive reports of human rights abuses committed by anti-government armed groups engaged in fighting against the Syrian army during and after the ceasefire, including extra-judicial killings of soldiers captured during armed confrontations,” it said.

A handful of soldiers in blue caps put a tentative United Nations presence at the heart of the Syrian crisis on Monday, predicting success for their mission to stabilise a shaky four-day-old ceasefire even as shells continued to fall.

In their last report issued on Feb. 23, the U.N. investigators said that they had evidence that Syrian forces had committed crimes against humanity including murder, abductions and torture under orders from the “highest level” of army and government officials.

Monday, 02 April 2012

The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have died since President Bashar al-Assad launched a crackdown on protests in March 2011. (Reuters)

By AFP
WASHINGTON

The United States said Monday it will help fund a new initiative to train Syrian investigators and document alleged abuses to ensure accountability in the bloody year-long crackdown on protests.

The State Department said the United States would offer an initial $1.25 million to the “Syria Accountability Clearinghouse,” which was announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a weekend conference in Istanbul.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the initiative sought to collect evidence on the “horrible” allegations leveled against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, including the killing of children.

The project will not spare opposition fighters accused of wrongdoing but is aimed primarily at “regime elements who are continuing not only to obey the Assad orders to fire on their own people, but are also committing gross abuses themselves,” Nuland told reporters.

“We’re trying to send a political message here (to) those who are still carrying out his bloody orders — there are people bearing witness to that and they will be held to account,” Nuland said.

The Syria Accountability Clearinghouse will secure storage of evidence of abuses and offer training to investigators, lawyers and human rights groups who are looking into alleged violations, a State Department statement said.

The Clearinghouse will also include a “prosecutors’ unit” to work on future cases that could be brought before Syrian or international courts, or potential hybrid tribunals.

The State Department said it would work with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and other countries. Britain last week announced another £500,000 ($800,000) for the Syrian opposition, in part to help activists record abuses.

The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have died since President Bashar al-Assad launched a crackdown on protests in March 2011.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights on Monday put the toll at 10,108 and said that 7,306 of the victims have been civilians.

Clinton on Sunday joined officials of Western and Arab nations at a “Friends of Syria” conference in Istanbul that called for Assad to be given a deadline to meet the terms of a peace plan negotiated by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan.

Russia, which holds veto power at the U.N. Security Council, has been the main supporter of Assad and rejected calls in Istanbul for a deadline. U.N.-backed courts have sought to bring accountability after a number of other conflicts.

Since last year, uprisings have toppled authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. Courts in some of the countries have since taken aim at alleged violations during the former strongmen’s rule.

24 March 2012 | 01:39:36 PM| Source: AFP

Syrian forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several regions as activists said thousands staged anti-regime protests. (AAP)

Syrian forces bombed towns and clashed with rebels in several regions as activists said thousands staged anti-regime protests and the European Union slapped sanctions on the country’s First Lady.

In Geneva on Friday, the UN Human Rights Council ordered a probe into violations in Syria to be extended, asking investigators to map out abuses since a deadly crackdown on protests in the country erupted in March 2011.
  
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was to travel this weekend to Moscow and Beijing, the two countries that have blocked Security Council action against Syria over the crackdown.
  
But he had no immediate plans to return to Damascus.
  
Adding to pressure on the regime, the EU on Friday agreed to sanction President Bashar al-Assad’s glamorous British-born wife Asma, along with his mother, sister and sister-in-law.
  
Diplomats in Brussels said EU foreign ministers had agreed an assets freeze and travel ban on the four women and eight other members of Assad’s entourage.
  
Asma Assad, whose parents live in Britain where she grew up, cannot be barred entry to the country, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
  
“But given that we are imposing an asset freeze on all of these individuals and a travel ban on other members of the same family and the regime, we are not expecting Mrs. Assad to try to travel to the United Kingdom at the moment.”
  
Assad himself was targeted last May 10, along with his younger brother Maher and four cousins.
  
Washington welcomed the EU’s decision.
  
“We are gratified that the EU has taken yet another step in tightening the noose on the Assad regime,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
  
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Syrians in the United States would be allowed to stay beyond their visas and avoid the risk of returning to their violence-torn country.
  
“Conditions in Syria have worsened to the point where Syrian nationals already in the United States would face serious threats to their personal safety if they were to return to their home country,” Napolitano said.
  
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators turned out Friday in the hot spots of anti-regime revolt across Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
  
At least 33 people were killed in violence nationwide, the Britain-based group said: 17 civilians, 13 soldiers and three army deserters.
  
Nine civilians died in districts in Homs hit by gunfire and rockets, it reported.
  
At least three deserters and a civilians were reported killed in fighting between regime forces and army deserters in Aazaz in the northern province of Aleppo near the Turkish border, the Observatory and activists said.
  
“Troops are bombing and helicopters flying overhead,” activist Mohammed Halabi told AFP in Beirut by telephone from the province. The fighting had been going on since midday Thursday, he said.
  
Aazaz, strategically positioned on the road to neighbouring Turkey, is a supply route for Free Syrian Army rebels.
  
Fierce clashes also erupted mid-afternoon between soldiers and deserters in the villages of Haritan and Anadan, between Aleppo and Aazaz, Halabi said. The Observatory said two civilians were killed in Anadan.
  
Troops shelled the two villages after deserters attacked a convoy of tanks headed for Aazaz, the activist said.
  
The state news agency SANA reported “several terrorists” killed in the Sermin region of Idlib and said a bomb under a bridge had killed an army engineer in the Aleppo region.
  
Videos posted online by activists showed protests in the southern province of Daraa, birthplace of the revolt that monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives.
  
UN human rights expert Yakin Erturk, meanwhile, told reporters in New York Friday that at least four Syrian brigadier generals had defected in recent weeks.
  
In diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed, the Security Council on Wednesday adopted a statement urging Assad and his foes to implement “fully and immediately” Annan’s peace plan.
  
The initiative calls for Assad to pull troops and heavy weapons out of protest hubs, a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire, access to all areas affected by the fighting and a UN-supervised halt to all clashes.
  
Annan’s spokesman said a team of technical experts had returned to Geneva after “three days of intensive talks with Syrian authorities on urgent steps to implement” the plan.
  
On Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned against any attempt to circumvent UN authority.
  
“There’s a need to eliminate any loopholes allowing (nations) to act in circumvention of the authority of the Security Council and use force without its approval,” Medvedev told a European security conference in Moscow.
  
The Security Council still awaited a formal Syrian response on Wednesday’s statement, but government daily Tishrin welcomed it.
  
Riyadh, Doha, Ankara “and other capitals which are enemies of Syria, and which wanted a military intervention… suffered a defeat on the international stage,” it said.
  
The opposition Syrian National Council poured scorn on the UN statement, saying it would give the regime more time to continue killing its own people.
  
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DATELINE:DAMASCUS, March 24, 2012 (AFP) -