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NGO Accuses Syrian Regime of 'Massacre during Monitors Visit'
[An Nahar] A convoy of U.N. truce observers came under kaboom in a Syrian town on Tuesday during a funeral procession in which a monitoring group said regime forces "massacred" 20 people.The incidents took place as Syria's anti-regime revolt entered a 15th month of relentless violence that has killed more than 12,000 people and amid growing fears that a U.N.-backed peace plan will fail. The blast occurred as the convoy made its way along a narrow street in Khan Sheikhoun, a town in Idlib province, said activists, rebels and a watchdog. U.N. front man Martin Nesirky said the bomb went kaboom!in front of the convoy and that three vehicles were damaged but no casualties were reported. Ahmad Fawzi, front man for U.N.-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... 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..., said the U.N. supervisory mission had sent a patrol to help the stranded monitors. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 26 people other people were killed around the country. "The Syrian regime committed a massacre Tuesday during a visit by U.N. monitors to Khan Sheikhoun," in the northwestern province, said the Britannia-based watchdog. It was the second roadside kabooming involving the observers' vehicles in less than a week, after a convoy in the flashpoint southern city of Daraa maimed six Syrian soldiers on Wednesday. Video uploaded to YouTube by activists showed a convoy of U.N. vehicles surrounded by dozens of people before a blast was heard and a puff of smoke went up in front of the leading U.N.-marked jeep. It was unclear from the footage if there were any casualties, and the vehicle drove away despite damage to its hood. The authenticity of the video could not be verified. Activists said the U.N. convoy had come under attack and one car was hit by a shell, prompting the monitors to quickly leave the area. Major Sami al-Kurdi, a front man for the rebel Free Syrian Army, told Agence La Belle France Presse the monitors had arrived during the funeral and that their presence had encouraged more mourners to turn out and join the procession. "The regime dared to attack the procession, however, and then targeted the vehicles of the U.N. observers from a regime checkpoint," he said. The United Nations ...An organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... reaffirmed its condemnation of any violence against the monitors. "This mission is there to help the people of Syria, to help ensure that the six-point plan is implemented," Nesirky said, referring to Annan's peace plan. "Anything that interrupts their work and endangers the lives of U.N. personnel is something we would condemn." The latest bloodshed comes despite a truce brokered by Annan as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March 2011, when the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... broke out. The United Nations has accused both sides to the conflict of violating the ceasefire and warned Syria was edging closer to full-blown civil war. Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... maintains that foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups" are behind the unrest, trying to undermine the regime and scuttle attempts at political reform. Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... Annan urged Syria to stop delaying an agreement on allowing U.N. access to more than one million Syrians in need of assistance, saying the process had been "very slow." Annan "remains extremely concerned about the plight of one million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance," said U.N. front man Martin Nesirky. In Riyadh, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... 's foreign minister warned on Monday that confidence in Annan's peace mission was fading fast because of the bloodshed. Part of Annan's plan includes the deployment in flashpoint areas of about 300 U.N. military observers, and their number reached more than 200 on Tuesday, said the mission's chief, Major General Robert Mood. Although the number of casualties has decreased since the observers began trickling into Syria in mid-April, the violence has not stopped. The Observatory says more than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the uprising began on March 15 last year, including more than 900 killed since the April 12 truce. In addition, foreign doctors returning from a secret mission inside Syria reported people maimed in the regime's crackdown on dissent, as well as the medics who treat them, risk arrest and even torture. "The aim of the Syrian army was clearly to kill the maimed and those suspected of treating them," said one doctor on the team from Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), which entered Syria illegally after failing to get government permission. In neighboring Leb, the army deployed in sectors of 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... after nine people were killed in three days of sectarian violence between groups who support and oppose Syria's regime. Troops entered Syria Street, the frontline of fighting between a majority Sunni Moslem district and another that is mostly Alawite, an offshoot of Islam to which Assad belongs. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-16 |
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