AAZAZ, Syria, Aug 16, (Agencies): The world community piled the pressure on Syria Thursday to end 17 months of bloodshed as rights groups accused Damascus of a new atrocity and the conflict threatened to entangle neighbouring Lebanon.
The Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) suspended Syria, saying it can no longer accept a regime that “massacres its people,” and even traditional ally China told Damascus to rapidly implement a ceasefire.
The latest moves come after dozens of people, including women and children, were reported killed in a massive air strike on civilians in a rebel bastion in the north of Syria.
A UN panel said Wednesday that Syrian forces and their militia allies had committed crimes against humanity, including the shocking Houla massacre, during a conflict that has killed thousands and sent many more fleeing.
Violence continues to grip many parts of the country, including the northern battleground of Aleppo, near the scene of Wednesday’s air strike in the town of Aazaz.
The UN Security Council meets later Thursday to formally end its observer mission in Syria with world powers still in deadlock over how to end a conflict that risks destabilising the entire region.
Meeting
Ahead of the meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi — whose country has joined Russia in vetoing three UN resolutions on the crisis — urged Damascus to implement a ceasefire and accept international mediation.
“China urges the Syrian government and all concerned parties... to quickly implement a ceasefire to end the violence and start political dialogue,” Yang told visiting Syrian envoy Bouthaina Shaaban.
Adding to the pressure on the embattled regime, an emergency OIC summit said it had agreed to suspend Syria because of “deep concern at the massacres and inhuman acts suffered by the Syrian people.”
OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said: “This (Muslim) world can no longer accept a regime that massacres its people using planes, tanks and heavy artillery.”
The United States and the opposition Syrian National Council welcomed the move, but it was rejected by the official press in Damascus and Syria’s staunch ally Iran.
“Today’s action underscores the Assad regime’s increasing international isolation and the widespread support for the Syrian people and their struggle for a democratic state that represents their aspirations and respects their human rights,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Departure
The West is pushing hard for the departure of Assad, whose inner circle has been hit by a wave of defections and a rebel bomb attack that took out four of his top security officials last month, but is at odds with Russian and China.
A damning report by the UN Commission of Inquiry issued Wednesday said government forces and their militia allies committed crimes against humanity including murder and torture, while the rebels had also carried out war crimes, but on a lesser scale.
“The commission found reasonable grounds to believe that government forces and the shabiha had committed the crimes against humanity of murder and of torture, war crimes and gross violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” the report said.
It said they were responsible for the massacre in the central city of Houla in May when 108 civilians, including 49 children, were killed in a grisly attack that Assad himself had said was the work of “monsters.”
Rebel fighters were however not spared in the probe, which found them guilty of war crimes, including murder, extrajudicial execution and torture.
In the north of Syria, activists and residents reported another atrocity by the regime, with dozens killed Wednesday in an air strike in Aazaz, a rebel bastion near Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 31 people were killed, including women and children, and another 200 wounded, while Turkey, which took in many of the victims, said 15 had died of their injuries.
“Bashar did this. God help us, these animals will kill us all,” said one man, hoisting a bloodied arm from a pile of body parts on the pavement outside the local hospital.
Dozens of residents fled for nearby Turkey, many of them entire families carrying boxes of clothing and food on their heads.
Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Syria after the air strike on Aazaz.
Attacked
“Yet again, Syrian government forces attacked with callous disregard for civilian life,” said Anna Neistat, HRW acting emergencies director.
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos also warned that the situation in Syria was worsening, with the number of people in need possibly as high as 2.5 million and at least a million at risk of “destitution.”
At least 80 people were killed nationwide Thursday, including 18 civilians in shelling in Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
The conflict erupted in March last year when regime forces cracked down on peaceful protests but has spiralled into an armed rebellion that the Observatory says has killed 23,000 while the UN puts the toll at 17,000.
Stoking fears that the conflict could spread, dozens of Syrians were kidnapped in Lebanon on Wednesday — many by a Shiite Muslim clan — in retaliation for events across the border.
“This brings us back to the days of the painful war, a page that Lebanese citizens have been trying to turn,” Prime Minister Najib Mikati said, recalling the dark days of the civil war and the kidnapping of Western hostages.
Saudi Arabia — the regional Sunni powerhouse that is opposed to Assad’s Alawite-led regime — along with at least two other Gulf states ordered their nationals to leave immediately because of threats.
Lebanon has in the past had to confront cross-border shootings, shelling by the Syrian army, tit-for-tat kidnappings and sectarian clashes as the violence in Syria escalates.
In New York, the Security Council meets to formally end its observer mission with UN chief Ban Ki-moon — who has branded the conflict a “proxy war” — calling for a “flexible” UN presence in future.
‘Butchering’
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Thursday President Bashar al-Assad was “butchering his own people” as Syrian refugees urged Paris to help them fight.
“France’s position is clear: we consider Assad to be butchering his own people. He must leave, and the sooner he goes the better,” Fabius told reporters in a tent at the UN-run Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, which houses around 6,000 Syrians.
“We are, at the international level, encouraging the Syrians to find a political transition. I stress that a political transition must come soon — this is the obvious solution,” he added as dozens of Syrian refugees gathered outside the tent, chanting “Allahu akbar (God is greatest).
Fabius and his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh toured the seven-square-kilometre (two-square-mile) camp, outside the city of Mafraq, before meeting King Abdullah II in Amman for talks on the Syrian conflict.
Several camp residents spoke to Fabius as he walked about, urging weapons for the rebels to topple Assad.
“We do not need refugee camps. We need weapons, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and anti-aircraft rockets to fight Bashar,” said Mohammed Hariri, 51, of Daraa, the cradle of the revolt that erupted 18 months ago.
“Bashar forces killed my son and destroyed my house. I want revenge,” he said.
Suad, a 40-year-old mother of four, agreed.
“We do not want aid. We want to arm the opposition and get rid of Bashar’s regime,” she said.
Fabius later told reporters: “There has been no delivery of lethal weapons from European countries, particularly France, because we are committed to uphold an arms embargo.
“We respect the embargo, and at the same time we are helping the Syrian resistance as much as we can,” he said, adding however that some countries were willing to provide the rebels with non-lethal equipment.
And he added that France was in contact with “a certain number of officials” from the Syria opposition, including the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Asked about the possibility of imposing no-fly zones, he said there was no such decision yet forthcoming from the United Nations to authorise them.
Fabius also called for a “representative” political transition in Syria.
“This political transition must unite the Syrian people and guarantee the rights of minorities. It is essential that it be representative of Syria as it is today,” he told a news conference.
“We sincerely hope that a transitional government can be put in place as quickly as possible — one that the leading countries of the world will recognise — and that this will enable the Syrians to hasten the fall of Assad, which has become a clear necessity.”
At the desert refugee camp, Fabius met with UN officials and visited a French field hospital, which was dispatched to the kingdom on Sunday along with tonnes of aid and medical equipment.
“The purpose of my visit here is to show France’s solidarity ... My trip is primarily humanitarian in nature,” he said, adding that conditions in the camp are “very difficult” and “all remains extremely precarious.”
Syrian refugees have complained of sweltering heat, dust, lack of electricity and at times sexual harassment.
“Today I have brought just over 20,000 masks which will protect people’s throats, ears and noses from sand,” Fabius said.
“I will also meet members of the Syrian opposition,” he added without elaborating.
Maher hurt
The brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost one leg in a July attack on the country’s security cabinet in Damascus, a Western diplomat and a Gulf-based source said on Thursday.
“We heard that he (Maher al-Assad) lost one of his legs during the explosion, but don’t know anymore,” the diplomat told Reuters.
A Gulf source confirmed the report: “He lost one of his legs. The news is true.”
The attack on July 18 killed half of the government’s six-member crisis council, including the president’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat.
Maher al-Assad has not been seen in public since the attack.
President Assad has been battling a 17-month-old uprising against his rule. The United Nations says at least 18,000 people have died in the revolt.
Exit
Russia told the United States on Thursday it favours a continued United Nations presence in Syria, warning a UN exit from the Middle Eastern country would have “serious negative consequences.”
Moscow and Washington are divided over how best to help end the bloodshed in Syria, where opponents of President Bashar al-Assad say some 18,000 people have been killed since an uprising began in March 2011.
The United States has said unarmed UN observers should not remain in Syria beyond an Aug 19 deadline, but that it is willing to consider an alternative UN presence in the country.
But in a meeting with US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov emphasised “the need to maintain the UN presence in Syria,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Gatilov “underscored that the exit of the United Nations from Syria in the current situation would have serious negative consequences not only for the country, but for the whole region,” it said. It made no specific mention of observers.
In April, the UN Security Council approved the deployment of 300 monitors to observe a failed ceasefire as part of a UN-backed peace plan, but Russia and China have vetoed three other resolutions criticising Damascus and threatening sanctions.
The number of observers was halved last month when the Security Council renewed the mission, known as UNSMIS, for 30 days. The emphasis was also switched from unarmed observers monitoring a nonexistent truce to some 100 civilian staff pursuing a political solution and monitoring rights abuses.
The US envoy to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said last week that there was no point renewing the monitors’ mandate again because there was no ceasefire for them to observe.
Western nations blame Syria’s government for most of the violence and say Russia should put more pressure on Assad, while Moscow accuses the West of encouraging his opponents and says the United States, Europe and Arab states should do more to persuade rebels to stop fighting.