Alarm over ‘build-up to massacre’ in Syrian city
SYRIAN troops backing President Bashar al-Assad yesterday clashed with rebels in Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, as the United Nations (UN) special envoy called for a change of leadership and Russia’s foreign minister ruled out granting Mr Assad refuge.
Government forces killed 165 people on Saturday, mainly in Aleppo and Damascus, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
“The escalation of the military build-up in Aleppo and the surrounding area is further evidence of the need for the international community to come together to persuade the parties that only a political transition, leading to a political settlement will resolve this crisis,” Kofi Annan, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, said on Saturday.
Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city, is shaping up as the biggest test yet of opposition fighters’ capabilities against artillery and air power, with thousands of civilians fleeing to avoid what the US and France have warned may be a “massacre”.
The city is Syria’s commercial capital, with a population the US Central Intelligence Agency estimates at 3-million.
Fighting is also raging in Daraa province, near the Jordanian border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday. Government troops also shelled the northern province of Idlib and Hama in the centre of the country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on a flight from Sochi to Moscow on Saturday Russia was “not even thinking” of granting Mr Assad asylum, saying his country was not and “never was” Syria’s closest ally.
Mr Assad’s fall from power was “just a matter of time”, the former head of the UN’s observer mission said on Friday. Maj-Gen Robert Mood of Norway told a news con- ference in Oslo “it’s impossible to imagine a future in Syria where the current people remain in power”.
Still, he said, the Assad government had the military resources to sustain its fight for months or even years, and its collapse “could easily be the start of a situation that is way worse” than the current bloodshed.
Government forces are using military helicopters in Aleppo, AP reported yesterday, citing activists. The BBC cited activists who said troops were moving tanks into the southwestern districts of Aleppo and that the bombardment of rebel-held areas intensified yesterday, with
This utterly unacceptable escalation of the conflict could lead to a devastating loss of civilian life
military aircraft flying over the city at low altitudes, and many casualties.
“I am deeply concerned by reports that the Syrian government is amassing its troops and tanks around Aleppo and has already begun a vicious assault on the city and its civilian population,” UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Friday. “This utterly unacceptable escalation of the conflict could lead to a devastating loss of civilian life and a humanitarian disaster.”
The US has “grave concerns” on Mr Assad’s actions, state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington. The US is alarmed that “we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that’s what the regime appears to be lining up for”.
In the suburbs of Damascus, the capital, the government used helicopter gunships to blast rebel hideouts, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Protests against Mr Assad erupted in Homs, Hama and other provinces after Friday prayers, Al Arabiya television reported. The Red Cross is moving some of its foreign staff out of Damascus.
Fighters entering the country to battle government forces include Egyptians, Tunisians and Libyans, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid AlMuallem said yesterday at a Tehran news conference. He said al-Qaeda militants from Iraq were also crossing the border and accused Israel of masterminding the uprising with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
At the UN in New York, the Arab League circulated a draft resolution sponsored by Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the 193-member General Assembly calling on SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon to arrange for “prompt investigations” of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons. The league also demanded that Mr Assad secure the arsenal amid reports of movement of such weapons.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry said Moscow would ignore new European Union (EU) sanctions requiring EU governments to search vessels suspected of carrying weapons into Syria. The EU introduced sanctions last Monday. Bloomberg