Syria Crisis: UN Monitors Alone Cannot End Bloodshed, Mission Chief Says

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Syria Crisis: UN Monitors Alone Cannot End Bloodshed, Mission Chief Says

May 18th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

DAMASCUS, Syria — The head of a U.N. observer team in Syria cautioned Friday that the mission cannot achieve a permanent end to the violence without genuine talks between the two sides that have been locked in a violent conflict for more than a year.

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of the 200-strong observer team, spoke as government forces pounded a rebel-held town north of the central city of Homs with artillery shells and rockets, according to Syrian opposition groups.

Mood warned that no number of observers can achieve “a permanent end to the violence if the commitment to give dialogue a chance is not genuine from all internal and external actors.” He spoke at a news conference in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

International powers have pinned their hopes on a peace plan for Syria that special envoy Kofi Annan brokered in April. The plan paved the way for the U.N. observers, and it calls for a cease-fire and dialogue to stop 15 months of bloodshed.

The U.N. estimated in March that the violence in Syria has killed more than 9,000 people. Hundreds more have been killed since then as a revolt that began with mostly peaceful calls for reform has transformed into an armed insurgency.

Both sides have flouted the cease-fire, raising concerns that the peace plan is ineffective in a conflict where the violence is spinning out of control.

“We condemn in the strongest terms violence in all its forms by all parties,” Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for Annan, said in Geneva. “This must come to an end for any political process to be launched and to have a glimmer of success.”

But dialogue seems a distant hope. The opposition refuses to engage with the regime while the killings continue, and the government brands its opponents as terrorists.

Syrian President Bashar Assad denies that there is a popular will behind the country’s uprising, saying foreign extremists are driving the unrest to destroy the country.

Friday’s shelling is part of an offensive that has been going on for days as the regime tries to retake the town of Rastan, which has been under the control of rebels since January.

Two main activist groups, the Local Coordination Committees and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for human rights, said Rastan was under intense shelling as of Friday morning. Videos posted online showed thick smoke and shells slamming into districts in Rastan.

“I am more convinced than ever that no amount of violence can resolve this crisis,” Mood said in Damascus. He also said recent suicide bombs and roadside blasts were alarming. “I am concerned about the incidents where explosives, improvised devices are targeting innocent civilians, innocent people because it is not going to help the situation.”

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believes that “alarmingly and surprisingly,” al-Qaida must have been behind the massive attack in the Syrian capital last week.

The twin suicide car bombings outside a military intelligence building on May 10 bore the al-Qaida-style tactics seen in neighboring Iraq. Some 55 people died and dozens were injured in the Damascus blasts.

Ban said that al-Qaida’s involvement in the region “has created very serious problems.”

He also noted that there have also been two attacks against unarmed U.N. monitors trying to reduce the violence in Syria that began more than a year ago with a popular uprising against Assad.

His comments were made to students attending the annual Model U.N. Conference in New York.

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Karam reported from Beirut. AP writer John Heilprin contributed from Geneva.

Reuters obtained footage from the interview Syrian president Bashar Assad gave Russian TV earlier this week. “There are foreign mercenaries, some of them still alive,” Assad told the channel.

Reuters reports a deputy of UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan plans to travel to Syria in the next days.

New footage uploaded to YouTube purportedly shows a UN observer under attack in Idlib, Syria.

The convoy of a team of UN observers came under attack on May 15, 2012, in the province of Khan Sheikhoun. While none of the observers were injured, they were stranded and forced to spend the night with rebel forces, Reuters reports.

The footage below allegedly shows a member of the UN observer team during the attack in Khan Sheikhoun. The videos, tweeted on Thursday by user @HamaEcho, could not be independently verified.

In the first, a man wearing a blue UN observer vest army-crawls away from the fire before being pulled from the street by two men.

Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun resigned as head of the Syrian National Council, amid mounting criticism of the umbrella group.

“I am announcing my resignation as head of the Council. I call on the Syrian opposition to break the cycle of conflicts and preserve unity,” Ghalioun told Al Arabiya.

In this image made from amateur video released by the Shaam News Network and accessed Tuesday, May 15, 2012, purports to show Syrians running from gun shots in Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib, Syria. A team of international observers were evacuated Wednesday from a tense town in northern Syria a day after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, a U.N. spokesman said. The team’s vehicles were struck by the blast Tuesday during a mission in the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video)

The Local Coordination Committees threatened on Thursday to withdraw from the Syrian National Committee — the umbrella of Syria’s opposition groups.

The AP writes:

The SNC, whose members are largely Syrian exiles, has tried with little success to gather the opposition under its umbrella and has alienated minorities inside Syria, including the Kurds and Alawites. Other opposition groups accuse it of trying to monopolize power.