Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

 

Clashes and Protests Across Syria Despite UN Call for Cease-Fire

REUTERS, Arab News, Mar 22, 2012

BEIRUT:

More than a dozen people died in clashes across Syria on Thursday, opposition activists said, as a UN Security Council call for an immediate end to the fighting fell on deaf ears.

In the worst incident, 10 civilians, including three children and two women, died when their small bus was shot up in northern town of Sermeen as they tried to flee to Turkey, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The SOHR, which depends on a network of local contacts for its information, said it was not clear who was behind the killings. Other activists blamed the Syrian army, which has been trying to stamp out insurgents in the area.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday’s unanimous Council statement had sent a clear message to Syria to end all violence, but Damascus appeared to dismiss the document, which is not legally binding.

At least 8,000 people have died in the year-long revolt against President Bashar Assad, according to UN figures issued a week ago, with a motley assortment of fighters grouped in the rebel Syrian Free Army taking on the security apparatus.

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdesi said this week that 3,000 members of the security forces had died in the uprising, which Damascus blames on terrorist gangs.

Heavily armed government forces have made advances in recent weeks, sweeping armed opponents from strongholds around Syria, but they appear to be struggling to consolidate their gains.

Opposition sources said tanks had once again shelled a neighborhood in the northeastern city of Hama, which has been a center of revolt. Opposition sources said at least 20 people had died in army attacks there in the last 48 hours.

It is impossible to verify reports from Syria because authorities have denied access to independent journalists.

Syrian troops also turned heavy guns on Sermeen.

“Syrian forces are still not able to get inside the town because of fighting, but they are shelling Sermeen and using heavy machine guns,” said SOHR head Rami Abdelrahman.

In addition, the SOHR reported heavy fighting in Al-Qusair, a town close to the Lebanese border. Three residents died in the fighting and four soldiers were killed in an ambush.

And fighting erupted in southern Daraa, where several soldiers died in an ambush, he said, while Assad’s forces conducted raids in the eastern province of Deir Al-Zor and coastal Latakia province to try to snuff out rebellion.

The Security Council’s statement was supported by Russia and China, which had both vetoed previous Council resolutions, marking a rare moment of global unity over the crisis.

It backed a peace drive by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, which calls for a cease-fire, political dialogue and full access for aid agencies. It also says the army should stop using heavy weapons in populated areas and pull troops back.

However, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said world powers needed to work together much harder to end the bloodshed, saying the Council statement was just “a common message.”

“We also need to work out a common action plan,” he told reporters during a visit to Vienna on Thursday.

The UN statement talks of the need for political transition in Syria, but does not demand that Assad to step down - something both the rebels and the Arab League have called for.

Syria’s official news agency appeared to shrug off the document, saying it contained “no warnings or signals.”

Diplomats say that without swift resolution, the conflict risks spilling over into neighboring countries and heightening already tense sectarian ties, with the uprising pitting Assad’s minority Alawite sect against a Sunni Muslim majority.

Underlining the dangers, several stray Syrian shells fell in the Lebanese border village of Al-Qaa and nearby fields late Wednesday, wounding one person, residents said. Gunfire could be heard in the border area again on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch accused Syrian forces of using the same “brutal methods” in Qusair as it had during the siege of Homs.

“Having seen the devastation inflicted on Homs, the Russian government should stop arms sales to the Syrian government or risk becoming further implicated in human rights violations,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East director.

Russia has defended its long-standing military ties with Syria and has said it sees no reason to modify them.

The European Union is set to impose further sanctions on Assad’s inner circle on Friday, including his wife Asma, who described herself as “the real dictator” in an e-mail published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper last week.

“Tomorrow we will decide on new sanctions, not only against the Assad regime but also against the people around him,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Referring to Moscow’s support for the UN statement, he said: “Assad cannot depend on the protective hand of Russia in the violence against his own people and that could accelerate the process of erosion of the regime.”

Although Russia has stuck to its demand that Assad must not be deposed by foreign powers, it has taken a sterner line this week, accusing the Syrian leadership of mishandling the crisis.

Analysts say this shows Russia is hedging its bets about Assad’s fate and is positioning itself for his possible fall.

“Russia will not be focused on keeping Assad in power for the sake of keeping Assad in power,” said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said international pressure on Syria would rise until there was a cease-fire.

“As long as this killing goes on we have to increase the pressure as well as consider what steps to take in the UN Security Council,” he told a news conference in Rome.

Hague welcomed Chinese and Russian support for the UN statement, but added: “This does not mean it is immediately possible to agree on a Security Council resolution.”

Annan urged to avoid Arab League pitfalls in Syria

Khaleej Times, (AFP) 23 March 2012

BEIRUT —

Amnesty International urged peace envoy Kofi Annan on Friday to avoid the same pitfalls as the Arab League with its planned monitoring mission to oversee a halt to year-long bloodshed in Syria.

“Any UN mission to supervise an end to armed violence in Syria must include as part of its work the monitoring and reporting of human rights violations and abuses, including crimes against humanity,” Amnesty International said.

It urged UN-Arab League envoy Annan and the two organisations “to ensure that any UN mission deployed to the country includes human rights monitors who would be able to pass vital information to investigators.”

“It is crucial that human rights monitors are included as part of this effort, to report and document crimes on the ground,” said Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty’s representative at the United Nations in New York.

The London-based organisation was referring to Annan’s plan to set up a monitoring mission to Syria, after a similar Arab League operation was scrapped in January after barely a month.

The 165 monitors were deployed in December after Syria agreed to an Arab League plan for a halt to the violence, prisoners to be freed, tanks withdrawn from towns, and observers and foreign media to be allowed free movement.

None of the clauses in the protocol was respected and the Cairo-based League, which has suspended Syria’s membership, decided not to renew its mission because of an upsurge in violence.

“The Syrian government has continued to block the entry of human rights investigators into the country — both from international organisations and from the Commission of Inquiry,” Amnesty said in a statement.

“This (Annan’s) mission is a key opportunity to put that right.”

Amnesty warned that much of Annan’s six-point peace plan was similar to proposals that the Syrian government had agreed with the Arab League in late 2011 but which its monitors later concluded Damascus had failed to implement.

“As part of the UN-endorsed proposal, the (Syrian) authorities are called on to “intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons, although it is not clear who will monitor such releases,” said Amnesty.

The watchdog said local activists had the names of more that 18,000 people who had been detained to date “and estimate that this is less than half the actual total.”

On a pessimistic note, Amnesty said: “The Syrian government’s main objective throughout the year-long uprising has appeared to be crushing opposition at almost any cost in human life and dignity.

“This (Annan) plan will require a fundamental change of approach” on the part of Syrian authorities.

Annan, who on Wednesday was bolstered by a unanimous UN Security Council statement of support, two days earlier sent a team of experts to Damascus to try to agree on setting up an international monitoring mission.

A Britain-based monitoring group says more than 9,100 people have died in the unrest since peaceful protests started in March 2011 before turning into an armed revolt, faced with a brutal crackdown which has cost dozens of lives each day.

Clashes in Syria’s north, regime foes eye capital

Khaleej Times, (AFP) 23 March 2012 DAMASCUS —

Rebels and troops clashed in northern Syria as regime foes set their sights on the capital as the rallying cry for weekly protests on Friday, while the EU prepared to slap new sanctions on Damascus.

“Damascus, here we come” was the slogan for anti-regime demonstrations on the day of weekly Muslim prayers, as posted by activists on their Facebook page, The Syrian Revolution 2011.

The army and rebels clashed in the Aazaz region near the Turkish border, killing at least three soldiers, and troops bombed a district of the flashpoint city of Homs in central Syria, opposition activists and monitors said.

In fierce clashes on Thursday, rebels and government forces both went on the offensive, after President Bashar al-Assad’s foes branded as toothless a UN Security Council call for peace.

The latest violence came a day after the regime launched attacks on a string of towns, while rebel fighters struck military posts in several provinces and announced a command structure to coordinate hit-and-run strikes in and around Damascus.

A bus, with women and children on board, was shot up close to the town of Sermin in the northwestern province of Idlib, near the border with Turkey, and 10 people died, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Opposition activist Milad Fadl said the civilians were headed for Turkey to escape when regime forces opened fire.

Government troops backed by tanks launched an assault on the northern border town of Binesh, sending thousands into flight towards the nearby towns of Taftanaz, Al-Maara and Sardana.

The escalation came just hours after the Security Council on Wednesday adopted a statement urging Assad and the opposition to implement “fully and immediately” a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan.

Annan’s plan calls for Assad to pull troops and heavy weapons out of protest cities, a daily two-hour humanitarian pause to hostilities, access to all areas affected by the fighting and a UN-supervised halt to all clashes.

Monitors say more than 9,100 people have been killed in the unrest that started with peaceful protests in March 2011 before turning into an armed revolt, faced with a brutal crackdown which has cost dozens of lives each day.

Adding to pressure on Damascus, Assad’s wife Asma, a Western-educated former banker and style icon, was expected Friday to face a European Union travel ban and asset freeze along with other family members, diplomats in Brussels said.

Asma al-Assad is on a list of 12 Syrians, including a handful of the president’s relatives, to be put to EU foreign ministers for a decision to bar them from travel and freeze their accounts across the 27-nation bloc.

The ministers, who in 12 previous rounds of sanctions against the Assad regime have already blacklisted some 150 firms and people, will also decide whether to add two extra firms to the list.

Assad himself was targeted by EU restrictive measures as far back as May. His wife, however, is a British national, and officials in London said an EU travel ban could not prevent her from entering Britain.

The Syrian National Council, the main opposition coalition, meanwhile, has dismissed the UN statement, saying it offered “the regime the opportunity to push ahead with its repression in order to crush the revolt by the Syrian people.”

Before the evening offensive, 62 people were killed across the country on Thursday, including 35 civilians, the Observatory said, adding that 18 soldiers and nine army deserters also died in fierce clashes.

The reports could not be confirmed due to restrictions on the movements of foreign media.

On the rebel side, the Free Syrian Army said it had set up a military council to coordinate hit-and-run strikes around the capital, so far largely spared the worst violence.

After intense negotiations between major UN powers, Russia and China signed up to the Western-drafted text which also calls on Assad to work toward a democratic transition.

The Security Council on Friday still awaited a formal response from Syria to its call.

With a veiled warning of future action, it called on Assad and the opposition to work “towards a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis and to implement fully and immediately (Annan’s) initial six-point proposal.”

European countries want to press for a full, binding resolution, with French envoy Gerard Araud calling the statement “a small step by the Security Council in the right direction.”