Syrian forces 'kill more than 40 outside mosque

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Perilous Times

Syrian forces 'kill more than 40 outside mosque

Syrian forces were accused of killing more than 40 people outside a mosque in the northern city of Idlib as the Assad regime widened an offensive aimed at inflicting a decisive blow against a faltering rebel campaign.

In what appeared to be a deliberate ambush against civilians, pro-regime forces opened fire as residents of Idlib gathered outside the city's al-Bilal mosque

By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent

7:16PM GMT 13 Mar 2012
The Telegraph UK

Government troops appeared to have cleared the last major pockets of resistance in Idlib, a major opposition stronghold, after the city was left only lightly defended following the withdrawal of most rebel fighters over the weekend.

Both opposition activists and pro-government media outlets reported the fall of Idlib after three days of sustained tank, machine-gun and artillery fire.

In what appeared to be a deliberate ambush against civilians, pro-regime forces opened fire as residents of Idlib gathered outside the city's al-Bilal mosque to view corpses that had been dumped there overnight by loyalist militiamen, opposition activists said. About 45 people were killed, according to witnesses.

It came as President Bashar al-Assad announced parliamentary elections for May 7 under a new constitution passed in February.

It also came a day after at least 16 civilians, mostly women and children, were burned or hacked to death in the Karm el-Zeytoun district of Homs. A Syrian opposition activist claimed that the government was carrying out evermore brutal atrocities against suspected opposition sympathisers in order to deprive rebels of support.

"We are seeing a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing with the intention of emptying anti-Assad neighbourhoods," the activist said. "Yet many have died as they attempt to flee, so the intention is also of maximising terror."

With the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad about to mark its first anniversary on Thursday, civilians are becoming increasingly vulnerable. At least 30,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries, with 200,000 more displaced within the country, the United Nations refugee agency reported.

Those who try to escape the country face an increasingly hazardous mission, with Human Rights Watch reporting that the army has spent recent weeks mining Syria's border with Turkey.

"Any use of anti-personnel landmines is unconscionable," said Steve Goose, the New-York based group's arms division director said. "There is absolutely no justification for the use of these indiscriminate weapons by any country, anywhere, for any purpose."

The recent mining, which mirrors similar actions carried out on the border with Lebanon last November, seems to be part of a wider operation to sever rebel escape and resupply routes between Turkey and northern Syria.

The Free Syrian Army, the main rebel fighting unit, has de-facto bases inside Turkey, allowing it greater freedom of manoeuvre in northern Syria than elsewhere in the country.

Buoyed by military victories in Homs, the Syrian army appears intent on eliminating the rebel presence in the area. In pursuit of that goal government soldiers launched simultaneous offensives against a number of towns in Idlib province closer to the border.

There was heavy fighting reported in the towns of Khan Shaykhoun and Jisr al-Shughour, both close to the Turkish frontier. Rebels were able to inflict casualties on a checkpoint in Idlib province as well as the southern city of Dera'a.

Rebels also mounted operations in eastern Syria, suggesting that opposition forces were taking advantage of the deployment of the government's best units in Homs and Idlib. It is an indication that the rebels, though at a disadvantage, are not a spent force and that the regime's military capacity is overstretched.

The main Syrian opposition nonetheless suffered another setback on Tuesday, when Haitham al-Maleh, a former judge and long-standing dissident, quit the Syrian National Council, the main political group outside the country representing the revolt against Assad. He said there was "a lot of chaos in the group and not a lot of clarity over what they can accomplish right now."

With Syria's death toll mounting – the UN estimates that it stands at more than 8,000 – the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, demanded an international investigation into the killing of civilians, which he said amounted to crimes against humanity.

But the call is unlikely to find favour with Russia, Mr Assad's strongest foreign supporter, which on Tuesday pledged to keep supplying the regime with weapons despite Western criticism.

“We have good, solid military and technical cooperation with Syria and today we don’t have a basis to reconsider this military cooperation,” Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s deputy defence minister, said.