Twitter
Advertisement

West moves urgently to set up buffer zones in Syria

Francois Hollande, the French president, declared that he and his international partners were closer than ever before to a formal intervention in Syria.

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Western states are working with Turkey to establish buffer zones within Syria, France confirmed on Monday night as the international community scrambled to formulate a response to the rapidly worsening crisis in the country.

As government forces launched a devastating aerial and artillery assault on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, Francois Hollande, the French president, declared that he and his international partners were closer than ever before to a formal intervention in Syria.

"We are working … [on] the initiative of buffer zones proposed by Turkey," Hollande said. "We are doing so in co-ordination with our closest partners."

Indicating the formation of a twin-pronged strategy, Hollande also became the first international leader to urge the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government, promising to grant it immediate recognition.

With refugees pouring across Syria's borders, and Turkey struggling to respond to the influx, the issue of a buffer zone to protect civilians in northern Syria has acquired a new sense of urgency.

Thousands of refugees massed in makeshift accommodation on the Syrian side of the Turkish border yesterday as Anakar sealed its crossings, claiming its camps were full. With as many as 80,000 refugees spread across camps in southern Turkey, the numbers who have fled violence in Syria has almost doubled in a month.

Turkish requests for a buffer zone, which would provide a haven not just for civilians but also for Syrian rebels operating on both sides of the border, have been so far rebuffed by the United States.

It remains far from clear how a buffer zone would be policed, although it has been assumed that Turkey and Arab states would take the lead.

Pressure for a more robust response from the international community has grown after the bloodiest month of the uprising so far claimed more than 4,000 lives, according to opposition groups.

With rebel fighters and government forces fighting each other to near stalemate in the northern city of Aleppo, President Bashar al-Assad has switched his attention to Damascus.

Last week, he began his bloodiest offensive yet in the capital, as government forces launched an assault that killed hundreds of people in Daraya, on the south-western outskirts of the city, according to the opposition.

Activists say many of the dead were killed in summary executions and survivors yesterday spoke of soldiers bayoneting dozens of people as they swept victoriously through the town.

Opposition fighters declared that they had partially avenged the "massacre" in Daraya after successfully shooting down a helicopter gunship over Damascus.

Footage filmed by the rebels showed the helicopter catch fire after being struck before spinning out of control and plummeting to the ground in a ball of fire.

In recent weeks rebels have been hapless in the face of regime aerial attack, both by helicopter gunships and fighter-jets that have shown little distinction between civilian and insurgent targets.

Rebel hopes of capturing either Aleppo or Damascus may well depend on a strategy of dealing with the aerial threat. That appears a long way off, with opposition fighters admitting they brought down the helicopter more by luck than design.

"It was flying overhead the eastern part of the city and firing all morning," an activist identifying himself as Abu Bakr told the Reuters news agency. "The rebels had been trying to hit [it] for about an hour; finally they did."

The felling of the helicopter, while morale boosting, brought only fleeting respite. Ignoring the condemnation triggered by the mass killings in Daraya, government forces have switched focus to the east of the city in a campaign to reassert control. The gamut of the regime's arsenal was deployed, with fighter planes striking closer to the heart of Damascus than before as the army maintained a barrage of shelling and helicopter attacks on eastern suburbs.

At least 62 people were killed in the assault, opposition activists said, with shells striking flats in Jobar, the district where the helicopter had been shot down.

As in Daraya, there were reports of summary executions. Footage from opposition campaigners showed 20 corpses in a mosque in the neighbouring district of Zamalka, among them three children.

The new bloodshed came as volunteers recovered dozens more bodies in Daraya, where the opposition claims that between 300 and 600 people were killed during a five-day battle last week.

Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary general, demanded an immediate investigation into the killings, which he called "an appalling and brutal crime".

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement