Russians give Syria copters

Crowd keeps U.N. from visiting village

BEIRUT — The U.S. accused Russia of escalating the Syrian conflict by sending attack helicopters to President Bashar Assad’s regime, and U.N. observers were attacked Tuesday and blocked from a besieged rebel-held town where civilians were feared trapped by government forces.

The accusation by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Moscow was arming the Assad regime came as the top U.N. peacekeeping official said Syria was already in a state of civil war.

“We are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically,” Clinton said in Washington.

There was no immediate reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Moscow insists that any arms it supplies to its Damascus ally are not being used against antigovernment protesters in the 15-month- old uprising.

The U.N. observers were not hurt as they were turned back by the assault on their vehicles by an angry crowd near the town of Haffa, the U.N. said. The source of the gunfire was not clear.

Activists blamed regime loyalists for the attack. The violence raised questions about the ability of about 300 unarmed monitors to provide a useful assessment of the country’s bloodshed.

The U.N.’s peacekeeping chief, Herve Ladsous, said the Syrian conflict had escalated into civil war. “Yes, I think one can say that,” Ladsous told Reuters and Agence France -Presse in an interview, his spokesman confirmed.

U.N. observers have seen a steep rise in violence and a dangerous shift in tactics by both sides in Syria in the last five days, the spokesman, Kieran Dwyer said.

The Syrian government, intent on wresting back control of rebel-held areas, is shelling heavily populated districts and using attack helicopters over cities “with devastating impact on civilians,” Dwyer said. The opposition, in turn, is increasingly coordinating attacks against government forces and civilian infrastructure, and “the conflict has reached all parts of Syria virtually,” he said.

As the conflict deteriorates, regional power brokers from Iran to Turkey risk getting drawn into the fight.