As the security council inches towards a resolution censuring violence, Assad forces press on with crackdown on protesters
Twenty-four people have been killed across Syria as the UN Security Council showed signs of inching towards condemning the violence being unleashed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 10 people died in the central city of Hama on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
A further six were reported to have been killed in the eastern Damascus suburb of Arbeen early on Tuesday, three in the central province of Homs, two in the eastern border town of al-Boukamal, two in the coastal city of Latakia and one in Maadamiyah near Damascus.
Gun and tank fire continued in Hama on Tuesday morning, a resident told the Guardian, adding that many residents were trying to flee the city for neighbouring towns. Electricity and water supplies were cut in many neighbourhoods, he said.
In the nearby city of Homs, troops opened fire on Monday night as worshippers left local mosques after Tarawih evening prayers, a resident said.
"There were buses and buses of soldiers coming and being dropped off in every area," said the resident. "They just open fire as soon as [people] leave the mosque ? It's terrible, it's terrible. They are now going to shoot anything, that's it; they'll shoot anything that moves."
Describing the attacks in the capital, one resident told Reuters: "People marched after the nightly Ramadan prayers. Security cars and pick-up trucks with machine guns mounted on their beds entered Erbin around midnight and assembled at the main roundabout before branching out in the streets and firing at neighbourhoods."
News of the continuing bloodshed in a military crackdown which has now cost an estimated 1,700 civilian lives came as western diplomats intensified efforts to force a UN security council resolution condemning the violence.
An hour-long meeting in New York late on Monday night, which had been called by Germany after up to 100 people were killed on Sunday in a brutal assault on Hama, failed to yield any unified stance. But diplomats insisted progress was being made.
"I detected a certain convergence of thinking, concern about the escalating violence," said Indian ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri. "The members of the council all felt that the council should address itself to the situation and pronounce itself if the need be."
The 15-member security council has been divided for months over how to address the Syrian crackdown, with nations including Britain pushing for a resolution but others, including veto-wielding China and Russia, opposing such a move, saying they fear it could be used as a pretext for military intervention in Syria.
Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "We are still under the shadow of events in Libya where we found a resolution adopted by the security council dealt with very frivolously, and we cannot but keep that in mind as we contemplate what the security council can and cannot do on Syria."
On Monday, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said that was "not a remote possibility". Later, in New York, the US ambassador to the UN said the claims of countries opposing a resolution were a "canard".
"In my opinion, it's an excuse by those who don't want to confront what's happening in Syria," she said, according to Reuters.
A more palatable solution with the potential to unite all security council members, even Syria's neighbour Lebanon, would be the issuing of a formal statement by the council president that called for an end to violence and urged a peaceful political solution. Churkin, who insisted a resolution would be "somewhat excessive", said he thought such a move would be "satisfactory".
Speaking before Monday night's meeting, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, urged the security council to come up with some form of unified position. In a veiled appeal to China and Russia, she said in a statement: "We call on those members of the United Nations security council who have opposed any security council action that would call on Assad to stop the killing to reconsider their positions."
Clinton is due to meet with a group of US-based Syrian activists and representatives of the Syrian-American community on Tuesday.
The Arab League has failed to specifically condemn the Syrian government, preferring to urge its members to "abide by human rights".
Turkey, however has expressed increased concern since Sunday. "Beginning the holy month of Ramadan within a bloody environment is unacceptable," President Abdullah G�l told the Anatolia news agency on Monday, adding: "The use of heavy weapons against people in Hama when Ramadan began shocked me. It is not possible for us to remain indifferent to this violence."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/02/syria-deaths-un-condemnation
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