SYRIA RENEWS ASSAULT ON HOMS
DAMASCUS: Syrian forces unleashed their heaviest pounding of Homs in two weeks on Friday, activists said after the United Nations (UN) General Assembly backed an Arab initiative calling on President Bashar al-assad to stand down.
Rockets crashed into Khaldiyeh and Bayyada—centers of resistance in the central protest hub—at the rate of four a minute, according to an opposition activist inside the beleaguered city.
“It’s the most violent in 14 days. It’s unbelievable—extreme violence the like of which we have never seen before, with an average of four rockets every minute,” said Hadi Abdullah of the opposition General Commission of the Syrian Revolution.
“In addition to the districts of Baba Amr and Inshaat, Khaldiyeh and Bayyada were pounded on Friday, but the shelling of these neighborhoods was not as intense as in recent days,” he told Agence France- Presse by phone from inside Homs.
According to the activist, an “unprecedented” number of military planes and surveillance aircraft were flying over Homs.
Footage of the assault showed a tank firing on Homs, according to a video posted by activists on the video-sharing website Youtube.
The latest bombardment came after the UN General Assembly on Thursday demanded an immediate halt to Syria’s brutal crackdown on dissent, which human rights groups say has cost more than 6,000 lives in the past 11 months.
In a strongly worded resolution adopted through a 137-12 vote, UN member states demanded Assad’s government to stop attacking civil- ian demonstrators and start pulling its troops back to barracks.
The resolution calls on Damascus “to stop all violence or reprisals immediately, in accordance with the League of Arab States initiative.”
It was referring to a peace plan put forward by the pan-arab bloc that calls on Assad to hand power over to his deputy and for the formation of a unity government ahead of elections.
Russia, China and Iran opposed the largely symbolic text put forward by Arab states with Western support just days after Beijing and Moscow vetoed a similar resolution in the UN Security Council.
Such a strong vote in favor of the resolution adds to mounting pressure on Assad to curb a crackdown that left at least 41 people dead in fresh bloodshed on Thursday as security forces bore down on focal points of dissent.
Egypt’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Osama Abdelkhalek, said that the General Assembly had sent an “unambiguous message” to Damascus: “It is high time to listen to the voice of the people.”
But his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Jaafari, lashed out at other Arab nations, saying that Western powers had exploited the Arab League to “internationalize” the crisis.
“The Arab Trojan horse has been unmasked today,” he said.
Jaafari’s Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khazaee, warned that the resolution would only deepen the crisis, “with all its ramifications to the region as a whole.”
Amnesty International said that the resolution sent “a clear and unequivocal message” that the violence must end.
“The vote sends a clear and unequivocal message from the international community to Syria to immediately end the brutal assault against innocent people,” said a statement by Jose Luis Diaz of Amnesty’s Head of UN Office.
“Crimes against humanity are taking place in Syria. Whilst Russia and a handful of states continue to shield Syria the result of today’s vote shows they are increasingly isolated,” the statement added.