Syria Today | 7-February- 2012

Daily News Brief

7 February 2012

Russian FM visits Damascus as the US closes its embassy there
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Damascus today in order to seek “the swiftest stabilization of the situation in Syria,” according to the Russian foreign ministry.

The visit triggered "a massive popular reception in appreciation of Russia's support to Syria " , state-run news agency SANA reported, with huge crowds rallying in Damascus and Aleppo.

A spokesman for the internal opposition NCC, Abdel-Aziz al-Kheir, told private Syrian daily Al-Watan that his own sources indicated that the visit "will stress the need to abandon the way of military resolution " .

After speaking with Lavrov yesterday, Nabil al-Arabi, secretary general of the Arab League, told Reuters that Russia believes that its initiative could end the crisis in the wake of the UN veto. Al-Araby declined to offer his own assessment of the Russian initiative.

Syrian and Libyan demonstrators pelted the Chinese embassy in Tripoli yesterday with rocks and eggs in anger over their veto of a UN resolution condemning Syria, the agency also reported.

On the same day, the US announced the closure of its embassy in Damascus, citing security concerns.  The US president, Barack Obama, emphasized on NBC’s Today Show the importance of resolving the crisis “without recourse to outside military intervention " . However, he said, "it is time for Assad to go " , adding that it is "a matter of when " , not if.  

Britain recalled its foreign minister William Hague for consultations, Reuters reported. Hague told the House of Commons that the Syrian government is “a doomed regime”. After holding talks with the German chancellor, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, announced the formation of a “Libya-style international contact group on Syria”, according to Al-Jazeera.  

In Geneva, Switzerland announced the addition of 34 more named to the 109 individuals included in sanctions on Syria, London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat reported. These include the minister of finance, Mohammad al-Jleilati, and the minister of economy, Mohammad Nidal al-Cha’ar, as well as senior military officials and senior officials in the Ministry of the Interior.

New Opposition Military Council announced as violence is renewed in Homs, Zabadani and Idleb
Heavy attacks continued in Homs yesterday, with the BBC reporting a city-wide death toll of 95. Its correspondent in the Bab Amr neighborhood, Paul Wood, reported that government forces were within one kilometer of the neighborhood, and that residents had been informed that “the shelling would continue until Thursday, when troops were expected to move in.” The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported 29 civilians killed yesterday in the city, and that "the number is expected to rise due to the presence of wounded who are in critical condition".

Syrian media denied these reports, stating that locals are “burning tires…to give the impression that the army is shelling them,” according to SANA. The agency also reported that “terrorist groups…shelled residential areas with mortar shells,” and “set off an explosive device in al-Khalidiye neighborhood that caused no injuries or casualties.”  

The Ministry of the Interior stated that "heinous crimes " perpetrated by “armed terrorist groups in Homs had " claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians,” and that these acts had “pushed the authorities to intervene and deal with them...until we gain back security over all neighborhoods in Homs, SANA also reported, adding that 6 law-enforcement members had been killed, along with “scores of terrorists.”

Violence was also renewed in Damascus countryside. The SOHR reported that "more than 200 armored vehicles including tanks " had entered the towns of Zabadani and Madaya and shelled them heavily, causing an "exodus " from Zabadani. The BBC reported three killed in these attacks, according to Local Coordination Committees’ reports. The SOHR also reported one person killed in Aleppo, five in Idleb province, including two women and a child, and three officers and 19 soldiers killed in an attack by defectors on a checkpoint.

Yesterday Syrian army defectors announced the formation of a higher military council “to liberate Syria,” headed by General Mustafa Ahmed al-Sheikh, the highest ranking military official to defect, Reuters reported. However, the leader of the Free Syrian Army, Colonel Riyadh al-Asa’ad, rejected the move, according to Al-Jazeera, saying that General Sheikh "represents nobody but himself. "