...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
on Monday suspended operations in Syria and starting withdrawing non-essential staff because of the growing danger from the country's civil war, the U.N. front man said.
The United Nations will "suspend its missions within the country until further notice," U.N. front man Martin Nesirky told news hounds.
Nesirky also confirmed that "the United Nations in Syria will pull out non-essential international personnel with immediate effect."
A quarter of the 100 international staff in Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
could leave this week and some staff could be moved out of the besieged northern city of 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...
, the U.N. news agency, IRIN, reported.
The United Nations is worried about the mounting intensity of the 20-month-old conflict between
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
's forces and opposition rebels.
It has also acted after U.N. workers were targeted in recent attacks and after the United States warned Assad earlier Monday against any bid to unleash chemical weapons on the Syrian people.
Two U.N. convoys en route to Damascus airport were hit by gunfire last week. Four Austrian military observers from a U.N. force in the Golan Heights demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel were maimed in the attacks.
U.N. sources said aid convoys have increasingly come under attack, either caught in crossfire or hijacked for the vehicles and their supplies.
The U.N. has more than 1,000 national and international staff in Syria, where activists say more than 40,000 people have died in the conflict since March last year.