Syria conflict moves nearer to president’s power base

Published on 02/07/2012 00:00

Syrian forces swept through the corpse-strewn streets of near-deserted opposition districts on the outskirts of the capital Damascus yesterday, as the conflict enters a new phase of heavier fighting near Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power.

Government troops also bombed and shelled other towns across the country, a day after Russian diplomats rode again to Mr Assad’s rescue, blocking a deal at a meeting of world powers that would have called on the president to leave power.

Sixteen months into an uprising against Mr Assad in which more than 10,000 people have been killed, intensive fighting and shelling has now reached the outskirts of Damascus. New tension has also built up on the frontier with Turkey in recent days after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish jet.

Residents of the Zamalka district on the capital’s outskirts were struggling yesterday to bury dozens of people killed the day before in a mortar attack on an anti-Assad march, opposition activist Susan Ahmad reported from the Damascus suburbs.

More than 40 people were killed in the attack on Saturday when security forces fired a mortar bomb into a funeral procession in Zamalka.

“It is really bad today across Damascus,” said Ms Ahmad. “Zamalka was like a massacre, but we couldn’t bury all of the martyrs as it is dangerous to be out on the streets and we can’t treat the wounded. There is no medicine.”

Government troops were raiding Zamalka and Douma, a town of half a million people on the outskirts of Damascus that now stands almost empty after siege and shelling as the army tried to root out rebels, she said.

“Douma is completely destroyed. If you go to Douma you can smell the bodies. It’s really like a ghost city.”

On Saturday, Free Syrian Army fighters fled the town and residents said they feared a massacre at the hands of troops entering it.

Turkey yesterday scrambled F-16 fighters near the frontier in response to three separate incidents after Syrian helicopters approached the border.

Turkey, a Nato member that has turned against Mr Assad and allowed its territory to become a rear base for rebels, has mobilised since Syrian forces shot down one of its jets ten days ago. It sent forces towards the border this week and said it would treat Syrian troops approaching the frontier as hostile.

Top level diplomacy has so far been futile, and a much- anticipated meeting in Geneva on Saturday showed that Western and Arab states had yet to persuade Russia and China to drop support for Mr Assad.

The two countries have repeatedly vetoed calls for Assad to leave power.

The meeting, convened by peace envoy Kofi Annan, agreed that Syria should seek a transitional unity government, but Moscow and Beijing successfully blocked language that would have suggested the new arrangement should exclude Mr Assad.

Western officials say the text agreed at the talks – billed as a last-ditch effort to halt the worsening violence – still implies indirectly that Mr Assad should stand down, but Moscow says it does no such thing.