วันอาทิตย์ที่ 21 ตุลาคม พ.ศ. 2555

Brahimi urges ceasefire as bomb rocks Damascus

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Sunday appealed to both sides in Syria's conflict to cease fire for a Muslim holiday this week after meeting President Bashar al-Assad, even as a deadly blast rocked Damascus.
Lebanon's opposition, meanwhile, called for a huge demonstration against the Syrian regime at the funeral later Sunday of a top police intelligence chief killed in a Beirut car bombing which it has blamed on Damascus.
In Damascus, a bomb exploded outside a police station in a Christian quarter of the Old City, killing seven people and wounding many others, officials and state media said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a toll of 10 dead and 15 wounded as a car bomb blew up outside the station in Bab Tuma, where many in the minority community fear Islamists in the anti-Assad revolt.
The bombing came as UN-Arab League envoy Brahimi, after holding talks with Assad, called for "unilateral" ceasefires by the regime and the rebels for the Eid al-Adha holidays that starts on Friday.
"I appeal to everyone to take a unilateral decision to cease hostilities on the occasion of Eid al-Adha and that this truce be respected from today or tomorrow," he said.
The UN-Arab League envoy told reporters that the ceasefire call was his "personal initiative, not a blueprint for peace."
"This is a call to every Syrian, on the street, in the village, fighting in the regular army and its opponents, for them to take a unilateral decision to stop hostilities," he said.
Brahimi added he had contacted political opposition leaders inside and outside Syria and armed groups in the country. "We found them to be very favourable" to the idea of a truce, he said, in a cautious note of optimism.
"We will return to Syria after the Eid (feast) and if calm really takes hold during the feast, we will continue to work" on ending the 19-month conflict, said Brahimi, on his second mission to Damascus since taking up the post in September.
Assad, in the meeting with Brahimi, said he was "open to all sincere efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis on the basis of a rejection of any foreign interference," state news agency SANA reported.
The president stressed calls for "a halt to terrorism" and "commitment on the part of certain implicated countries to stop harbouring, supporting and arming terrorists" in Syria.
In a meeting on Saturday, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Brahimi discussed "a halt to the violence ... in order to prepare for a global Syrian dialogue, free of any foreign intervention," SANA said.
Syria has repeatedly accused its neighbour Turkey as well as energy-rich Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting the armed insurgency.
Hassan Abdel Azim of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria, a tolerated opposition group not involved in the armed revolt, on Saturday voiced support for the proposed truce.
Such a ceasefire could pave the way for a political process if it was broadened to include the release of prisoners held by the regime and the supply of medical aid to beleaguered citizens, he said.
Brahimi has visited several countries with influence in the Syrian conflict over the past week, including Lebanon and Iran, while warning that the violence could spread and set the entire region ablaze.
These fears were compounded when a massive car bomb exploded on Friday in Beirut, killing at least eight people including a senior police intelligence chief linked to the anti-Damascus camp in Lebanon, General Wissam al-Hassan.
Lebanon, which was under Syrian military and political domination for 30 years until 2005, has been divided over the conflict in Syria and the scene of violence between supporters and opponents of the Damascus regime.
Damascus has emerged the prime suspect in the assassination of Hassan, although Syria joined international condemnation of the killings.
On the ground, clashes were reported on Sunday in several parts of Syria, including Damascus province and the northern city of Aleppo, a key battleground for the past three months.
Clashes and shelling were also reported in the town of Harasta, north of the capital, the Observatory said, adding that regime forces bombed orchards in the nearby towns of Douma and Zamalka.
Bodies of a woman and five children were removed from under the rubble in the town of Saqba in Damascus province, while fierce fighting was reported in the capital's district of Assali.
The Britain-based Observatory said 130 people died in violence across the country on Saturday, adding to its estimated toll of more than 34,000 killed since March 2011.
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