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20 Syrians Killed at Funeral Procession in Idlib, UN Observer Convoy Bombed

 

U.N. observer convoy bombed in Syria as 20 people are killed at funeral procession

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

By Al Arabiya with Agencies --

A U.N. observer convoy was bombed Tuesday at a Syrian funeral procession, the opposition said, as the United Nations reported its vehicles were hit but that staff escaped unharmed in apparently the same attack.

At least 20 people were killed and dozens wounded when Syrian regime forces opened fire on a funeral procession in Idlib province during a visit by U.N. monitors, a watchdog said.

“The Syrian regime committed a massacre Tuesday during a visit by U.N. monitors to Khan Sheikhun,” in the northwestern province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Separately, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said a roadside bomb exploded in front of a convoy of U.N. ceasefire monitors in Khan Sheikhun, but no injuries were reported among U.N. workers.

Video uploaded to YouTube by activists showed a convoy of U.N. vehicles surrounded by dozens of people before a blast was heard and a puff of smoke went up in front of the leading U.N. -marked jeep.

It was unclear from the footage if anybody was injured, and the jeep was driven off despite having its front hood damaged. The authenticity of the video could not be verified.

Activists said the four-vehicle U.N. convoy in Khan Sheikhun had come under attack and one car was hit by a shell, prompting the monitors to quickly leave the area.

Major Sami al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told AFP that the monitors had arrived during the funeral and that their presence had encouraged more mourners to turn out and join the procession.

“The regime dared to attack the procession, however, and then targeted the vehicles of the U.N. observers from a regime checkpoint,” he said.

The Observatory, a Britain-based rights watchdog, called for an international probe into the killings that took place during the funeral of a man killed the day before.

It also urged the 200-strong U.N. monitoring mission overseeing a tenuous ceasefire in Syria to launch its own investigation.

Opposition votes to keep secular head
The attack came hours after the Syrian National Council (SNC), an umbrella group in which the influence of Islamists is extensive, re-elected Burhan Ghalioun, a sociologist long resident in France, as its leader for another three months.

People involved in the vote said the secular Ghalioun was viewed as acceptable to Syria’s array of sects and ethnicities.

Damascus said more than half of eligible voters turned out for a parliamentary election last week, part of reforms it says show Assad’s intent to resolve the uprising peacefully.

Khalaf al-Azzawi, head of the judiciary body that oversaw the election, said 51 percent of eligible voters had turned out, down slightly from an election in 2007 when the rule of Assad’s Baath party was unchallenged.

At least one independent figure made it into the assembly, according to results Azzawi read out in a televised news conference in Damascus. No figures were given for turnout in cities and towns under siege by government forces.

“The election gave the people the broadest possible representation,” he told a televised news conference in Damascus. “The election took place with full transparency, democracy, integrity, supervised and monitored by independent judicial councils which were not pressured by any side.”

Opposition leaders dismissed the election in advance as a ruse to buy more time for crushing dissent and said voting was not feasible in areas under continued siege and shelling from Assad’s security forces.

The vote follows amendments to Syria’s constitution to allow more political parties, a move Damascus has cited as evidence of good faith to move toward a political solution to the bloodshed.

A peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan in April calls for the release of detainees and for peaceful protests to be allowed.

Cross-border ripples
The sectarian dimension of the uprising against Syria has given rise to fears of a spillover beyond its borders, including neighboring Lebanon, which has seen three days of fighting between members of the Alawite sect - to which Syria’s ruling circle belongs - and Sunni Islamists.

At least eight people have been killed and over 70 wounded since fighters in adjacent Alawite and Sunni districts of Tripoli traded fire with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, following the arrest of a Sunni man who has been charged with membership of a “terrorist” organization.

Syria has demanded Lebanon - where it has influence with the military and intelligence apparatus dating back to the Lebanese civil war and its aftermath - crack down on supporters of insurgents moving arms to them across the Syrian border.

Young men in the Sunni quarter of Bab al-Tebbaneh shouted “There goes the Syrian army, there go the collaborators”, as a Lebanese armoured vehicle rolled through its streets on Tuesday.

Syria clashes 'kill 23 soldiers' as EU slaps on new sanctions

France 24, May 14, 2012, By News Wires (text)

AFP -

Fierce clashes between regime forces and armed rebels in central Syria Monday killed 23 Syrian soldiers and wounded dozens, a watchdog said, as the EU slapped fresh sanctions on the Damascus regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three troop carriers were destroyed in the clashes that began at dawn on the outskirts of Rastan, a city located in restive Homs province.

Regime forces launched an offensive on the city at the weekend but have met with sharp resistance from rebels seeking the ouster of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Observatory said dozens had been wounded in shelling of the city by Syrian troops.

Monday's killings come despite a month-old ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March last year when a popular revolt erupted against Assad's regime.

Part of the plan includes the deployment in flashpoint areas of around 300 UN military observers. By Sunday, 189 observers were on the ground, the UN mission in Syria said.

Despite the presence of the observers, more than 50 people were killed across Syria at the weekend in raids and shelling attacks by regime forces on rebel strongholds, and in clashes between soldiers and armed rebels, the Observatory said.

More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, according to the watchdog, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce.

Syria-linked violence has also spilled across the border into Lebanon, with four people killed since Saturday during sectarian clashes in the northern port city of Tripoli, according to officials.

Fighting flared in Tripoli again on Monday leaving one person dead and nine wounded, a security official told AFP.

He said the victim died in the neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen, populated mainly by members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Battles first erupted on Saturday between residents of Jabal Mohsen and the nearby neighbourhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh -- populated mainly by Sunni Muslims opposed to Assad's regime -- after security forces arrested a Sunni Islamist on suspicion he was linked to a terrorist organisation.

On the diplomatic front, European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday agreed fresh sanctions against Syria, the 15th round so far to protest the relentless repression of dissidents by Assad's regime.

An EU statement issued at a meeting of ministers from the 27-nation bloc said they adopted "sanctions against the Syrian regime" but gave no details.

An EU diplomat confirmed however that the ministers agreed to slap an assets freeze and visa ban on two firms and three people believed to provide funding for the regime.

Twin suicide bombings in Damascus on Thursday that killed 55 people and wounded 372 have raised fears that extremist elements are taking advantage of the deadlock in Syria to stoke the unrest.

Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group unknown before the Syrian revolt, released a video on Saturday claiming responsibility for the Damascus attacks as revenge for regime bombing of residential areas in several towns and to avenge Sunnis killed by forces loyal to Assad, a member of the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Claims by the group, including for past bombings, have been difficult to verify.

State media have accused the West and its regional allies of opening the door to Al-Qaeda through its backing of the opposition.

Analysts believe that while Al-Qaeda itself does not exist in Syria, several splinter groups of jihadists who employ the same strategies as the network are operating there.

"Law and order are also breaking down in Syria, which means that we should expect the spread of radical groups," Middle East analyst Joshua Landis writes in his blog.

Whatever their identity, the perpetrators of these attacks are "using signature Al-Qaeda tactics," said Mathieu Guidere, a France-based analyst who specialises in the Arab and Muslim world.

He added that "simultaneous attacks are the trademark" of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

SYRIA Attempted car bombing, blast reported in Aleppo

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SYRIA Twin blasts rip through Damascus neighbourhood

Date created : 14/05/2012