Near miss for UN Syria team

A ROADSIDE bomb struck a Syrian military convoy yesterday, wounding six soldiers just seconds after a vehicle carrying the head of the United Nations observer mission passed by.

The attack was “a graphic experience that the Syrian people live with every day,” the head of the UN observer mission, Major General Robert Mood, said afterwards.

The blast happened after Maj Gen Mood headed into the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian uprising, with a convoy of monitors and journalists.

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“We were driving behind the UN convoy as protection when a roadside bomb exploded, wounding a first lieutenant and five troops,” a soldier who asked to be identified only by his first name, Yahya, said at the scene.

At least three bloodied soldiers were rushed away.

Maj Gen Mood said he did not know whether the blast was meant to target the observers or the military.

“For me, the important thing is really not speculating about who was the target, what was the target, but it is to make the point that this is what the Syrian people [are] seeing every day and it needs to stop,” he said. “Whoever is doing it and whoever is supporting it.”

It is not clear who was behind the bombing. However, Syria’s rebel leader, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, yesterday threatened to resume attacks because the government has not honoured a ceasefire, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported. Col Al-Asaad told the paper that “our people are demanding that we defend them”.

The comments could deal yet another blow to a peace plan brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan which calls for a truce monitored by observers to pave the way for negotiations for a resolution.

On Tuesday, Mr Annan gave a bleak assessment of the crisis in Syria and said violence remained at “unacceptable levels”. He warned that his peace plan is the country’s last chance to avert a civil war.

Mr Annan insisted there is still hope and said the presence of UN observers has had a calming effect on the crisis, which has killed at least 9,000 people since March 2011.

His efforts have been troubled from the start. A truce that was to begin on 12 April has never really taken hold. About 60 UN observers are in Syria, and Mr Annan said that a full deployment of 300 should be in place by the end of the month. Syria has become one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Arab Spring, and world powers have been unable to stop the violence. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has a firm grip on power and his regime portrays its opponents as terrorists.

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Although the death toll mounts daily, the UN has ruled out any military intervention of the type that helped bring down Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, in part out of fear that it could make the conflict worse. Syria is an important geopolitical hub with a web of allegiances to powerful forces, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and close ally Iran.

On Tuesday night, Syria’s UN envoy Bashar Ja’afari displayed a CD containing what he said were confessions of 26 Arabs caught in Syria who had come from Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere via Turkey and Lebanon “to perpetrate terrorist acts”.

Mr Ja’afari said forces had killed another 15 foreign fighters and he urged Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to stop “their sponsorship of the armed rebellion”.

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