PRETORIA, Aug 7, (Agencies): US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that the world needs to decide how to end the conflict in Syria and start planning for a political transition in Damascus.
“We must figure out how to hasten the day when bloodshed ends and the political transition begins,” she said after talks with her South African counterpart Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.
“We have to be sure that we are working with the international community to bring that day about and to be very clear of (our) expectations of both the government and the opposition about ending the violence and beginning the political transition,” she said.
“We can begin talking about and planning more what happens next, the day after the regime does fall,” she said. “I know it is going to happen.”
“It is a very difficult time for the people of Syria who are caught in the middle of this terrible violence,” she said.
“We have got to address the desperate humanitarian needs of those suffering inside of Syria and those who have fled,” she added.
“We have to make sure that the state institutions stay intact,” she said.
“Those who are attempting to exploit the misery of the Syrian people either by sending in proxies or sending in terrorist fighters must recognize that will be not tolerated, first and foremost by the Syrian people.”
South Africa, which holds a rotating seat on the UN Security Council, has been reluctant to support the US and European stance on Syria. It abstained last month from a vote on a resolution that called for sanctions against Damascus, saying the rebels also needed to be pushed toward peace.
Clinton is currently on an African tour, but afterwards is headed to Istanbul for talks on the Syrian crisis.
Syrian rebels trying to fight off an army offensive in Aleppo said on Tuesday they were running low on ammunition as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces encircled their stronghold at the southern entrance to the country’s biggest city.
Assad, dealt another political blow on Monday with the defection of his prime minister, has reinforced his troops in preparation for an assault to recapture rebel-held districts of Aleppo after repelling fighters from most of Damascus.
“The Syrian army is trying to encircle us from two sides of Salaheddine,” said Sheikh Tawfiq, one of the rebel commanders, referring to the southwestern neighbourhood which has seen heavy fighting over the last week.
Mortar fire and tank shells exploded across the district early on Tuesday, forcing rebel fighters to take cover in crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn alleyways.
Tanks have entered parts of Salaheddine and army snipers, using the cover of heavy bombardment, deployed on rooftops, hindering rebel movements.
Another rebel commander, Abu Ali, said snipers at the main Saleheddine roundabout were preventing the rebels from bringing in reinforcements and supplies. He said five of his fighters were killed on Monday and 20 wounded.
But rebels said they were still holding the main streets of Salaheddine which have been the frontline of their clashes with Assad’s forces.
A fighter jet pounded targets in the eastern districts of Aleppo and artillery shelling could be heard in the early morning, an activist in Aleppo said.
“Two families, about 14 people in total, were believed killed when a shell hit their home and it collapsed this morning,” the activist said. The house was one street away from a school being used by rebels, he said.
As Assad’s forces battle to retake Aleppo, the president has suffered a series of setbacks including on Monday when Prime Minister Riyad Hijab denounced the “terrorist regime” in Damascus after fleeing the country.
Al-Assad vowed on Tuesday to crush the 17-month rebellion against his regime and to cleanse Syria of “terrorists,” as his troops engaged rebels in key battleground city Aleppo.
“The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite,” he was quoted by state news agency SANA as telling visiting senior Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili.
Assad had earlier appeared on television for the first time in more than two weeks in a meeting with Jalili, a top aide to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Jalili offered Assad his country’s backing, saying Tehran would “never allow the resistance axis — of which Syria is an essential pillar — to break.
“What is happening in Syria is not an internal issue but a conflict between the axis of resistance on the one hand, and the regional and global enemies of this axis on the other,” he added.
Iran has accused Turkey and Gulf countries of arming the opposition in Syria, in collusion with the United States and Israel, to overthrow the Assad regime.
Jalili was previously cited as saying “the crisis in Syria must be solved internally, through national dialogue, and not through the intervention of external forces.”
He added: “The Syrian people are hostile to any plan supported by the Zionists and the US.”
Later, Jalili called for an end to “all foreign intervention” in Syria, adding Tehran rejects “any party imposing its will through military intervention.”
Assad said his country was “able to defeat foreign plans targeting the resistance axis and Syria’s role in it.”
Responsible
Tehran also sent its foreign minister to Ankara and a letter to Washington holding them responsible for the fate of 48 kidnapped Iranians.
In Aleppo, clashes rocked several central areas of the city while the army also shelled rebel-held areas in the east, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The fighting in and around Aleppo killed at least 20 people, the watchdog said, adding the nationwide toll was 122.
Aleppo has been bracing for a major ground offensive after a senior security official said the army had completed a buildup of some 20,000 troops.
Near Homs in central Syria, opposition gunmen attacked an electricity company housing compound, killing 16 people, including Alawites, Christians and Sunnis, the Observatory said.
And rebels attacked an oil field in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, triggering clashes in which four rebels and six soldiers were killed, it added.
In that vein, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Assad might make a “worst case scenario” retreat to an Alawite stronghold if he falls from power.
“I have a feeling that if he can’t rule Greater Syria, then maybe an Alawi enclave is Plan B,” he said in an interview with US television network CBS.
“That would be, I think for us, the worst case scenario — because that means then the breakup of Greater Syria.
“That means that everybody starts land grabbing which makes no sense to me. If Syria then implodes on itself that would create problems that would take us decades for us to come back from.”
King Abdullah predicted Assad would keep up his brutal crackdown to cling to power because he “believes that he is in the right.
“In his mentality, he is going to stick to his guns... I think the regime feels that it has no alternative, but to continue... I don’t think it’s just Bashar. It’s not the individual. It’s the system of the regime.”
Meanwhile, following the Damascus talks, Jalili told Al-Alam that Tehran was using “all means possible” to secure the release of its 48 abducted citizens.
Tehran says they are Shiite pilgrims, while their rebel captors insist they are members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi headed to Turkey to demand Ankara’s assistance in securing the release of the Iranian hostages amid growing concern for their fate.
That followed an unconfirmed report on a rebel group’s Facebook page that three of them had been killed in shelling by regime forces on Monday.
“Considering that the (rebel) Free Syrian Army — which claims to have abducted the Iranian pilgrims — is backed by Turkey, the visit by the foreign minister aims to warn and remind the Ankara government of its responsibilities in this matter,” Iran said.
Tehran delivered a similar message to Washington in a letter transmitted through the US interests section of the Swiss embassy.
“Because of the United States’ manifest support of terrorist groups and the dispatch of weapons to Syria, the United States is responsible for the lives of the 48 Iranian pilgrims abducted in Damascus,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian quoted the letter as saying.
On the humanitarian front, more than 22,000 Iraqis have fled Syria in less than three weeks, while 12,600 Syrians have done so since the beginning of the year, the UNHCR said.
In Geneva, the World Health Organisation said Syrians urgently need life-saving medicines, and the World Food Programme said 1.5 million people in rural areas would need food aid in the next three to six months.
And Britain announced a grant of £10 million ($15.6 million, 12.6 million euros) to aid thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.
Turkey can play a “major role” in freeing 48 Iranian pilgrims abducted in Syria because of its links with the Syrian opposition, Iran’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Ali Akbar Salehi said he was in Turkey to follow the case of the pilgrims abducted over the weekend because “Turkey has links with the opposition in Syria, so we think Turkey can play major role in freeing our pilgrims.”
His remarks came during a snap visit to Ankara for a meeting with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.
The Iranians were taken hostage on Saturday as they travelled by bus to the airport in Damascus. It was the single biggest abduction of Iranians since the start of the Syrian uprising in March last year.
Salehi over the weekend telephoned his Turkish and Qatari counterparts, Davutoglu and Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani, to request their help.
Tehran accuses both Ankara and Doha of arming the Syrian rebels.
Killed
Anti-regime gunmen killed 16 civilians, mostly Alawites and Christians, in an attack Tuesday on a housing compound for power company employees near Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“Armed men stormed the Jandar Residential Compound, firing indiscriminately and killing 16 Syrians, among them six Christians, six Alawites — including the compound director — and four Sunnis,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Abdel Rahman said the Jandar Power Station employs Syrians, as well as foreigners, mainly from Iran and Japan, who live with their families at the compound in Jandar village, about 30 kms (19 miles) from the central Syrian city of Homs.
“The village and its surrounding areas are Sunni,” he added.
The majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslim, while the ruling clan of President Bashar al-Assad belong to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Rights watchdogs have expressed fears that the Syrian uprising — in which more than 21,000 people have been killed since March 2011 — is becoming increasingly sectarian.
Syria’s rebel forces attacked an oil field in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Tuesday, triggering a deadly firefight with troops, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Four rebel fighters and six soldiers were killed in a fierce clash that broke out with regime forces following the attack, said the Britain-based monitoring group.
“The attack took place in the morning,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. “The rebels did not take control of the oil field, they withdrew after their attack.”
The Local Coordination Committees — a grassroots network of activists — said the rebel Free Syrian Army took nine regime troops prisoner, including a sergeant.
Prior to the imposition of sanctions on the regime, Syria produced some 4,000 barrels of oil a day. Production has dropped by about half, and most of it goes to domestic consumption.
Director
An Alawite film director was assassinated near his home on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria’s General Cinema Institute said on Tuesday.
“Treacherous hands assassinated” Bassam Mohieddin on Sunday, the institute said in a statement, adding the killing took place in Jdaidet Artuz, scene of recent clashes between troops and rebels.
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the assassination.
Born in 1955 in the coastal city of Tartus, Mohieddin held an MA in filmmaking and television from the National Academy of Film and Theatre Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Mohieddin was a member of the Alawite offshoot of Shitte Islam to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs. The majority of Syria’s population is Sunni Muslim.
Rights watchdogs have expressed fears that the Syrian uprising — in which more than 21,000 people have been killed since March 2011 — is becoming increasingly sectarian.