Red Cross mission turns back as clashes continue in Homs
INTERNATIONAL aid workers were forced to turn back as they tried to enter Homs yesterday as clashes continued there.
The setback came despite regime forces and rebels agreeing on Wednesday to a truce to allow trapped civilians and the wounded to be evacuated.
The deal with the International Committee of the Red Cross came after more than ten days of fighting – but there was confusion yesterday about whether that ceasefire had collapsed.
The ICRC said it planned to try again to remove the wounded and sick from the scene of some of the worst violence in the Syrian conflict.
“An ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent team was heading to the old city of Homs early this morning, however we had to turn back due to the shooting,” ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said. “We will attempt to go back today in order to evacuate the wounded and sick, women and children.”
Hundreds of civilians trapped in Homs’ old city
“If he returned home he may be tortured or killed” Jordanian official
are ac- cording to the ICRC, which says that its mercy operation will also focus on the neighbourhoods of al-Qarabis, al-Qussoor, Jouret alShiyah and al-Khalidiya.
But residents said the Syrian army was still shelling central districts of Homs yesterday.
The continued fighting came as a Syrian fighter pilot on a training mission flew his MiG21 warplane to Jordan and asked for asylum, the first defection of an air force pilot with his plane during the 15-month uprising.
The air force is considered fiercely loyal to president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the defection suggests some of Syria’s most iron-clad allegiances are fraying. It was hailed as a triumph for the rebels fighting to overthrow Mr Assad. A spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, Ahmad Kassem, said the group had encouraged the pilot to defect and monitored his activity until the jet landed safely in Jordan.
The pilot, identified as Colonel Hassan Hammadeh, removed his air force identity tags and kneeled on the tarmac in prayer after landing his plane at King Hussein Air Base in Mafraq, 45 miles north of Amman, a Jordanian security official said.
He said the defector was being questioned, but he would be allowed to stay in the country on “humanitarian grounds”.
“He was given asylum because if he returned home, his safety will not be guaranteed. He may tortured or killed,” the official said.
Syria’s state-run TV reported earlier in the day that authorities had lost contact with a MiG-21 that was on a training mission in the country. After it became clear the pilot had defected, the state-run news agency quoted an unnamed military official as saying he was “a traitor to his country and his military honour”.
The defection is a sensitive issue for Jordan, which wants to avoid getting dragged into the Syrian conflict.
Jordan already has taken in 125,000 Syrian refugees, including hundreds of army and police defectors, and their return.
The regime in Damascus has been hit with defections before, although none as dramatic as the fighter pilot’s. Most have been low-level conscripts in the army.
In March, however, Turkish officials said that two Syrian generals, a colonel and two sergeants had defected from the army and crossed into Turkey.
Also in March, Syria’s deputy oil minister became the highestranking civilian official to join the opposition and urged his countrymen to “abandon this sinking ship” as the nation spiraled toward civil war.
Brigadier General Mustafa Ahmad al-Sheikh, who fled to Turkey in January, was the highest ranking officer to bolt.
In late August, Adnan Bakkour, the attorney general of the central city of Hama, appeared in a video announcing he too had defected.
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