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UN observer mission boosted as another 23 die in Syria
[Al Ahram] Regime forces battled rebels and carried out raids across Syria Sunday in a surge of violence that killed 23 people, monitors and activists said, as a tenuous UN-backed truce entered its second month.The fresh wave of bloodletting came as the UN mission in Syria said it now has 189 military observers on the ground, nearly two-thirds of its planned strength of 300. The observers are tasked with shoring up the ceasefire brokered by UN-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... peace envoy Kofi Annan  ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...that was supposed to take effect on April 12 but which has been broken daily. "There are now 189 monitors on the ground," Hassan Siklawi, a representative of the UN mission in Syria, told AFP on Sunday. The deployment of extra monitors came as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least 23 people killed on Sunday, including five soldiers who died in shootouts with armed rebels in the southern province of Daraa. Two non-combatants were killed in the crossfire, it added. In central Hama province, five people were killed by gunfire, including a woman, when regime forces raided the village of Al-Tamanaa Al-Ghab, the Britannia-based watchdog said, adding that 18 people were maimed and several houses set on fire. A man and his son were killed and 10 other people maimed when they were shot by regime forces in the town of Qusayr in central Homs province, where armed rebel groups have strongholds, the watchdog added. Also in Homs, a civilian was killed by sniper fire in the town of Rastan. Three non-combatants were killed by regime forces near Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... , two in Idlib province and one in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... province, while two army deserters were killed, one in Douma, the other in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the watchdog said. And in neighbouring Leb, sectarian festivities in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... between factions supporting and opposed to the Syrian revolt left one person dead on Sunday, a security source said. The violence in Syria has escalated over the past week, despite the arrival of more ceasefire observers, with twin suicide kabooms in Damascus on Thursday killing 55 people and wounding 372. The attacks have raised fears that thug elements are taking advantage of the deadlock in Syria to stoke the unrest. Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group unknown before the Syrian revolt, released a video on Saturday claiming responsibility for the Damascus attacks as Dire RevengeĀ for regime bombing of residential areas in several parts of the country. Claims by the group, including for past bombings, have been difficult to verify. The head of the dissident Free Syrian Army in remarks published on Sunday charged that Al-Qaeda has links with the powerful airforce intelligence of the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... "If Al-Qaeda gunnies have indeed entered the country, it happened with the cooperation of that agency," FSA chief, Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad, told Kuwait's Al-Rai newspaper. Asaad denied claims by Damascus that jihadist and Salafi groups were active in Syria, and blamed the Syrian regime for Thursday's devastating kabooms in the capital, calling for an international investigation. State media has accused the West and its regional allies of opening the door to Al-Qaeda through its backing of the opposition. A Turkish journalist held prisoner in Syria for two months said on Sunday that he and a Turkish cameraman feared they would die, and spent 55 days isolated in cramped cells where they slept on the floor. The two Turkish journalists, who were tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! by a pro-regime militia in March and handed over to Syrian intelligence, returned to Istanbul this weekend after being freed thanks to Iranian mediation. More than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the Syrian uprising began, according to the Observatory, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce went into effect. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-14 |
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