Brahimi Pushes Truce Plan with Syria Leaders
Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Saturday pressed Damascus for a truce to break the cycle of bloodshed, as Lebanon's opposition blamed President Bashar Assad for a deadly Beirut bombing.
But even as Brahimi went into a meeting with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Damascus, fighting raged on northern battlefields, where regime jets resumed bombarding the key town of Maaret al-Numan which rebels captured on October 9.
U.N.-Arab League envoy Brahimi is hoping to secure a ceasefire during the four-day Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday starting October 26, which he believes could pave the way for other, more permanent peace initiatives.
"We will have discussions here with the government, the political parties and civil society about the situation in Syria," Brahimi said when he arrived in Damascus on Friday.
"We will talk about the need to reduce the current violence and about whether it is possible to stop for the occasion of Eid al-Adha."
He is also expected to hold talks with Assad at a later date.
Brahimi is backed by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi who believe that if a truce is agreed during Eid, it could be extended to bring some respite in the 19-month conflict that has already killed more than 34,000 people.
Washington too has backed the truce call.
"We urge the Syrian government to stop all military operations and call on opposition forces to follow suit," said a State Department statement.
Damascus has said it is ready to discuss the truce plan with Brahimi, while the opposition says the regime must take the first step and halt its daily bombardments.
Fears the civil war is spilling over Syria's borders were compounded when a massive car bomb exploded in Lebanon's capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least three people, including a senior intelligence official linked to the anti-Damascus camp in Lebanon, General Wissam al-Hassan.
The anti-Syria opposition in Lebanon accused Assad of being behind the attack which has heightened tensions in the region.
Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah is a strong ally of Assad, a member of the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam whose forces are battling a Sunni-led uprising that erupted in March 2011.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi condemned what he called a "terrorist, cowardly" attack. Such incidents were "unjustifiable wherever they occur," he said.
-- Jets bombard Maaret al-Numan --
On the ground rebels and regime forces remained locked in battles, with Syrian warplanes bombarding Maaret al-Numan again Saturday and clashes erupting on a nearby highway, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
One rebel was killed in fighting after insurgents attacked a military convoy on the highway south of Maaret al-Numan, which connects the northern city of Aleppo with Damascus, the Observatory said.
The military wants to regain control of the highway to resupply units under fire in Aleppo for the past three months and assist 250 troops besieged in their Wadi Deif base.
Troops battered the town on Friday a day after strikes on a residential area killed dozens of people, nearly half of them children, rescuers told an Agence France Presse reporter at the scene.
Rebels showed AFP debris from cluster bombs they accused the air force of dropping on residential areas, as well as dozens of others that failed to explode on impact.
Human Rights Watch has accused Syria of using cluster bombs, a charge denied by the military.
The Observatory said at least 133 people were killed in nationwide violence Friday -- 55 civilians, 45 soldiers and 33 rebels.
With the fallout from the conflict reverberating across the region, Washington has reportedly stepped up intelligence cooperation with Turkey, whose ties with Assad's regime have rapidly deteriorated.
The Washington Post reported that military officials from the United States and Turkey have drawn up contingency plans for no-fly zones over Syria and discussed seizing Syria's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
The paper reported that a tip from U.S. intelligence agencies had led the Turkish military to intercept a Syrian passenger jet en route from Moscow to Damascus last week.
The plane was carrying "radar and electrical parts for Syria's Russian-made anti-aircraft systems," The Post quoted an unnamed official as saying. That incident sparked a diplomatic row between Turkey, Russia and Syria.
Tension between Damascus and Ankara has spiked since Syrian shells thundered across the border and killed five Turkish civilians on October 3.
In the latest tit-for-tat shelling, Turkish artillery on Friday struck back at Syria after two Syrian shells landed on the country's territory, Turkey's state-run television TRT reported.
Source: Agence France Presse
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