DAMASCUS, July 19, (Agencies): China and Russia vetoed on Thursday a UN resolution that could have imposed sanctions on the Syrian government angering the West as hundreds fled an army offensive against rebel districts of Damascus.
The head of the UN observer mission, Major General Robert Mood, warned that the violence was spiralling, as a human rights watchdog reported that the army was using tanks in its operations against rebel fighters in the Syrian capital for the first time.
The fierce fighting in Damascus came after a bombing killed three top officials, including the defence minister and a brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday in a blow to the heart of the regime.
State television aired footage Thursday of Assad with his new defence minister, Fahd al-Freij, the president’s first public appearance since the attack.
It was the third time in nine months that Russia and China had used their powers as permanent members of the UN Security Council to block resolutions on Syria. There were 11 votes in favour, Russia and China’s votes against and two abstentions.
“The United Kingdom is appalled at the veto of Russia and China,” said British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, whose country took the lead in drafting the resolution.
The text, backed by the United States, France, Germany and Portugal, called for non-military sanctions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter if Assad did not withdraw heavy weapons from Syrian cities in 10 days.
Russia had said it could not accept sanctions.
France warned that the Chinese and Russian move threatened to end the peace mission of international envoy Kofi Annan.
“Refusing Annan the means of pressure that he asked for is to threaten his mission,” French Ambassador Gerard Araud told the council after the veto.
The United States said the Security Council had “utterly failed” on Syria and that it would now work outside of the council to confront Assad’s regime.
“We will intensify our work with a diverse range of partners outside the Security Council to bring pressure to bear on the Assad regime and to deliver assistance to those in need,” said US Ambassador Susan Rice.
Toll
More than 250 people were killed in Syria on Thursday, an opposition monitoring group said, the highest death toll in a single day since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad erupted 16 months ago.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights said 155 civilians, including 44 people in Damascus where pitched battles have raged for five days, and 93 security forces personnel were killed.
It said it was still gathering information on the number of rebel fighters who had been killed from sources on the ground and expected the overage death toll to rise significantly.
The Syrian army gave residents 48 hours to leave areas of the capital, where clashes are taking place between security forces and rebels pushing their “Damascus Volcano” offensive.
“These extremely violent clashes should continue in the next 48 hours to cleanse Damascus of terrorists by the time Ramadan begins” on Friday, a security source told AFP, referring to the Muslim fasting month.
Syrian rebels clashed with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, while across much of the city streets were deserted and houses and shops shuttered for fear of violence after Wednesday’s killing of three close Assad allies.
Efforts to forge a diplomatic solution appeared to collapse when Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that threatened Syrian authorities with sanctions if they did not stop using heavy weapons and pull troops from towns.
In Damascus, residents said the city appeared paralysed after the killing of Assad’s brother-in-law, defence minister and a top general in a bomb attack on a security meeting. Some districts suffered heavy shelling.
Syrian TV flashed a warning on its screen, telling residents that gunmen disguised in Republican Guard uniforms were spreading through several of Damascus’s troubled districts, saying “they are planning to commit crimes and attack people.”
Activists also issued counter warnings, saying real Republican Guard forces were in Midan. “We tapped into their walkie-talkies ... we are afraid of a massacre,” said activist Samir al-Shami.
Assad, who had no made no public statement or appearance since the stunning bombing attack on a crisis meeting of his defence and security chiefs, was shown on Syrian television on Thursday at the swearing in of his new defence minister.
“Everyone is looking now at how well Assad can maintain the command structure. The killings yesterday were a huge blow, but not fatal,” said a Western diplomat following Syria.
Residents said there was no let-up in the heaviest fighting — now in its fifth day — to hit the Syrian capital in a 16-month revolt against Assad. His family has dominated for 42 years the pivotal Arab country bordering Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
Western officials fear rising unrest in Syria, which some have called a civil war, could spill across its borders.
Residents said a heavy onslaught of security force shelling and firing from helicopters went through the night and continued on Thursday in Damascus. Some reported explosions in the troubled north-eastern and southern districts of the capital.
A witness said rebels attacked the main police headquarters in Damascus. “Gunfire has been intense for the past hour. It is now dying down but the streets around the police command remain empty,” said a resident of Qanawat, an old central distric where the Damascus Province police headquarters is located.
Syrian President Bashar Assad made his first appearance since a brazen bomb attack killed three members of his inner circle while government troops launched a wide-ranging assault on Thursday to snuff out rebels throughout the capital Damascus.
Anti-regime activists said government troops used mortars, tanks and helicopter gunships against rebels throughout Damascus and its suburbs. But the military’s failure to swiftly vanquish lightly armed rebel forces and the deadly bombing of a high-level security meeting a day earlier made Assad’s hold on power look increasingly tenuous.
Amateur video showed rebels taking over the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, where they stomped on portraits of Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.
The whereabouts of Assad, his wife and their three young children have been a mystery since the attack that killed three top regime officials, including Assad’s brother-in-law and defense minister. Assad does not appear in public frequently, but his absence was notable following such a serious blow to his inner circle.
Bahrain
Elsewhere, Bahraini police said they had arrested another among a group of 20 people wanted over “terror attacks” in the kingdom, where authorities frequently crack down on Shiites taking part in protests.
Bahraini police had earlier announced the arrests of five other people on the list of suspects.
“Public security chief Major-General Tariq al-Hassan announced on Wednesday the arrest of suspect Hussain Isa Mohammed Isa Adam, included in the list of 20 people accused of terrorist blasts,” state news agency BNA reported.
“The suspect was referred to the public prosecution to take legal action against him over charges of manufacturing homemade bombs and carrying out criminal acts that caused injury to civilians and policemen,” BNA said.
Hassan said police had circulated photographs of the wanted men through the media, which had facilitated their capture but did not specify when the arrests were made.
Bahraini authorities accuse Shiite youth protesters of using petrol bombs against security forces during frequent demonstrations in villages outside the capital Manama.
Sporadic and small demonstrations have intensified in the villages since a crackdown in March 2011 ended month-long protests in Manama’s main Pearl Square demanding democratic reforms in the Gulf kingdom ruled by the Sunni Al-Khalifa dynasty.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International says 60 people have been killed since the protests first erupted in February last year.
Meanwhile, one hundred Indian workers banned from leaving Bahrain for years are to be allowed to go home, their embassy and their former employer in the kingdom, Nass Corporation, said on Thursday.
“Nass has accepted the embassy’s request to lift the court clamped travel ban on all the erstwhile workers, who ran away from the company” shortly after arriving in the Gulf kingdom in 2006, a diplomat at India’s embassy told AFP.
Earlier this week, US-based rights group Avaaz said it had launched a campaign in June urging the company to hand the stranded workers their passports back after one of them committed suicide.
According to Avaaz, the workers fled the company after Nass offered them lower wages upon their arrival in Bahrain than those agreed upon in their employment contracts.
Nass Corporation “announced that it will immediately permit more than 100 migrant Indian labourers previously trapped in Bahrain to leave the country and return home,” Avaaz said in a statement.
The company also committed to a new “policy in which workers will no longer face travel bans and Nass will refrain from continuing or instituting legal actions against workers who leave their employ prior to the completion of their contracts,” it said.
On its website, the company said “it will withdraw all court cases pending against runaway workers.” The measure “would enable the affected Indian workers to leave Bahrain at the earliest.”
But their departure still awaits the completion of court procedures to remove any obstacles preventing them from flying home, said the diplomat, without saying how long these procedures might take.
Bahrain was the first Gulf country to end the requirement for all foreign workers to be sponsored by a citizen, a system that has been strongly criticised by human rights watchdogs.
That system — still in force in other Gulf states — means expatriates cannot change jobs without seeking the permission of their sponsors who hold their passports, opening the door to abuses such as the sale of work permits.