Syria: Angry crowds attack UN observers on way to embattled town

Angry crowds prevented UN observers from reaching an embattled rebel-held town in Syria yesterday, hurling stones and metal rods at the monitors’ vehicles and opening fire as the convoy drove away from Haffeh.

The western town of Haffeh is about 20 miles from president Bashar al-Assad’s home town of Kardaha. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said residents of nearby villages were regime loyalists from the leader’s own Alawite Muslim sect. The opposition is dominated by the Sunni Muslim majority.

International envoy Kofi Annan said on Monday he was worried residents were trapped in Haffeh, while the United States said it feared a “potential massacre” was underway, after two reported mass killings in other provinces over the past three weeks.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday directly accused Russia of sending a new shipment of attack helicopters to assist Damascus in suppressing the rebels.

“We have confronted the Russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to Syria. They have, from time to time, said that we shouldn’t worry – everything they are shipping is unrelated to their [the Syrian government’s] actions internally.

That’s patently untrue,” Ms Clinton said at an appearance organised by the Brookings Institute think tank. “And we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria,” she said.

Moscow has so far provided diplomatic cover for Syria on the UN security council, vetoing any attempt to pass a resolution calling for Mr Assad to leave power. It has repeatedly denied selling arms to the government, and has accused unspecified foreign powers of arming the rebels.

Rebels in Haffeh said yesterday they were scrambling to smuggle out civilians trapped amid heavy shelling.

Three fighters contacted by phone said that hundreds of rebels who have joined a 15-month-old uprising against Mr Assad are bearing the brunt of a tank and helicopter-backed assault on their district, which is tucked among rugged foothills near Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

“Every few days we manage to open a route to get out the wounded, so some families were able to escape yesterday,” said a rebel who called himself Abdulwudud.

The Syrian foreign ministry yesterday responded with anger to talk of a massacre in Haffeh, accusing the United States of “blatant interference in internal Syrian affairs”.

Rebels said they had sent civilians to the outskirts of Haffeh when the eight-day siege began, but that those areas were now also being shelled. The army and pro-Assad militia men were surrounding Haffeh, they added.

The two main rebel activist groups yesterday also reported clashes in areas including the central province of Homs, the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo and areas around the capital Damascus and the southern province of Daraa.