Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 

Syrian Cities Bombarded as UN Moves to Send Monitors

 April 4, 2012

 

Syrian cities bombarded as UN moves to send monitors

Opposition activists said Tuesday that forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad have stepped up their attacks on anti-regime militants as a final blow before next week's planned ceasefire, to which the government agreed yesterday.

By Olivia SALAZAR WINSPEAR (video) News Wires (text)

France 24, April 3, 2012, AFP -

 Fierce clashes erupted after Syria's regime sent reinforcements into rebel areas despite a truce pledge, as the UN said it was rushing a team to Damascus to pave the way for peace monitors.

The surge in violence on Tuesday killed at least 38 people, including 25 civilians, mostly in north and central Syria, and saw a string of arson attacks on homes, activists and monitors said.

It came a day after peace envoy Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council that President Bashar al-Assad had given assurances he would "immediately" start pulling back his forces and complete a military withdrawal from urban areas by April 10.

The United States accused Assad of failing to honour his pledged troop withdrawal, as monitors reported heavy fighting in opposition strongholds in the southern region of Daraa, the central city of Homs, northwestern Idlib province and near the capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has charged that the army is torching and looting rebel houses across the country in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity.

Dozens of armoured personnel carriers arrived in Dael, a town in Daraa province where the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, as well as in Zabadani, a bastion of the rebellion near the border with Lebanon.

Clashes in the Atbaa area of Daraa left three civilians and two soldiers dead, according to the Observatory.

In Idlib, heavy fighting took place on the outskirts of the town of Taftanaz, where five civilians, four rebels and seven soldiers were killed amid heavy machinegun fire and shelling, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

Clashes killed two civilians elsewhere in the province.

In central Homs, 10 civilians were killed in shelling and five others died in fighting elsewhere in the province.

With international concern at the situation growing, a draft UN Security Council statement was drawn up asking Syria to respect an April 10 deadline to halt its military operations in protest cities, according to a copy of the text seen by AFP.

The draft also urges the Syrian opposition to cease hostilities within 48 hours after the Assad's regime makes good on its pledges.

It also calls on all parties to respect a two-hour daily humanitarian pause, as called for in Annan's plan.

Negotiations on the text -- distributed by Britain, France and the United States -- began on Tuesday. France's UN envoy Gerard Araud said he hoped it would be adopted late Wednesday or on Thursday.

Russia, Assad's veto-wielding ally in the Council, has rejected the idea of a deadline, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying "ultimatums and artificial deadlines rarely help matters."

Washington said on Tuesday that Assad was failing to live up to pledges for a truce.

"The assertion to Kofi Annan was that Assad would start implementing his commitments immediately to withdraw from cities. I want to advise that we have seen no evidence today that he is implementing any of those commitments," US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

In Geneva, a spokesman for Annan said the office of the UN-Arab League envoy expected a "UN advance team on the deployment of monitors to arrive in Syria in the next 48 hours."

In a briefing Monday to the Security Council, Annan sought a broad mandate for the monitoring mission as he reported "no progress" on reaching a ceasefire, according to diplomats.

Syria's UN envoy, Bashar Jaafari, confirmed the April 10 date had been agreed "by common accord" between Annan and his government.

Seeking to assuage some of the humanitarian concerns, foreign Minister Walid Muallem pledged Syria would do its utmost to ensure the success of a Red Cross mission as he met the organisation's head, Jakob Kellenberger, who was in Damascus to seek a daily ceasefire.

International Committee of the Red Cross chief Kellenberger, on his third mission to Damascus since it launched a protest crackdown which the UN says has killed more than 9,000 people, said ahead of his latest trip that he would seek to secure a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire.

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Syrian troops pound cities

By REUTERS

Arab News, Apr 3, 2012 21:33

BEIRUT:

Opposition activists accused Syrian troops of shelling two cities yesterday in a campaign to weaken forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s government before a cease-fire deadline next week.

Rebel fighters also kept up their attacks, killing three soldiers in separate actions in northern Syria, activists said.

Assad has agreed to a cease-fire negotiated by international peace envoy Kofi Annan from April 10, the latest effort to end a a year of bloodshed stemming from an uprising against his rule.

An advance team from the United Nations’ peacekeeping department will arrive in Damascus in the next two days to work out how observers can monitor the truce, Annan’s spokesman said in Geneva.

But Syrian opposition figures as well as Western governments have already made it clear they are not convinced that Assad, who has failed to honor previous commitments, would keep his word this time.

“He is a liar,” said Waleed Al-Fares, an opposition activist in Homs, a city which came to symbolize the anti-Assad struggle as opposition-held areas endured weeks of bombardments and sniper fire.

Fares said Assad was playing for time to gain the upper hand over poorly-armed rebel forces which have been driven from city strongholds in the past two months.

Targets in Homs were coming under shelling yesterday, he said. Another opposition activist, Mortadha Al-Rashid, told Reuters from Damascus that the western border town of Zabadani was also taking a pounding.

“The regime shows no signs of stopping. There are people being shelled in Zabadani right now,” Rashid said. “Where are Kofi Annan’s words? Because we have never seen them on the streets.”

In violence elsewhere, rebel fighters killed one soldier in a clash in northern Idlib province, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor which collates reports from inside Syria.

Armed men also attacked the home of a military director of logistics in Aleppo, killing two guards, the Observatory said.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said 10 soldiers and policemen were buried with honors on Monday.

Accounts of the violence can be difficult to verify because the Syrian government restricts access to Western journalists.

But the United Nations estimates Assad’s forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the past year, while the government says about 3,000 security personnel have been killed by what it describes as foreign-backed gangs of terrorists.

SANA said Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem met the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, and agreed on “a cooperation mechanism” for humanitarian assistance.

It made no mention of the ICRC’s call for a daily two-hour cease-fire to provide aid and evacuate the wounded.

The opposition Syrian National Council has endorsed Annan’s six-point peace plan but made no official comment on the April 10 cease-fire target. Rebels of the Free Syrian Army have said they will stop shooting if tanks and artillery withdraw from cities.

But Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused the UN Security Council of indirectly supporting the “oppression” of the Syrian people by failing to adopt a united stance on Syria.

“In not taking a decision, the UN Security Council has indirectly supported the oppression. To stand by with your hands and arms tied while the Syrian people are dying every day is to support the oppression,” Erdogan told members of his party.

Annan, who acts for the United Nations and the Arab League, told the UN Security Council on Monday he would have liked to see a cease-fire sooner. Some council members were concerned that the next week could be used to intensify army operations.Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi, speaking in Geneva, said the aim was to bring a complete end to hostilities by April 12.

A UN peacekeeping advance team was due in Damascus in the next two days to discuss the deployment of monitors, Fawzi said. A team of up to 250 unarmed observers is envisaged although it will require a Security Council resolution.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, said Damascus would not take all the blame if the plan failed and Annan must also get the armed opposition to comply.

“A plan wouldn’t be successful unless everybody is committed to it,” Ja’afari said in New York.

Many foreign governments fear the conflict could descend into a full-scale civil war and drag in other Middle East players if it carries on much longer.