Violence rages across Syria
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- At least four people are killed in shelling or gunfire Sunday, an opposition activist group says
- Arab League members gather in Cairo to discuss its next steps on Syria
- Opposition group: At least 687 people, including 59 children, were killed last week
- Syrian state-run media says a military general was assassinated in Damascus
Are you there? Send us your images or video
(CNN) -- Syrian government forces are using detained civilians as human shields, placing them on tanks in the besieged city of Homs to prevent the opposition Free Syrian Army from fighting back, an opposition activist said.
The latest tactic came as shelling rained on city's Baba Amr neighborhood once again Sunday, residents say, marking at least the eighth straight day President Bashar al-Assad's troops have pummeled Homs in an attempt to wipe out the opposition.
"My house is dancing. I am almost dead because of the siege," said the opposition activist, named Omar.
Three civilians were killed in Sunday's shelling on Baba Amr, according the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition activist group. A fourth civilian was killed by gunfire near the town of Bab Houweid, the group said.
While residents in Homs wonder whether their house will be the next attacked, Arab League members gathered in Cairo on Sunday to discuss its next steps on Syria.
The international community has repeatedly failed to convince al-Assad's regime to stop the massacre, so it's unclear what effect the Arab League talks could have.
But U.N. diplomats are mulling another draft resolution -- this one brought forth by Saudi Arabia -- and are expected to convene Monday.
The Saudi draft resolution will be submitted to the U.N. General Assembly, where vetoes are not allowed, but resolutions are not legally binding. Russia and China have vetoed previous U.N. Security Council attempts at passing a resolution condemning the Syrian regime.
The latest, three-page draft "strongly condemns" the violations of human rights by Syrian authorities. It cites "the use of force against civilians, arbitrary executions, killing and persecution of protesters, human rights defenders and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence and ill-treatment, including against children."
The text was provided to CNN by a diplomatic source on the condition that it not be posted in full because it could be amended.
At least 687 people, including 59 children, died in the past week, the Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported late Saturday. About two-thirds of those deaths occurred in Homs, said the LCC, an opposition activist group.
The capital city of Damascus has not seen the level of bloodshed other cities have endured in the 11-month Syrian uprising, but the reported killing a Syrian general there could indicate the resistance is spreading to the seats of power.
An "armed terrorist group" assassinated Brig. Gen. Issa al-Kholi, a military physician who was the director of Hamish Hospital, in front of his Damascus house Saturday morning, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said. Three gunmen fatally shot him, the media outlet said.
Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said al-Kholi is from a powerful Alawite military family and is a relative of Mohammed al-Kholi, the former head of air force intelligence under Hafez al-Assad, President Bashar al-Assad's father and predecessor who ruled Syria for three decades.
The al-Assad family is Alawite, a minority in Sunni-dominated Syria that has a major presence in the military and government.
While al-Kholi was not likely a senior officer or affiliated with a key regime unit, his assassination is believed to be the first of a higher-ranking Syrian officer in the capital, said Jeffrey White, a defense analyst at the institute.
Free Syrian Army Lt. Col. Mohamed Hamado said al-Kholi is "definitely close to Bashar's inner circle" and that his family has been close to both Bashar al-Assad and his father. The Free Syrian Army is the anti-regime resistance group led by military defectors.
The deputy head of the Free Syrian Army said the killing could have been carried out by the regime itself.
The al-Assad regime "is now assassinating and targeting anyone they suspect of joining the revolution or thinking of defecting. That may have been the case with General al-Kholi," Col. Malek Al Kurdi said.
Al Kurdi claims the regime "assassinated" the deputy head of the armed forces, Gen. Bassam Najm el-Din Antakiali, in September, even though state media reported that he died of an "acute heart attack."
CNN cannot independently confirm details of the fighting in Syria because the government has severely limited the access of international journalists.
Al-Assad's regime has insisted its crackdown is aimed at armed gangs and foreign terrorists bent on destabilizing the regime.
But virtually all reports from within the country indicate al-Assad's forces are slaughtering protesters and other civilians en masse. Opposition activists in Homs describe relentless bomb explosions from Syrian forces, wounded people bleeding to death in the streets because they can't get medical attention and snipers picking off civilians running for cover.
U.N. officials estimate 6,000 people have died since protests seeking al-Assad's ouster began nearly a year ago. The LCC says the toll has far exceeded 7,000.
CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, Ivan Watson, Amir Ahmed, Joe Sterling, Richard Roth and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment