Syrian activists voiced growing fears yesterday of a new assault like the one that devastated the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, on the eve of a first visit by new international envoy Kofi Annan.
Troop reinforcements backed by tanks were massing in the northwestern province of Idlib, close to the Turkish border, in a bid to root out rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army, activists and a human rights watchdog said.
Ahead of his departure for Damascus today, former UN head Annan spoke out strongly against any foreign arming of the rebels, prompting Washington to echo his concerns about the dangers of further militarization of the conflict in multi-confessional, multi-ethnic Syria.
Opposition activists used their “Syrian Revolution 2011” Facebook page to call demonstrations in solidarity with the long-oppressed Kurdish minority, who have been largely sidelined by the protest movement against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite-dominated regime led by Syria’s Sunni Arab majority.
Armored units were deploying heavily around Idlib Province’s Jabal al-Zawiya hill district, where rebel fighters have been active, said Milad Fadl, a member of the opposition Syrian Revolution General Commission.
“Large numbers of residents from eight villages in that area have fled,” Fadl said, adding that people were also leaving the city of Idlib itself.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had launched an assault yesterday on four villages in agricultural areas of the province and was hunting down rebels in the region.
There are concerns that Idlib could suffer the same fate as the Baba Amr neighborhood of the central city of Homs, which was stormed by government troops last Thursday after a month of shelling.
On Wednesday, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos briefly visited the battered neighborhood with a Syrian Red Crescent team.
“She says that the parts they saw were completely devastated,” her spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said. “She said Homs feels like a city that has been completely closed down.”
State news agency SANA said “armed terrorist gangs” were looting and destroying property in towns and villages in Idlib Province.
It added that security forces had defused four bombs planted by “terrorist groups” in the Idlib town of Sarakeb.
The Britain-based Observatory said 16 people were killed in violence nationwide on Thursday, all of them civilians. The watchdog said that two more civilians died of previous injuries.
Early yesterday, security-force gunfire killed one civilian in the Damascus neighborhood of Kafar Soussa, it added.
In their Facebook page posting, opposition activists called for a nationwide day of solidarity with the Kurdish minority, as they prepare to celebrate their New Year festival Nowruz, which has long been the focus of nationalist sentiment, in Syria, as in neighboring Iraq and Turkey.
Speaking in Cairo ahead of his departure for Damascus, Annan urged “the Syrian opposition to come together to work with us to find a solution that will respect the aspirations of the Syrian people.”
He warned against further militarization of the crisis, amid a groundswell of international support for arming the rebels. The mostly army defectors who make up the Free Syrian Army are heavily outgunned by the regime forces they are battling in a number of flashpoint areas, including Idlib.
“I believe further militarization will make the situation worse,” Annan said after talks with Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi.
“I hope that no one is very seriously thinking of using force in this situation,” he said, adding that diplomatic efforts should be kept up.
Later on Thursday, Washington, which had previously revealed it was looking at the possility of providing “non-lethal” aid to the rebels, echoed his warning about the dangers of further militarization.
“We have made very clear that we do not believe that it is right at this time to contribute to the further militarization of the situation in Syria,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
“We are pursuing a path with the Friends of Syria that we hope will bring a political resolution to the situation there,” he added, referring to an international coalition opposed to Assad’s continued rule.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was