Wednesday 29 August 2012

NOW! Lebanon
[local time]  22:13 An AFP feature story describes how mosques and buildings across Aleppo carry the scars of five weeks of bombing and shelling.
 21:00 Jordanian Prime Minister Fayez Tarawneh said on Wednesday that his country would send home Syrian refugees who attacked police during clashes over living conditions in a desert border camp.
 20:44 Wednesday’s death toll in Syria has risen to 108 people, Al-Arabiya television quoted activists as saying.
 19:24 Tourism in Syria has been decimated by more than 17 months of deadly conflict, official figures show.
 18:53 Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged Syria’s neighbors to keep their borders open to refugees fleeing the violence, as Turkey looks to set up a zone to shelter them on Syrian soil.
 16:59 Russia on Wednesday called for an impartial investigation into the latest “barbaric” violence near Syria’s capital Damascus, where hundreds of deaths have been reported since the weekend.
 16:53 Wednesday’s death toll in Syria has risen to 62 people, Al-Arabiya television quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying.
 16:27 An AFP feature story details how clashes, displacement of people, destruction, unemployment and inflation have depressed much of the five million people of Damascus.
 14:20 Italy hosted international talks in Rome on Wednesday on the future of Syria after President Bashar al-Assad leaves power.
 14:03 Turkey said Wednesday it will allow Turkish lawmakers to visit a refugee camp set up for Syrian army defectors in a bid to quash rumors that the camp morphed into an underground rebel training base.
 13:21 Turkey is in talks with the United Nations on ways to shelter thousands of refugees on Syrian soil and expects the world body to take concrete steps.
 12:50 The official Syrian Arab News Agency said on Wednesday that men and women were killed in a Damascus suburb by “terrorists” to “alter the public opinion against Syria.”
 12:04 Thirty people were killed by Syrian regime forces on Wednesday, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 11:26 French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted Wednesday that plans to create buffer zones in Syria were “very complicated” and would require the imposition of partial no-fly zones.
 11:15 Fierce fighting broke out on Wednesday between the Syrian army and rebels near Taftanaz military airport, which is located between the northern cities of Aleppo and Edleb, a watchdog said.
 11:06 Syrian security forces heavily shelled Al-Ghouta al-Sharqiyya in the Damascus district, Al-Arabiya quoted activists as saying.
 10:40 Syrian rebels say they have destroyed 10 Syrian regime helicopters in an attack on Edleb’s Taftanaz military airport, Al-Jazeera reported.
 10:10 Syria needs more time to end the conflict raging across the country, President Bashar al-Assad said in a television interview to be broadcast by pro-regime Al-Dunia channel on Wednesday.
 9:05 MORNING LEADER: A car bomb rocked the funeral of two government loyalists in a Damascus suburb killing 27 people on Tuesday as the army kept up its bombardment of rebel strongholds in the east of the capital. The bombing hit Jaramana, a mainly Druze and Christian town on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus that is generally supportive of the government.
 8:38 Syria’s rebels on Tuesday claimed that they had seized from the regime’s arsenal 10 missiles in the eastern belt of Damascus province, amid a marked escalation of violence in the area.
 8:29 A prominent France-based Syrian dissident resigned on Tuesday from the embattled country’s main opposition coalition, accusing it of failing to protect the population against “horrific massacres.”
 8:11 Clashes broke out at dawn between regime forces and the Free Syrian Army rebels in the Tadamoun neighborhood of Damascus, Al-Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

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Guardian: Bashar al-Assad says there is no end in sight to Syrian civil war: 29 Aug 2012: Syrian president shrugs off high-profile defections and says regime forces need more time to wipe out opposition

Syria‘s president, Bashar al-Assad, has said there is no immediate prospect of an end to the country’s 17-month-old civil war, adding that more time is needed for his “heroic” armed forces to wipe out the opposition.

In an interview with Syria’s pro-government Addounia TV channel, Assad shrugged off recent damaging defections by senior regime figures, and suggested the situation for ordinary Syrians was now gradually improving. Events on the ground on Wednesday, however, suggested otherwise, with heavy shelling near the capital Damascus and a major rebel attack on a strategic northern airbase.

“We are moving forward, the situation is practically getting better, but the victory needs more time,” Assad said. He continued: “We’re fighting a regional and global battle and must have more time to resolve [it].”

The interview marks a rare public appearance for Assad, and follows a devastating explosion last month at his Damascus military-security command, which killed four of his top advisers. Assad laughed off claims that he had fled the capital, or escaped abroad, telling his interviewer: “I’m here with you in Damascus inside the republican palace.”

The president also praised his country’s embattled armed forces. Opposition activists and human rights groups accuse Assad’s troops and pro-government shabiha militias of staging a series of massacres, most recently in the town of Daraya. Up to 400 people were reportedly killed there over the weekend. “The army are doing their job. They are performing heroic acts in every sense of the word,” Assad said.

Assad also suggested outside diplomatic pressure to end the conflict made little difference, and said he did not think a no-fly zone over Syria would ever happen. “The truth is that Syria doesn’t need a green light when dealing with its internal affairs, neither from our allies or our enemies,” he told the channel, owned by his cousin Rami Makhlouf, one of Syria’s wealthiest men.

Assad’s remarks, showing him to be relaxed and calm, came as his new prime minister, Wael Nader al-Halqi, arrived in Tehran for a two-day summit. Iran, Assad’s principal regional backer, proposed a three-month ceasefire inside Syria. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also attended the non-aligned summit, with Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, due to drop in on Thursday.

But the Iranian initiative has little prospect of success and came amid another day of carnage across Syria. Residents in Ghouta, three miles (5km) east of Damascus, said they had been under bombardment from government tanks and warplanes for two days. “A lot of people are fleeing Ghouta to escape the random shooting, but they don’t know where to go,” one resident, Abu Omer, told the Guardian via Skype.

Omer said the regime had punished the area – home to two million people – after fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) shot down a warplane. He said the Syrian army was now converging in nearby Ain Terma and al-Miliha, and was attempting to storm the town. “There are conveys of tanks and armoured vehicles full of soldiers on the highway that divides Damascus and eastern Ghouta. The snipers are shooting anyone in sight,” he said. The regime had forced local bakeries to close, with food and medicines now in short supply, and was shooting civilians sheltering in their houses. The victims included two children in Juber aged seven and eight, and three women, he said.

Omer’s claims are impossible to verify. But video footage posted on YouTube on Wednesday appears to show heavy bombardment of Ghouta, with residential buildings targeted next to a minaret and smoke billowing across the skyline. More than 40 people have been killed by pro-regime militias in outlying areas, activists said.

In northern Syria, an armed Islamist rebel group claimed it had carried out a major attack on the Taftanaz airbase near the town of Idlib. At least five helicopters were destroyed, it said, with the rebels assaulting the airbase using tanks captured from a Syrian military checkpoint and rocket-propelled grenades.

“The operation lasted for 40 minutes,” one rebel commander, Tamiem al-Shami, told the Guardian via Skype. “We were able to take out most of the defences at the base. We used a lot of fire against the helicopters and could see with our own eyes how the helicopters were burning.” Shami said he was a member of the Ahrar al-Sham brigade in Idlib, an Islamic religious unit which was separate from the FSA but co-operated with it.

Shami said three of his men were killed during the operation and one injured. The rebels withdrew when Syrian warplanes attacked their positions, he added. The Syrian state news agency Sana said forces loyal to the government had successfully repulsed the assault.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, meanwhile, said he would press the UN security council to set up a safe haven inside Syria to protect thousands of people fleeing the violence.

Turkey has long been floating the idea of a no-fly zone, or buffer zone, to protect displaced Syrians from attacks by Assad’s forces, but the issue has become more pressing now the number of refugees in Turkey has exceeded 80,000 – a number it says approaches its limits. “We expect the UN to step in and protect the refugees inside Syria, and if possible, to shelter them in camps there,” Davutoglu told reporters before leaving for New York to attend Thursday’s high-level UN security council meeting on Syria.

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BBC: Assad ‘needs time to win battle’

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the military needs more time to “win the battle” against rebel forces, as fighting rages across the country.

In an interview with pro-government al-Dunya TV, Mr Assad also dismissed as “unrealistic” the idea of creating humanitarian buffer zones within Syria.

Opposition activists say the army has launched offensives across the country to regain control of rebel-held areas.

Meanwhile, rebels claimed to have seized 10 missiles from the regime’s arsenal near the capital, Damascus.

The rebels posted unverified footage on YouTube which purported to show a storage warehouse seized from troops.

Heavy shelling has been reported in several cities, including Damascus, Aleppo, and the north-western province of Idlib.

Officials told state media on Wednesday that soldiers had repelled a “terrorist attack” on the military air base in the northern town of Taftanaz, inflicting heavy losses.

The reports came after rebel fighters claimed they had destroyed several military helicopters using two captured tanks.

The claims could not be independently verified, but a video posted online by local activists purported to show the destroyed helicopters. Smoke could be seen rising from the airfield.

Security forces ‘heroic’

In excerpts of his interview with al-Dunya, which was broadcast in full on Wednesday evening, Mr Assad said the Syrian government was “fighting a battle both regionally and internationally”.

“It definitely needs time to bring it to a decisive end. But I can sum it up in one sentence: we’re heading forward,” he told al-Dunya. “The situation on the ground is better now, but the conclusion is not there yet. That needs some time.”

The security forces were “doing a heroic job in every sense”, he added.

“Everyone is worried about their country – that is normal. But [the rebels] will not be able to spread fear, they never will,” he said. “I say to Syrians: destiny is in your hands, and not in the hands of others.”

The president mocked senior government and military officials who have defected in recent months, saying their departure amounted to a “self-cleansing of the government firstly, and the country generally”.

Responding to rumours about his whereabouts since a July bombing in Damascus killed four senior officials, he revealed that he was being interviewed from the presidential palace in the capital.

‘Safe zone’

Mr Assad also addressed the proposal by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to set up a United Nations-sanctioned “safe zone” inside Syria to shelter refugees and help distribute humanitarian aid.

“Talk of buffer zones firstly is not on the table and secondly it is an unrealistic idea by hostile countries and the enemies of Syria,” he said.

Turkey says extra refugee camps will be ready next week but says it is rapidly running out of space

“Do we go back because of the ignorance of some Turkish officials or do we focus on our relationship with the Turkish people, especially those people who have stood by us during the crisis and were not swayed by the media and material propaganda?”

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted on Wednesday that creating a buffer zone would be impossible without imposing a no-fly zone deploying ground forces.

“We are thinking about this. It is very complicated. We cannot do it without the agreement of the Turks and other countries,” he told France Inter radio.

“But what we want is for things to move forward, to make Bashar fall as quickly as possible and at the same time find humanitarian solutions.”

The UN refugee agency warned on Tuesday that as many as 200,000 refugees could flee to Turkey to escape fighting in Syria – almost double the number Turkey has said it can take.

The UNHCR said 5,000 refugees were now arriving at the Turkish border every day, compared to about 500 earlier this month. There are already more than 74,000 in Turkey, and 128,000 in other countries.

There are also thought to be more than 1.2 million internally displaced people in Syria, and 2.5 million in need of humanitarian assistance.

In a separate development, activists said a rebel group known as the Gathering of Ansar al-Islam Battalions had seized 10 surface-to-surface missiles.

However it is not clear if guerilla fighters would be capable of deploying them, reports the BBC’s Barbara Plett in Beirut.

Our correspondent says the warehouse is in a district known as Ghuta, which includes the eastern outer suburbs of Damascus, said to be home to some of the best organised armed opposition groups.

• Assad on pro-government TV

Analysis: Barbara Plett BBC News, Beirut

President Assad’s intervention comes as the war escalates in Syria. He wants to both reassure his constituency that, “despite several mistakes”, the government’s military strategy is working, and to prepare it for a long struggle.

 

He says the task is difficult because the army is facing a “global and regional” battle, reflecting the government’s view that it is the victim of a foreign conspiracy aimed at weakening Syria’s resistance to Israel and the West.

 

And his tone echoes earlier comments of winning the war “at any price”, again a sign that the government is digging in its heels for a military victory. His aim is also to dispel any idea of weakness: he emphasises that he’s in the presidential palace, and not in hiding following a bomb blast that killed members of his inner circle last month. He shrugs off recent high-level defections as the “self-cleansing” of weak regime elements.

 

And his comment that a Western-imposed buffer zone in Syria is “unrealistic” is probably true, given international reluctance to intervene militarily.

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REUTERS: Turkey urges U.N. to protect refugees inside Syria

 ANKARA/BEIRUT – Turkey urged the United Nations to protect displaced Syrians inside their country on Wednesday but President Bashar al-Assad, waging a fierce war with rebels which has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people, dismissed talk of a buffer zone. | Video