BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared on Tuesday that
his country was at war and ordered his new government to spare no effort to
achieve victory, as the worst fighting of the 16-month conflict reached the
outskirts of the capital.
Video published by activists recorded heavy gunfire and explosions in
suburbs of Damascus. A trail of fresh blood on a sidewalk in the suburb of
Qudsiya led into a building where one casualty was taken. A naked man
writhed in pain, his body pierced by shrapnel.
Syria's state news agency SANA said "armed terrorist groups" had blocked the
old road from Damascus to Beirut.
The declaration that Syria is at war marks a change of rhetoric from Assad,
who had long dismissed the uprising against him as the work of scattered
militants funded from abroad.
"We live in a real state of war from all angles," Assad told a cabinet he
appointed on Tuesday in a speech broadcast on state television.
"When we are in a war, all policies and all sides and all sectors need to be
directed at winning this war."
The rambling speech - Assad also commented on subjects as far afield as the
benefits of renewable energy - left little room for compromise. He denounced
the West, which "takes and never gives, and this has been proven at every
stage".
The United Nations accuses Syrian forces of killing more than 10,000 people
during the conflict, which began with a popular uprising and has built up
into an armed insurgency against four decades of rule by Assad and his
father.
The U.N. peacekeeping chief said it was too dangerous for a U.N. observer
team, which suspended operations this month, to resume monitoring a
ceasefire. The truce, part of a peace plan backed by international envoy
Kofi Annan, has long since been abandoned in all but name.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group which compiles reports from
rebels, said 115 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday, making it one
of the bloodiest days of the conflict. Its toll included 74 civilians it
said had been killed, including 28 in Qudsiya.
It described heavy fighting near the headquarters of the Republican Guard in
Qudsiya, and in other Damascus suburbs of al-Hama and Mashrou' Dumar, just 9
km from the capital.
SANA said dozens of rebels were killed or wounded and others arrested in
fighting on the old Beirut road. Government forces seized rocket launchers,
sniper rifles, machineguns and a huge amount of ammunition, it said.
Accounts from the rebels and the government cannot be verified because
access for journalists is restricted.
Samir al-Shami, an activist in Damascus, said tanks and armoured vehicles
were out on the streets of the suburbs.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Syria must beware the wrath of
Turkey after Syrian forces shot down a Turkish warplane on Friday at the
Mediterranean coast. He ordered his armed forces to react to any threat from
Syria near the border.
"Our rational response should not be perceived as weakness, our mild manners
do not mean we are a tame lamb," he told a meeting of his parliamentary
party. "Everybody should know that Turkey's wrath is just as strong and
devastating as its friendship is valuable."
NATO member states, summoned by Turkey to an urgent meeting in Brussels,
condemned Syria over the incident in which two airmen were killed. The
Western alliance called the incident "unacceptable" but stopped short of
threatening retaliation.
NATO's cautious wording demonstrated the fear of Western powers as well as
Turkey that armed intervention in Syria could stir sectarian war across the
region. So far there has been no sign of an appetite for intervention like
that carried out last year by NATO against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
NO ACTION "AT THIS STAGE"
A Turkish official said Ankara's ambassador had not asked the NATO envoys
for action "at this stage". Erdogan's speech was seen in Turkey as less
belligerent than it might have been.
"Those who want war may be disappointed by the prime minister's speech,"
Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand wrote. "But a big part of society
breathed a sigh of relief."
Nevertheless, Turkish officials say they are ready for scenarios that
include a possible need to protect civilians near the border. A Turkish
official who asked not to be identified said: "For Turkey there are two bad
scenarios: one, a mass influx of refugees and two, large-scale massacres in
Syria."
"Ankara has not taken a decision for military intervention or a humanitarian
corridor at the moment. But if these are needed, everybody would prefer that
they will be done with international legitimacy. However, if things go
really badly we have to be ready for any kind of eventuality," he added.
Erdogan said the armed forces' rules of engagement had been changed as a
result of the attack, which Turkey says took place without warning in
international air space.
"Every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border and
representing a security risk and danger will be assessed as a military
threat and will be treated as a military target," he said.
Russia, which has acted as Assad's main defender in the U.N. Security
Council, called for restraint and said shooting down the aircraft should not
be "viewed as a provocation or a premeditated action."
Syrian and Turkish accounts of the incident differ. Syria says it had no
choice but to take out the plane as it entered Syrian air space flying low
and at high speed. It found out it was Turkish only after the engagement.
Turkey insists its aircraft entered Syrian air space only briefly by
mistake.
Turkey is the base for the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and shelters more
than 30,000 refugees - a number Erdogan worries could rise sharply as
fighting spreads. Rebel soldiers move regularly across the border and
defectors muster inside Turkey.
Moscow has close relations with Damascus and has a naval base at Syria's
port city of Tartus close to the spot where the jet was downed. Some defence
experts said the Turkish plane could have been testing Russian-supplied
Syrian air defences.
Moscow-based defence think-tank CAST said Russia was expected to deliver
nearly half a billion dollars worth of air defence systems, repaired
helicopters and fighter jets to Syria this year despite international
pressure to halt the arms sales.
Russia said it was crucial Iran should also attend a meeting on Syria of the
five permanent U.N. Security Council members and regional players organised
by Annan in Geneva this weekend.
Western countries oppose Iran, Syria's closest regional ally, taking part in
the meeting and some diplomats have said it was not entirely clear whether
the meeting would take place.
(Additional reporting by Jon Hemming, Jonathon Burch and Tulay Karadeniz in
Ankara, Ayla Jean Yackley and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Mirna Sleiman in
Beirut, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, David
Brunnstrom in Washington and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations;
Writing by Peter Graff and Ralph Boulton; Editing by Michael Roddy)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Tue Jun 26 2012 - 18:23:49 EDT
