NEAR ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 17, (Agencies): Government troops pounded rebel bastions in Aleppo and other parts of Syria on Friday and fierce fighting was reported in Damascus, a day after the UN called time on its observer mission.
The country was also bracing for demonstrations after the main Muslim weekly prayers, events that have often triggered violence during an increasingly barbaric conflict that is now in its 18th month and shows no signs of abating.
The UN announced its decision on Thursday, with the international community still deeply at odds over how to end the bloodshed and also deal with the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The mission is ending less than three weeks after Kofi Annan announced his resignation as envoy for Syria, complaining that divisions among world powers and the increasing militarisation of the conflict had hindered his peace plan.
More than 23,000 people have died since the revolt against Assad’s iron-fisted rule broke out in March 2011, according to activists, while the UN puts the toll at around 17,000.
On Friday, the army clashed with rebels near the main military airport in Damascus and shelled southern parts of the capital as well as areas of the commercial hub of Aleppo and the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
At least 24 people were killed, after 180 people lost their lives across the country on Thursday, according to the Observatory, which has a network of activists on the ground.
It also reported that the bodies of 65 unidentified people were found in Qatana, a town southwest of Damascus, without providing any further details.
It is impossible to independently verify the tolls.
In the province of Hama, several dozen people turned out for a demonstration under the slogan “If our Free Army is united, victory is assured.”

Shelled
On Thursday, activists reported that Syrian forces shelled a group of people queuing outside a bakery in a district of Aleppo, the city at the epicentre of the battle between Assad’s government and armed rebels.
Rights groups accused the regime of another atrocity Wednesday when around 40 people, including women and children, were killed in a massive air strike in the rebel bastion of Aazaz near Turkey.
Turkey said over 2,000 people had fled across its border since the attack.
In a damning report this week, a UN panel said government forces and their militia allies had committed crimes against humanity including murder and torture, while also accusing the rebels of war crimes but to a lesser extent.
“We know we are no longer just collateral victims of the conflict, Bashar is actually targeting civilians,” said Yasmine Shashati, a resident of the southwestern Aleppo district of Saif al-Dawla.
And French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius renewed calls for Assad to go in the face of the relentless onslaught against Syrian civilians.
“France’s position is clear: we consider Assad to be butchering his own people. He must leave, and the sooner he goes the better,” he said in Jordan.
Fabius, who was in Lebanon Friday, told AFP he had information that Assad would be rocked by more “spectacular” defections soon.
Fabius called Friday for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to be “smashed fast” as he visited Turkey’s largest refugee camp near the border.
“The Syrian regime should be smashed fast,” Fabius told reporters. “After hearing the refugees and their account of the massacres of the regime, Mr Bashar al-Assad doesn’t deserve to be on this earth.”
“It is an operation of destruction of an entire people that he is trying to accomplish,” he said.
Escape
Syrians are pouring across the border to escape fighting in their battered homeland and diarrhoeal disease has broken out in rural areas near Damascus, UN aid agencies said on Friday.
More than 170,000 Syrians have been registered in four neighbouring countries (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey), the United Nations refugee agency said.
Some 3,500 Syrians fleeing the northern areas of Aleppo, Azaz, Idlib and Latakia reached Turkey’s Hatay and Kilis provinces between Tuesday and Wednesday, spokesman Adrian Edwards of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
“There has been a further sharp rise in the number of Syrians fleeing to Turkey,” Edwards told a news briefing.
“There are now almost 65,000 Syrians in 9 camps in Turkey, though not all yet formally registered. To put this in perspective, about 40 percent arrived in August.”
A Syrian air strike in the rebel-held border town of Azaz on Wednesday killed 30 people, a local doctor said.
Overnight, more than 1,000 Syrians arrived in Jordan, Edwards said. The UNHCR is working to improve the ratio of people to toilets — currently 40 to one — in Za’atri camp which holds nearly 8,000 of some 47,000 refugees registered in Jordan.
The humanitarian situation in Syria has deteriorated as fighting escalates, cutting off civilians from food supplies, health care and other assistance, UN agencies say.
Some 1.2 million people are uprooted within the country, many staying in schools or other public buildings, UNHCR quoted the UN’s regional humanitarian relief coordinator as saying.
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, ending a visit to Syria, said on Thursday up to 2.5 million people needed aid in the country, where President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been fighting rebels seeking his overthrow for 17 months.
There has been an outbreak of diarrhoea among residents in part of the province of Rural Damascus because the water supply has been contaminated by sewage, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
“In one pocket of Rural Damascus there are 103 suspected cases of ecoli. Laboratory testing is still going on,” Richard Brennan, director of WHO’s emergency risk management and humanitarian response department, told Reuters. “It is due to contamination of the water supply.”
“We have heard of other pockets (of diarrhoeal disease) in other areas of Rural Damascus, but have no details,” he said.
Sixty-one children under age 10 are among the 103 cases discovered by health workers in a mobile clinic, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said. “The local authorities have been alerted and are taking action,” she said.
Children are particularly vulnerable to diarrhoeal diseases which require treatment including hydration and antibiotics, Brennan said.
“We know from Syrian authorities that an estimated 38 hospitals and 149 other clinics have been either substantially damaged or destroyed, which clearly worsens the access to health care,” he told a news briefing.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said that since the start of July, it had brought food rations for 100,000 people to Aleppo.
“Despite difficulties and violence, we expect to reach an additional 25,000 there in coming days,” WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said, noting that WFP supplies are distributed by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
A UN peacekeeping chief said on Thursday that Syria’s government and rebels had “chosen the path of war,” as the world body ended its doomed monitoring mission to Damascus and world powers remained deadlocked over how to limit the spreading conflict.

Attack
Russia’s embassy in London accused British police on Friday of taking no action to prevent an attack on its building by a group of activists protesting Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It made the accusation as about 40 protesters clad in balaclavas demonstrated outside the embassy, located in an upscale part of London, against the verdict in a trial of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot in Moscow.
An embassy spokesman said a group of protesters chanting anti-Assad slogans attacked the building overnight, throwing stones and smashing windows.
“The police who arrived at the scene regretfully did not take any measures to stop the unsanctioned protest and detain the attackers,” said the spokesman. No one was hurt.
“We view the incident as a new case of violation of the principle of inviolability of diplomatic missions in London.”
It said the attack caused significant damage to the building and posted a picture of broken windows and large rocks scattered on the floor on its Facebook social media page.
British police had no immediate comment on the attack.
Cancelled
Russia canceled a hastily called meeting Friday of key nations and international organizations which it hoped would issue an appeal to the Syrian government and opposition to end the 19-month conflict and start political talks.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country is the most important ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, surprised the UN Security Council, which is bitterly divided over Syria, with the announcement Thursday of the planned meeting. The announcement came after the Security Council decided to end the UN military observer mission in Syria and back a small new liaison office to support any future peace efforts.
Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would have stepped up pressure, especially against the Syrian government, by threatening sanctions if the fighting didn’t stop. The antagonism, especially between Russia and the US and key European nations, has intensified with each vetoed resolution.
UN diplomats said Churkin’s announcement that Russia was calling for a meeting of countries that agreed on guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition in Geneva in June looked like a political move to put Moscow in the driver’s seat while sidestepping the Security Council.
Russia’s UN Mission said Friday’s meeting was canceled at the request of some members of the Action Group for Syria, which includes the UN and Arab League chiefs, the five permanent Security Council nations — the US, Russia, China, France and Britain — Turkey, the European Union, and Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, which hold key posts in the Arab League.
UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks were private, said the meeting was canceled because only Russia, China and the UN political chief were planning to attend. They also said it was awkward for Russia to hold a meeting at the UN and announce it in the Security Council when many of the 15 council members weren’t invited.
Russia’s UN Mission spokesman, Anton Uspensky, said the members had different reasons, including short notice and the need for consultations.
No time has been set to reschedule the meeting.

Brahimi
Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat, will take over from Kofi Annan as the international envoy on the Syria conflict, the United Nations said Friday.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon appealed for “strong, clear and unified” international support behind Brahimi as he announced the appointment in a statement.
Annan announced he was resigning this month, complaining about the lack of support shown by the major powers for his six month campaign to end the civil war.
Brahimi, 78, is a former Algerian foreign minister and was also a UN envoy in Afghanistan after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, and in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
UN deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said that Brahimi would come to New York “soon” for talks. Annan is to step down on August 31.
“The violence and the suffering in Syria must come to an end,” Ban said in a statement released by his spokesman.
“The secretary general appreciates Mr Brahimi’s willingness to bring his considerable talents and experience to this crucial task for which he will need, and rightly expects, the strong, clear and unified support of the international community, including the Security Council,” the spokesman added.