BEIRUT: Syrian troops and Hezbollah guerrillas besieging the border town of Qusayr fought with rebels yesterday as the United Nations warned all sides they would be held accountable for the suffering of trapped civilians.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting was taking place inside Qusayr and in villages around it, largely controlled by President Bashar Al Assad’s forces who have cut off access to the town.
Rebels have pleaded for military help and medical aid for the hundreds of people wounded in the onslaught by government forces, who are also fighting back fiercely around the capital Damascus and the south and centre of the country.
The battle for Qusayr is happening as the United States and Russia seek to overcome deep differences over Syria and bring the two sides to the negotiating table for a political solution to the civil war in which 80,000 people have been killed.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was monitoring the battle for Qusayr “with the gravest concern” and called on both sides to allow civilians to escape the town, usually home to 30,000 people. “The eyes of the world are upon them, and ... they will be held accountable for any acts of atrocity carried out against the civilian population of Qusayr,” a UN statement said.
UN emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said they were alarmed that thousands of civilians may be trapped in Qusayr.
“We understand there may also be as many as 1,500 wounded people in urgent need of immediate evacuation for emergency medical treatment, and that the general situation in Qusayr is desperate,” they said in a joint statement.
The Observatory, an anti-Assad network that monitors the violence in Syria through medical and security sources on the ground, said at least one person was killed during fighting inside Qusayr and that Assad’s troops were being reinforced ahead of a possible assault on the remaining rebel-held areas.
Rebels also tried to attack the nearby Daba military air base, seized by the army on Wednesday, and fought Assad’s troops around Daba village, it said.
The two-week battle for Qusayr is aimed at securing supply routes near the Syrian-Lebanese frontier, which both sides accuse the other of using to bolster their forces inside Syria.
For Assad, seizing Qusayr would also allow him to cement control of a belt of territory between the capital Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.
The prominent role of guerrillas from Lebanon’s Shia group Hezbollah has angered rebels, who have threatened to take the battle into Lebanon unless Hezbollah withdraws.
Early yesterday, at least seven rockets were fired into Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley from rebel-controlled Syrian territory, security sources said.
Most of the rockets landed in empty fields. No one was hurt but some buildings were hit by shrapnel. It was the first time the area, about 60km east of Beirut, had been struck by rockets.
Several barrages have fallen in the northern Bekaa Valley and on Sunday two rockets were fired at the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed his fighters would battle in Syria to victory whatever the cost.
US slams russia
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry strongly condemned Russia’s pledge to sell an advanced missile system to Damascus, questioning Moscow’s commitment to end the Syrian conflict, as concern grew for civilians trapped in the battle for a key Syrian town.
Speaking from Washington, Kerry warned that the planned delivery of S-300 air defence missiles to Damascus was “not helpful” as the US and Russia pressed on with their joint efforts to set up a peace conference, dubbed Geneva 2, to try to end the Syrian conflict. Kerry said the delivery would have a “profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the region, and it does put Israel at risk”.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, in Washington for talks with Kerry, also appealed to Russia to consider. “I would like to make this absolutely clear. We tell our Russian colleagues, don’t endanger the conference in Geneva,” he said. “The delivery of weapons to the Assad regime is totally wrong,” he said.
Russia’s Vedomosti and Kommersant newspapers said Moscow might not deliver the missiles this year, rejecting claims they had already arrived. Russian news agency Interfax reported that Moscow could supply 10 ultra-modern MiG-29 fighter jets to Syria under a possible contract being discussed with Damascus.
Reuters/AFP
