WarSclerotic

Syria Troops Fight Rebels Near Damascus Before UN Security Council Meeting – Bloomberg.

Syrian troops battled for control of rebel-held suburbs of Damascus ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting to address an Arab proposal to end the crisis.

The government sent tanks and armored vehicles into the areas yesterday, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Mahmoud Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. Forty-one people were killed yesterday, Abdel Rahman said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European foreign ministers will attend tomorrow’s Security Council meeting to support an Arab League plan calling for Assad to step down in favor of a national unity government.

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the escalation of the Syrian regime’s violent and brutal attacks on its own people,” Clinton said in a statement today. She said that tomorrow “the international community should send a clear message of support to the Syrian people: We stand with you.”

The violence has left more than 5,000 dead since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March and has intensified since the Arab League halted its observer mission last week.

Eleven months into the unrest, the European Union and the U.S. have yet to overcome Russia’s resistance at the UN’s decision-making body to hold Assad responsible for the crackdown. His government has blamed “terrorists” and foreign provocateurs for fomenting the protests.

‘Brutal Repression’

“We believe the United Nations must act to support the people of Syria and Russia can no longer explain blocking the UN and providing cover for the regime’s brutal repression,” U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokeswoman, Vickie Sheriff, told reporters in London today.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Syria’s government agreed to hold talks with the country’s opposition in Moscow. Russia is waiting for a response from opponents of Assad, the ministry said in a statement published on its website today.

Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, rejected talks with the Syrian government unless Assad is removed, Al Arabiya reported. The council is demanding “the departure of Assad as a first step in the transition process,” its spokeswoman, Bassma Kodmani, said in a text message today.

Clashes between government forces and the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors and armed civilians, have been ongoing for three to four days in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba, Harasta, Irbin and Zamalka, Merei said.

An “armed terrorist group” attacked a pipeline transporting gas between Homs and Banias, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported today.

This entry was posted on January 30, 2012 at 10:07 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.