Tuesday 2 October 2012

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NOW! Lebanon
[local time]  21:42 Syrian forces stormed Harasta near Damascus, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying, adding that 19 people were killed in the raid.
 20:59 The Syrian authorities detained prominent human rights activist Khalil al-Maatouq while he was on his way to work in the capital on Tuesday, his rights group said in a statement.
 20:28 Tuesday’s death toll in Syria has increased to 127, Al-Jazeera quoted activists as saying.
 17:50 Tuesday’s death in Syria toll has increased to 101, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 15:46 Violence across Syria has killed at least 31,022 people, most of them civilians, since the outbreak of an anti-regime revolt in March last year, a monitoring group said.
 15:12 Iraq stopped and searched a Syria-bound Iranian cargo plane for weapons on Tuesday, but allowed it to continue as no prohibited items were found, Iraqi officials said.
 15:02 Syria’s Tuesday death toll increased to 67 people, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 14:53 Fifteen people were found dead after they had been summarily executed in the Aleppo neighborhood of Al-Zahraa, Al-Arabiya television quoted activists as saying.
 13:55 Russia on Tuesday urged the West not to “search for pretexts” in order to conduct direct operations in Syria while also calling on Damascus and Ankara to exercise restraint along their flashpoint border.
 13:32 The number of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries has more than tripled since June to over 300,000, and by the end of the year that number will more than double again, the UN refugee agency warned Tuesday.
 11:45 Turkish troops fired across Syrian border, killing one Kurd, AFP reported.
 11:44 Five Yemeni army officers being held by a shadowy Islamist group in Syria are students at a military academy in Aleppo and are not involved in the fighting that has engulfed the country, a Yemeni official said.
 11:26 Rebel fighters stormed an army post in a Damascus neighborhood killing six soldiers, while intense shelling by regime forces sent residents fleeing in panic, a watchdog and activists said on Tuesday.
 10:52 Syrian regime forces on Tuesday killed 31 people, most of them in Damascus and Daraa, Al-Arabiya television quoted activists as saying.
 9:45 Syrian regime forces and rebels are clashing in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in the district of Damascus, Al-Jazeera reported.
 9:38 Five people were killed and dozens wounded in the Syrian regime forces’ shelling of a Syrian refugee camp in Daraa, Al-Jazeera television reported.
 9:00 MORNING LEADER: Shelling and air raids killed dozens of Syrian civilians, including children, on Monday as rebels and loyalists fought close-quarter battles in Aleppo’s main souk. Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told Al-Mayadeen TV that a political solution was still possible if the West and Gulf states halted support for the rebels.
 8:32 Nine people were killed in the shelling that targeted the Syrian town of Duma near Damascus, Al-Arabiya television reported.
 8:30 An Internet video surfaced Monday showing what appears to be US journalist Austin Tice missing in Syria, visibly distressed and being led blindfold up a rocky hill by armed men chanting “Allahu Akbar.”
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Reuters: Assad rejected leaders’ bid for peace in Syria: former PM

President Bashar al-Assad vetoed demands by senior leaders to pursue a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria after some of his top security aides were killed in an attack in July, his former prime minister said in remarks broadcast on Tuesday.

Riyad Hijab, who defected in early August, told Al Arabiya television that the death of Defence Minister Daoud Rajha and his deputy, Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, in a bomb attack on a security meeting in Damascus had persuaded him that there was no military solution to the crisis.

He said he met with other top officials, including Vice President Farouq al-Shara, the heads of parliament and the deputy secretary general of the ruling Baath Party, and agreed to ask Assad to start talks with the opposition.

“Bashar met this with utter rejection. He rejected any form of dialogue with the opposition, either inside or outside, and said ‘I do not negotiate with a divided opposition with an agenda. It is not a patriotic opposition and it is armed’,” Hijab said.

“This was a shock to all of us and we left the palace. I completely lost hope, especially in the last few days, when the Free Syrian Army controlled some 70 percent of Aleppo,” he added.

Assad has been battling an 18-month-old uprising against his rule, which has grown into a full-scale civil war.

Hijab, who like much of the opposition comes from Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, was not part of Assad’s inner circle. But as prime minister and the most senior civilian official to defect, his departure dealt a symbolic blow to the government, which is dominated by Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

It was not immediately possible to verify Hijab’s comments.

Hijab said that given the failure of international intervention to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the only alternative was to arm the opposition, which he said controlled much of Syrian territory.

“All forms of support must be provided for this revolution so that the tragedy and suffering can come to an end. The solution is from within and the sons of Syria are able to bring about a solution,” he said.

Hijab also dismissed international diplomacy, led by U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, to resolve the crisis as a waste of time.

“The regime is buying time. I heard that from Bashar and there won’t be a solution except with what the rebels and the Free Syrian Army is doing,” he said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Writing by Sami Aboudi)

Syria’s Assad tours Aleppo, orders more troops into battle: paper

BEIRUT – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is visiting the city of Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting between government forces and rebels and has ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle, a Lebanese paper said on Tuesday. | Video