Flow of arms ‘stoking war’
Beirut – Syrian helicopters bombarded a Damascus suburb today and Turkey scrambled warplanes near the border in the north, as the United Nations human rights chief warned that arms supplies to both the government and rebels were deepening the 16-month conflict.
Fighting has come to the gates of the capital in recent weeks and is also raging throughout the country as the battle to unseat President Bashar al-Assad increasingly takes on the character of an allout civil war, fuelled by sectarian hate.
Syrian government forces have launched an assault on Douma, a city on the edge of Damascus where they stormed a rebel stronghold two days ago, leaving bodies rotting in the streets of the nearly abandoned town.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay decried the flow of weapons to both sides.
‘‘The ongoing provision of arms to the Syrian government and to its opponents feeds additional violence,’’ she said in remarks to the Security Council. ‘‘Any further militarisation of the conflict must be avoided at all costs.’’
Pillay did not say where the weapons were coming from, though Russia and Iran are the Government’s main suppliers.
UN diplomats say Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been transferring arms to the increasingly militarised opposition while the United States says it is supplying only ‘‘non lethal’’ aid to the rebels.
Diplomats from the West and Arab states who oppose Assad met the Syrian leader’s allies Russia and China on Sunday in Geneva under the auspices of peace envoy Kofi Annan.
However, they made no progress in persuading Moscow and Beijing to sign up to a statement calling for Assad to give up power, leaving the effort to forge an international consensus in tatters.
The failure of diplomacy to have any measurable effect on a conflict that the UN says has killed more than 13,000 people is testing the patience of countries in the region, especially Turkey, which reacted with fury 10 days ago when Syria shot down one of its warplanes.
Turkey said today it had scrambled six F-16 fighters in response to three separate incidents of Syrian helicopters approaching the border.
Turkey also scrambled fighters on Sunday and has moved guns and toward the frontier.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Syrian opposition figures in Cairo that their struggle to unseat Assad would end in victory.
‘‘The Assad regime’s guns, tanks, weapons have no meaning in the face of the will of the Syrian people.
‘‘Sooner or later the will of the Syrian people shall reign supreme. And you will lead this process,’’ he said.
At the Cairo talks, Turkey and anti-Assad Arab states urged the divided opposition to unite and form a credible alternative to the Government.
The unity calls were made at the opening of a two-day meeting organised by the Arab League to try to rally Syria’s opposition, which has been beset by in-fighting.
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