The international peace envoy for Syria said the situation in the country was deteriorating sharply, but a solution was still possible next year under the terms of a peace plan agreed in Geneva in June.
“I say that the solution must be this year: 2013, and, God willing, before the second anniversary of this crisis,” Lakhdar Brahimi said during a news conference at the Arab League in Cairo, referring to the start of the uprising in March 2011.
“A solution is still possible but is getting more complicated every day,” he said.
Regime forces yesterday pressed a fierce offensive in Homs after overrunning a key neighborhood of the central city, according to a watchdog, which also listed 23 children killed in violence across Syria.
The latest bloodletting comes after Brahimi warned in Moscow that Syria was facing a choice between “hell or the political process” after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army, after seizing the Deir Baalbeh district in fighting which left dozens dead on Saturday, fired off barrages of rockets into surrounding rebel-held neighborhoods yesterday as it sought to capitalize on its victory.
Troops also bombarded the nearby opposition stronghold of Rastan.
The Britain-based Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of activists and medics in civilian and military hospitals, said that the final death toll from Saturday’s clashes had not been finalized due to communications difficulties in the area.
A video released by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, showed the bodies of nine male victims from Deir Baalbeh lying on the ground, their faces bloody and mutilated.
The authenticity of the video could not immediately be verified.
Near the capital yesterday, loyalist troops carried out air raids on towns along the eastern outlying belt and on Daraya in the southwest, while fighting between rebels and the army erupted in the northeastern and southwestern suburbs.
The Observatory said 13 children were among the victims of bombardments in and around Damascus on Saturday, while 10 children were killed in air strikes across Aleppo Province, including on rebel-held Aazaz near the Turkish border.
Analysts say the surge in air strikes by Syrian forces are a desperate attempt by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to reverse rampant gains by rebel fighters, especially in the north of the country.
Rebels meanwhile made further advances yesterday in the battle for the Hamidiyeh military post in the northwest province of Idlib which they stormed the previous day, the watchdog said.
During yesterday’s clashes, three insurgents were wounded by machine-gun fire, while warplanes raided a nearby village, the watchdog said.
A takeover of the Hamidiyeh post would pave the way for a rebel offensive against the nearby Wadi Deif base, one of the government’s last outposts in the north.
Opposition fighters, mostly from the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, have been closing in on the base since overrunning the nearby town of Maaret al-Numan in early October.
In the south, a rebel was killed yesterday in battles for control of several small border crossings along the regime-held frontier with Jordan, the Observatory said.
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
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
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