Jew World Order

GENEVA — The violence in Syria has worsened since a cease-fire deal in April and the bloodshed appears to be taking on dangerous sectarian overtones, the U.N. said Wednesday.

Investigators say they have concluded that Syrian government troops could be behind the killing of more than 100 civilians in the village of Houla last month. The findings, which were presented to the U.N.’s top human rights body, could lay some of the groundwork for prosecuting alleged crimes against humanity or war crimes in Syria.

Reflecting the sense of urgency, senior diplomats said world powers are planning to meet Saturday in Geneva in an attempt to end the bloodshed. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be joined by other top diplomats from U.N. Security Council nations and possibly neighbors of Syria.

Activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March last year.

The U.N.’s deputy envoy for Syria, Jean-Marie Guehenno, told the U.N. Human Rights Council that the violence in Syria has “reached or even surpassed” levels seen before the April 12 cease-fire agreement and that a six-point peace plan forged by his boss, U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, “is clearly not being implemented.”

Meanwhile, a U.N. probe into the massacre in the central Syrian village of Houla concluded that forces loyal to the government “may have been responsible” for many of the deaths.

The report by U.N.-appointed human rights experts says the military or pro-government shabiha forces had better access to the Houla village during the May massacre. The village leans toward the opposition and most of the victims were women and children who were slaughtered in their homes, it said.

“The manner in which these killings took place resembles those previously and repeatedly documented to have been committed by the government,” the head of the expert team, Brazilian professor and diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, told the U.N.’s top human rights body in Geneva.

However, he said a final verdict on who was responsible for the massacre would require further investigation by his team.

In unusually forceful language, Pinheiro also said interviews conducted by the commission “indicated that government forces and shabiha have committed acts of sexual violence against men, women and children.”

The panel said it concluded that growing numbers of Syrians also are being targeted in the country’s conflict on account of their religion.

“Where previously victims were targeted on the basis of their being pro- or anti-government, the Commission of Inquiry has recorded a growing number of incidents where victims appear to have been targeted because of their religious affiliation,” said the panel’s report delivered to the Human Rights Council.

Fayssal al-Hamwi, a Syrian ambassador in Geneva, charged that the allegations against the government are “quite fantastic.” Then calling the council meeting blatantly political, he said he no longer wished to participate and strode out.

The increasing militarization of both sides in the conflict has Syria lurching toward civil war. The failure of Annan’s internationally brokered peace plan has made it more difficult for outside observers, humanitarian workers and supplies to get into Syria or for reliable information to filter out.

U.N. officials were expected to make an announcement later Wednesday on the Saturday meeting. Guehenno, a former U.N. peacekeeping chief, said the Syrian government and rebel groups must be made to understand that there are “consequences” for failing to implement the peace plan.

“But this effort cannot be open-ended. Time is running out. Syria is spiraling into deeper and more destructive violence,” he said.

Russia and China, two of the Security Council’s five permanent members, have twice shielded Syria from U.N. sanctions.

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Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report.

Syria’s president Bashar Assad told his cabinet Syria finds itself in ‘a real state of war.’ “We live in a real state of war from all angles,” Assad said according to Reuters. “When we are in a war, all policies and all sides and all sectors need to be directed at winning this war.”

In a separate meeting, Assad reacted defiant against Turkish warnings after Damascus downed a Turkish airplane. “Our rational response should not be perceived as weakness, our mild manners do not mean we are a tame lamb,” Assad told told a meeting of his parliamentary party. “Everybody should know that Turkey’s wrath is just as strong and devastating as its friendship is valuable,” he added.

Read more on HuffPost World.

Amnesty International reports the charred, mutilated bodies of 3 young medical workers have been found, days after their arrest in the city of Aleppo.

The medical workers were part of a team of doctors, nurses and first-aiders who had been providing life-saving medical treatment in makeshift “field hospitals” set up to treat demonstrators shot by security forces who could not go to state-run hospitals for fear of being arrested, tortured or even killed.

Three men were students at Aleppo University – Basel Aslan and Mus’ab Barad were fourth-year medical students and Hazem Batikh was a second-year English literature student and a first-aid medic. A fourth charred corpse found with the men has yet to be identified.

Read more in Amnesty’s press release.

@ THE_47th :
Ghalioun in #Syria today.. Among FSA fighters http://t.co/lGtWOaxm

@ BreakingNews :
UN peacekeeping chief tells security council increasing danger not conducive for monitors in Syria to resume operations: envoy – @Reuters

@ Reuters :
Russia Foreign Ministry: Syria’s downing of Turkish plane should not be seen as provocation, premeditated action, watch http://t.co/NzQPj2jZ

Aid workers from the International Red Cross have launched a new attempt to reach the city of Homs, days after the organization announced it had been forced to retreat after a group of aid workers heard shooting as they entered the city. “The team will be making necessary contacts to ensure safe access and evacuate civilians who wish to leave, and to bring in assistance,” ICRC spokesman Bijan Farnoudi told Reuters. “We cannot foresee when the team will be able to do so.”

The ICRC has been pleaded for access to the embattled city for weeks, to evacuate thousands of civilians who are trapped in fighting between the Syrian army and opposition forces.

NATO condemned Syria over the downing of a Turkish plane last Friday, Reuters reports. NATO issued a warning against Damascus, but avoided threatening with action.

“The security of the alliance is indivisible, we stand together with Turkey in the spirit of strong solidarity,” NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen said. “We consider this act to be unacceptable and condemn it in the strongest terms.”

The UN is considering downsizing its observer mission in Syria, Reuters learnt. UN peacekeeping chief Ladsous and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon will brief the UN on the mission on July 2, and are expected to make recommendations on how the mission should proceed. “With violence increasing, the most likely option for the United Nations is to reduce or eliminate the (unarmed) m ilitary component of UNSMIS (U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria) while keeping a civilian component in place as a kind of liaison operation,” a senior Western envoy told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Read more on HuffPost World.

The electrical supply merchant had barely arrived for work when the day’s troubles began: Residents were complaining of fuel shortages, rebels had detained teenagers accused of robbing the high school and – most alarmingly – Shiite gunmen from a nearby village had kidnapped five Sunnis.

By mid-morning, a dozen men pensively sipped tea in Yasser Mamaar’s shop, hoping the head of their town’s revolutionary council would know what to do.

Puffing on a cigarette in a long, brown holder, the short, wrinkled, 55-year-old in a gray robe and matching sport coat made calls on an old green phone to find the missing men.

Ben Hubbard reports from Syria for the Associated Press. Read the full account on HuffPost World.