* Assad’s forces bombard Aleppo, storm town in oil-producing
east
* New Syria envoy Brahimi: urgent need to clarify UN support
for mission
* Assad’s deputy Shara “welcomes Brahimi appointment”
* U.N. to maintain “liaison office” in Damascus
By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Syria denied reports on Saturday
that President Bashar al-Assad’s deputy had defected and his
forces pursued an offensive against rebels, bombarding parts of
Aleppo in the north and attacking an insurgent-held town in the
oil-producing east.
Vice-President Farouq al-Shara “never thought for a moment
about leaving the country”, said a statement from his office
broadcast on state television issued in response to reports that
the veteran Baath Party loyalist had tried to defect to Jordan.
Assad, battling a 17-month-old rebellion led by Syria’s
Sunni Muslim majority that has escalated into civil war, has
suffered a string of defections including his prime minister
Riyadh Hijab two weeks ago.
Shara, whose cousin – an intelligence officer – announced
his own defection on Thursday, is a Sunni Muslim from Deraa
province where the revolt began against Assad, a member of the
minority Alawite sect that is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.
The 73-year-old former foreign minister kept a low profile
as the rebellion mushroomed but appeared in public last month at
a state funeral for three of Assad’s top security officials
killed in a bomb attack in Damascus.
The statement said he had worked since the start of the
uprising to find a peaceful, political solution and welcomed the
appointment of Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi as a new
international mediator for Syria.
Brahimi, who hesitated for days to accept a job that
France’s U.N. envoy Gerard Araud called an “impossible mission,”
will replace former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is
leaving at month’s end in frustration over geo-political
jostling among world powers that undermined his peace mandate.
Annan’s six-point plan to stop the violence and advance
towards political negotiations was based on an April ceasefire
agreement which never took hold. The conflict has deepened since
then with both sides stepping up attacks.
Assad’s forces have resorted increasingly to air power to
hold back lightly armed insurgents in the capital Damascus and
Aleppo, a northern commercial hub. More than 18,000 people have
died in the bloodshed and some 170,000 have fled the country as
a result of the fighting, according to the United Nations.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army
bombarded neighbourhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. Rebels
hold several districts in the country’s northern commercial hub
and have tried to push back an army counter-offensive.
State television said soldiers “cleared terrorists and
mercenaries” – terms used by authorities to describe Assad’s
armed opponents – from the western district of Saif al-Dawla,
where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place.
Internet footage which activists said was filmed in Saif
al-Dawla on Saturday showed a plane making a low pass over
buildings and dropping two bombs.
“They were defeated (in Damascus). They will be defeated
very soon in Aleppo,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told
Sky News in Damascus. Mekdad also denied the “absolutely
scandalous” reports of Shara’s defection.
The Observatory also said at least 20 armoured vehicles
moved into the eastern town of Mayadeen in Deir al-Zor province,
where Syria’s 200,000 barrels per day of oil are produced.
More than 130 people were killed in Syria on Saturday, it
said, including 15 in Deir al-Zor.
In the town of Tel, north of Damascus, local activists said
the bodies of 40 people killed by bombardment were gathered
together for a joint burial. A picture showed what appeared to
be several corpses wrapped in colourful blankets on a street.
BRAHIMI WARNS ON U.N. SUPPORT FOR MISSION
Brahimi will have a new title, Joint Special Representative
for Syria. Diplomats said this was to distance him from Annan,
who complained that his peaceful transition plan was crippled by
divisions between Western powers – who want Assad out – and
Russia, his most important ally – in the U.N. Security Council.
Describing the situation in Syria as “absolutely terrible”,
he told Reuters he urgently needed to clarify what support the
United Nations can give him and said it was too soon to say
whether Assad should step down – in contrast to Annan who said
it was clear the Syrian leader “must leave office”.
“It’s much too early for me to say. I don’t know enough
about what is happening,” Brahimi said. He had not yet held any
talks with Assad but said he would meet him and the country’s
opposition leaders as soon as the time was right.
Syrian opposition figure Haitham al-Maleh said Brahimi had
no more chance of success than Annan’s doomed mission.
“The same way the Syrian regime caused the Arab monitors
mission, international monitors delegation and Kofi Annan’s
initiative to fail, they will cause the failure of Lakhdar
Brahimi,” he said at the inauguration of the Cairo headquarters
of the Council for the Syrian Revolution.
The last U.N. observers who deployed in Syria four months
ago to monitor Annan’s failed ceasefire will leave after
midnight on Sunday, when their mandate expires.
They will leave a “liaison office” open in Damascus after
their departure, though its size and role have not been
finalised, a U.N. spokeswoman said.
The head of the departing U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria,
General Babacar Gaye, criticised both government forces and
rebels for failing to meet obligations to protect civilians from
“this violence which is causing such suffering to the innocent
people of Syria”.
“The comfort for me is that the United Nations will stay in
the country,” he told reporters in Damascus. “The United Nations
is committed to ending violence, committed to triggering
dialogue between the parties.”
Humanitarian conditions in Syria have deteriorated as
fighting worsens, cutting off civilians from food supplies,
health care and other assistance, U.N. agencies say.
Sewage-contaminated water has led to a diarrhoea outbreak in the
countryside around Damascus, with 103 suspected cases.
Some 1.2 million people are uprooted in Syria, many staying
in schools or other public buildings, U.N. officials say. U.N.
humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, ending a visit to Syria, said
on Thursday up to 2.5 million people needed aid there.
