Syrian rebels target high-ranking Assad soldiers
Insurgents fatally shoot two colonels in Aleppo and kidnap an air force general near Damascus
BEIRUT – Syrian rebels seemed to intensify attacks on individual members of President Bashar Assad’s security forces Thursday with state media reporting that insurgents kidnapped an air force general near Damascus while gunmen in the northern city of Aleppo fatally shot two army colonels as they drove to work.
The attacks, both in broad daylight, seemed to reflect an attempt by opponents of Assad to demonstrate that they can strike with im- punity. Elsewhere, video posted by activists showed what seemed to be evidence of a fresh bombardment of the central city of Homs – a focal point of the yearlong uprising.
The shelling in Homs, coupled with the daily tally of violence elsewhere, appeared to contradict assertions that Assad has accepted a six-point peace plan proposed to him by Kofi Annan, who was designated a special envoy to Syria by the United Nations and the Arab League.
Assad said in a letter quoted by news agencies Thursday that he would “spare no effort” to make Annan’s mission succeed but that it would depend on an agreement from armed groups to stop what he called their “terrorist acts.”
The Aleppo shootings also seemed to underscore the increasingly violent and targeted nature of the uprising, with attacks on places regarded as relatively quiet bastions of support for Assad. The state news agency, SANA, reported that four assailants in a car opened fire on the two officers, identified as Col. Abdul-karim al-raei from the army’s Northern Command and Col. Fouad Shaaban from what was called the military’s appointments directorate.
Earlier this month, a car bomb exploded in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, a day after two similar bombings struck Damascus.
Syria’s international isolation, meanwhile, seemed to deepen even further as Belgium joined many other nations, including Canada, the United States, Turkey, European powers and Arab countries, in closing its embassy in Damascus.
The Local Co-ordinating Committees, a Syrian activist group, said 26 people had been killed in the country by Thursday afternoon.
The activists said confrontations had been reported in many parts of Syria, from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to the suburbs of Damascus.
Assad’s exiled adversaries are meeting in Istanbul in advance of a gathering there Sunday of the so-called Friends of Syria – a coalition including Western and Arab nations seeking Assad’s ouster. The U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is set to attend.
The exiles, grouped mainly in the Syrian National Council, have not so far given a formal response to the Annan proposals but have voiced skepticism about its chances of success, referring to a proposal in November by the Arab League that Assad accepted without implementing.
“We know that there was an initiative of the Arab League and the regime pretended that they agreed, but what happened? There are more killings, mass murders and no withdrawal of forces from streets,” Walid Banani, a member of the Syrian National Council, said at a news conference in Istanbul.
“So, it’s another way of going around and gaining more time,” he said, referring to Assad’s apparent acceptance of the plan, “so we hope that it’s not another manoeuvre by the regime and we lose more lives.”