BLBG:Syria Pounds Rebel-Held Areas As U.S. Warns Of ‘Massacre’
Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shelled rebel-held areas in Aleppo as the U.S. warned of an impending “massacre.”
Six people died in the Aleppo attacks today, including the Imam of a mosque, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in an e-mailed statement. Government forces and rebels also clashed in the northern province of Idlib and Daraa in the south, it said. About 150 people were killed across the country yesterday, it said.
About 80 tanks are stationed outside the southern entrance to Aleppo yesterday in a sign that Assad’s forces may be preparing to storm Syria’s biggest city, Ahmed Zaidan, a member of the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said in a phone interview from Bab al-Hawa, a rebel-held border post.
“The government is trying to send more reinforcements, but members of the Free Syrian Army are delaying their advance by closing roads on the way or engaging the troops in clashes,” Zaidan said.
International and regional efforts have failed to end the violence in Syria, which began in March 2011 and has left at least 19,000 people dead, including about 5,000 government troops, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Civilians Shelled
A child was killed late yesterday when Syrians fleeing to the Jordanian border were hit by shellfire, Jordan’s official news agency Petra reported, citing State Minister for Media Affairs and Communications Sameeh Al Maayteh.
The U.S. has “grave concerns” about Assad’s military actions, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday in Washington. The U.S. is alarmed that that “we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that’s what the regime appears to be lining up for,” she said.
“This is a regime that will stop at nothing to hold on to power, and it is an extremely dangerous situation,” she said.
Nuland rejected comparisons to the situation last year when the U.S. and allies bombed Libyan government forces to avert a massacre of civilians in the then-opposition stronghold Benghazi. She said the U.S. doesn’t plan to act preemptively in Syria, instead continuing to provide non-lethal support to the opposition and to pursue diplomatic efforts to pressure Assad.
No Intervention
“The vast majority of Syrians continue not to want foreign military intervention, more weapons flowing into their country,” she said. “Instead, they want an end to this violence, they want Assad to leave, they want the violence to end, and they want the political transition to begin.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will discuss Syria, as well as tensions over Iran’s suspected nuclear activities, when he meets with officials in Israel and Jordan next week, Pentagon spokesman George Little said at a briefing yesterday. Panetta also will hold talks in Egypt and Tunisia, he said.
The BBC reported yesterday that thousands of residents are fleeing Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital with a population the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates at 3 million.
The newspaper Al-Watan, which is close to the government, led on Thursday with the headline “Aleppo, the mother of all battles,” according to Al Jazeera’s website. Citing an Arab diplomatic source, Al-Watan said, “Aleppo will be the last battle waged by the Syrian army to crush the terrorists and after that Syria will emerge from the crisis,” according to Al Jazeera.
Capital Fighting
Several areas around Damascus, the capital, came under intense mortar and artillery shelling yesterday, and helicopter gunships were used to bomb some suburbs including the vicinity of the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria said in an e-mail.
Assad yesterday ordered the establishment of a Damascus- based court for terrorism-linked crimes, state-run Syrian television said. Assad’s government refers to the rebels as terrorists.
The escalating violence forced Greece’s Foreign Ministry to shut down its embassy in Damascus as of yesterday. Consulates in Aleppo, Latakia and Tartus will remain open to aid any citizens requiring assistance, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement. It advised Greeks against traveling to Syria on July 18 and reiterated that recommendation yesterday.
To contact the reporters on this story: Donna Abu-Nasr in Manama at dabunasr@bloomberg.net; Nayla Razzouk in Dubai at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
