WarSclerotic

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will lay out evacuation plans for Canadian citizens currently in Syria, CTV News has learned.

Violence in Syria has been escalating in recent days as the government of Bashar al-Assad attempts to quell a popular uprising. The strife has left thousands of Syrian citizens dead and has been condemned by the international community.

On Wednesday alone, approximately 25 people were killed in gun battles between soldiers and rebel fighters. The deaths signal that the once-peaceful opposition movement is growing into an insurgency.

Canada’s evacuation plans follow the imposition of sanctions on the Syrian regime, which were first announced in May but ramped up in October.

In Washington, meanwhile, a senior State Department official predicted that the Syrian regime would soon fall.

“Our view is that this regime is the equivalent of dead man walking,” said Frederic Hof, who is the State Department’s pointman on Syria.