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Syria forces hit rebels, Russia scorns opposition

05 April 2012 02:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Syrian forces pressed a crackdown on rebel bastions Wednesday despite a truce pledge, with 18 people reported killed, as Russia said the opposition would never defeat President Bashar al-Assad’s army even if "armed to the teeth," APA reports quoting AFP.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops stormed and shelled several towns or villages from early Wednesday, following fierce assaults and clashes the previous day which left at least 80 people dead.

"From the Turkish border in the northeast to Daraa in the south, military operations are ongoing," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based group, told AFP.

"Tanks are still shelling or storming towns and villages before going back to their bases," he added. "That does not mean they are withdrawing."

The assaults were taking place despite Assad’s pledge to implement by April 10 a six-point peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

The Observatory has charged that the army is torching and looting rebel houses across the country in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity.

On Wednesday, seven people were killed in the central city of Homs -- four rebels who died in clashes with the regular army in the neighbourhood of Qussur and three civilians, including a man and his son, the Observatory said.

Also in Homs province, three civilians including a woman were killed by rockets near the border with Lebanon, while a soldier was killed in heavy fighting in the rebel city of Qusayr.

In the province of Idlib in Jabal al-Zawiya area a former political prisoner Ahmed al-Othman and his brother were killed as tank fire struck their car.

An elderly man was also killed in indiscriminate firing in the province as houses were burned and raided in the village of Taftanaz, the Observatory said.

In Deir Ezzor, a rebel hiding in the village of Zibari was killed by gunfire, while in Damascus a "bomb under the car of a pro-regime man" exploded causing no casualties.

And an explosion in a building in the town of Beit Sahem killed three civilians and wounded 15.

The Observatory said at least 80 people were killed on Tuesday, mostly civilians slain in military assaults and in fighting between troops and rebels.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, predicted the under-equipped rebel force would never be able to defeat Syria’s powerful military.

"It is clear as day that even if the Syrian opposition is armed to the teeth, it will not be able to defeat the government’s army," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying while on a visit to the ex-Soviet nation of Azerbaijan.

"Instead, there will be carnage that lasts many, many years -- mutual destruction."

Lavrov said that two groups of Syrian opposition representatives will be visiting Moscow in the coming days and that Russia will be using the meetings to convince them that it wants to help resolve the year-long crisis.

Annan on Monday told the UN Security Council that Assad had agreed to "immediately" start pulling troops out of protest cities and complete a troop and heavy weapons withdrawal by April 10.

But the United States accused the Syrian leader the following day of failing to honour his pledged troop withdrawal.

"The assertion to Kofi Annan was that Assad would start implementing his commitments immediately to withdraw from cities. I want to advise that we have seen no evidence today that he is implementing any of those commitments," US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

With international concern growing, a draft UN Security Council statement was drawn up asking Syria to respect the April 10 deadline, according to a copy of the text seen by AFP.

The draft also urges the Syrian opposition to cease hostilities within 48 hours after Assad’s regime makes good on its pledges.

It calls on all parties to respect a two-hour daily humanitarian pause, as called for in Annan’s plan.

Negotiations on the text -- distributed by Britain, France and the United States -- began on Tuesday. France’s UN envoy Gerard Araud said he hoped it would be adopted late Wednesday or on Thursday.

Russia, Assad’s veto-wielding ally in the Council, has rejected the idea of a deadline, with Lavrov saying "ultimatums and artificial deadlines rarely help matters."

Seeking to assuage humanitarian concerns, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem pledged Damascus would do its utmost to ensure the success of a Red Cross mission, at a meeting on Tuesday with visiting ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger.

Kellenberger, who is pushing for a daily ceasefire, travelled on Wednesday to Daraa to assess the humanitarian needs there, the ICRC said.

Two lorries filled with food aid and hygiene kits, as well as 500 blankets, were unloaded at Red Cross depots in Daraa ready for distribution, ICRC spokesman in Damascus Saleh Dabbakeh told AFP.