Syrian rebels fired mortars at President Bashar al-Assad's palace in Damascus on Wednesday but missed, in an attack underlining the growing boldness of forces fighting to end his family's 42 years in power. As violence flared in other parts of the country, Turkey said it was about to ask Nato to station Patriot missiles along its border with Syria to guard against violence spilling onto its territory.
Syria's war, which has already destabilised neighbouring Lebanon and raised the spectre of wider Middle East turbulence, poses one of the greatest foreign policy challenges for US President Barack Obama as he starts his second term. Damascus residents told Reuters heavy-calibre shells apparently aimed at the palace hit the nearby residential Mezze 86 district that is home to members of Assad's Alawite sect. State-run media said at least three people were killed and seven wounded in what it described as a terrorist attack.
Rebels have focused efforts on high-profile attacks against symbols of Assad's rule, such as his palace. A July bomb that killed four of Assad's top lieutenants was shortly followed by an advance into Damascus by rebels who were then partially beaten back by Assad's forces. Fighters in the mainly Sunni Muslim opposition have stepped up attacks in the capital this week, setting off bombs in at least two areas populated by Alawites and assassinating two figures seen as close to the Assad administration.
"This operation came in response to the massacres committed in our beloved city," the Lions of Islam rebel group said in a statement. They said they also attacked a military airport and an intelligence facility in the capital, but there was no independent confirmation of those reports. State media said a judge, Abad Nadwa, was killed in Damascus on Wednesday by a bomb placed under his car. The brother of the speaker of parliament was killed in Damascus on Tuesday.
A senior Turkish foreign ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday the government would make an "imminent" request to Nato to protect its 910-km (560-mile) border with Patriot missiles. The official said there was a potential missile threat to Turkey from Syria and Turkey had a right to take steps to counter such a threat. He gave no further details. In a new push for unity, the main Syrian overseas opposition group the Syrian National Council (SNC) was due to elect a new leader and executive committee at a meeting in Qatar.
The SNC and other groups will then meet on Thursday to form a new 50-member civilian group that will later choose a temporary government for Syria and co-ordinate with the revolt's military wing. Highlighting how Palestinian refugees have been drawn into the conflict, rebels killed 10 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which is loyal to Assad, in fighting near the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, opposition sources said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog, says it had the names of at least 38,000 people confirmed dead by friends and family. The death toll is going up every day, with a thousand or more killed in some weeks. British Prime Minister David Cameron visited a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan on Wednesday and said that efforts so far to halt the bloodshed had been fruitless.
"I am standing with the Syrian border just behind me and every night 500 refugees are fleeing the most appalling persecution and bloodshed to come to safety and frankly what we have done so far is not working," he said. Cameron, who said on Tuesday that offering Assad immunity from prosecution could be a way of persuading him to leave power, said he still wanted the president to be prosecuted. "I would like to see President Assad face full international justice for the appalling crimes he has meted out on his people," he said on a visit to Zaatari, a camp housing about 30,000 Syrian refugees in northern Jordan.
Comments
Comments are closed.