The death toll in the Syrian protests rose on Tuesday as long-time Damascus ally Russia said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had made “a lot of mistakes” in clamping down on the year-old demonstrations.
Fresh clashes broke out in the capital and security forces killed at least 30 people, all but two of them civilians, in violence elsewhere across the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The capital’s security clampdown follows what activists said was a hit-and-run attack in the heavily guarded Mazzeh neighborhood on Monday that killed at least three rebels and a member of the security forces.
Photo: AFP
It also came on the heels of deadly twin suicide car bombings targeting security buildings in Damascus on Saturday.
However, the violence is not all one-sided — Syria’s armed opposition is kidnapping, torturing and executing security force members and government supporters, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“The Syrian government’s brutal tactics cannot justify abuses by armed opposition groups,” Human Rights Watch Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said. “Opposition leaders should make it clear to their followers that they must not torture, kidnap or execute under any circumstances.”
The rights watchdog group said the peaceful uprising had transformed into an armed insurgency, especially since early last month, when the government attacked opposition strongholds throughout the country.
The Syrian National Council deplored the reported rights violations.
“We oppose any form of violence, and support all the international conventions and treaties on the protection of human rights,” the council said in a statement issued by spokeswoman Bassma Kodmani.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said al-Assad made “a lot of mistakes” since peaceful protests began in March last year.
“We believe that the Syrian leadership responded incorrectly to the very first manifestations of the peaceful protests,” he told Russia’s Kommersant FM radio in a pre-recorded interview. “The Syrian leadership — despite the numerous promises it has made in response to our calls — is making a lot of mistakes.”
Russia has increasingly hinted it could drop its support for al-Assad after a year of violence that Syrian opposition activists say has claimed more than 9,100 lives.
Russia said it was ready to back either a UN Security Council statement or a resolution on UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan’s proposal on ending the crisis as long as it contained no ultimatums.
Last week, Lavrov also accused al-Assad of making errors and moving too slowly on reforms, but the latest comments suggest that Russia was unhappy with his leadership from the early stages of the bloody conflict.
Lavrov even hinted that Moscow would not be opposed to the idea of al-Assad being offered safe haven by another country.
“Perhaps that is the case, but that is something for al-Assad to decide,” he said in response to a question about whether Syria’s president should step down before being toppled and killed like former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
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