By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times –
ANTAKYA, Turkey — The scenario was distressingly familiar: A Syrian village is surrounded and attacked, leaving scores dead. Rebels and the government trade accusations while the U.N. condemns the use of tanks, artillery and helicopters. Russia threatens to block tough international action.
In the wake of the latest reported massacre in the Syrian conflict, an attack on the farming village of Treimseh, some of President Bashar Assad’s foes said Friday that they’d had enough of the foundering effort to negotiate an end to the conflict. They said it was time for Kofi Annan, the special United Nations peace envoy, to resign.
“Since Annan arrived, all we have had is massacre after massacre,” said a rebel battalion commander in neighboring Turkey who for security reasons asked to be identified only by a nickname, Abu Bashir.
But with little change in essential elements of the conflict — the balance of firepower, the reluctance of international officials to intervene militarily and Russia’s staunch backing of the Syrian government — many analysts said the cycle of violence was likely to get worse.
The violence is already so pervasive that U.N. monitors in Syria have been confined to their hotels. Monitors near Treimseh were able to confirm the use of heavy weapons and helicopters in the attack Thursday, but did not venture out.
U.N. officials said the use of such weapons violated Assad’s pledges under the U.N.-brokered peace plan, and they harshly condemned the killing. They did not specifically accuse the government of being responsible for the deaths.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on members of the world body “to take collective and decisive action” to end the violence in Syria. He said the “indiscriminate” use of heavy artillery and shelling had cast serious doubt on Assad’s commitment to the plan.
“Inaction becomes a license for further massacres,” Ban said. “There must be united, sustained and effective pressure now.”
Opposition activists said as many as 200 people were killed in Treimseh, although some quoted in news reports Friday indicated the number could be lower.
The Syrian military appears to have stepped up offensive operations in rebel-held zones, despite a peace plan mandate that troops and armor be pulled back from populated areas. Syrian opposition networks alleged that troops shelled and then stormed Treimseh, aided by pro-government militiamen known as shabiha, slaughtering men, women and children.
The Syrian government news agency blamed “terrorists,” its usual term for armed rebels. It said they overran the town, “killing or wounding tens of Syrian civilians.”
Washington and its allies are seeking to impose U.N. sanctions on Assad for refusing to implement Annan’s six-point peace plan. But the U.S.-backed proposal has run into stiff resistance from Russia, Assad’s ally and a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council. Moscow has threatened to use its veto for a third time to block any new resolution seeking to punish Assad.
The United States and other nations seeking Assad’s ouster hope the litany of killings will prompt Moscow to jettison its longtime ally in Damascus. But Russia has insisted that, while it is not tied to Assad remaining in power, it is opposed to any plan that forces his departure as a precondition.
Many in the opposition have viewed the peace plan as merely a means for the embattled Assad to buy time.
But envoy Annan, and his plan, retain strong support in world capitals, at least in part because no one has come up with an alternative. Moscow views Annan’s efforts as key to showing Russia’s commitment to diplomacy and non-intervention in trying to resolve the Syrian crisis.
Assad has vowed to remain in power despite the damage to Syria’s economy and the defection of large numbers of troops and former government loyalists, including, in the last week, a top general and the ambassador to neighboring Iraq. The defection of Ambassador Nawaf Fares from his post in Baghdad was seen as especially damaging, since Fares was said to be close to Syrian power circles and Assad’s security apparatus.
As with all the recent reports of massacres in Syria, there was no clear and confirmed version of events on the ground in Treimseh, a town of perhaps 7,000 people.
The reported killings again seemed to underscore the increasingly sectarian nature of the revolt in Syria, where a rebellion led by the Sunni Muslim majority seeks to oust Assad, who is part of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Pro-government villages with large Alawite populations are said to ring Treimseh. Some opposition activists said Alawite militiamen were believed to have participated in the reported killings.
A similar pattern was present in other reported massacres, notably the killings in May of more than 100 people, mostly women and children, in the nearby village of Houla. As with the latest attack, each side blamed the other for the killings in Houla. A U.N.-commissioned report could not pinpoint the responsibility for the killings in Houla.
Amateur video from Treimseh showed bodies in rows, some with gray dust on their faces, suggesting that debris had fallen on them. There were reports that armed rebels were also among the victims.
In the wake of the reported killings, “the immediate popular reaction at this stage is anger towards all,” wrote Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian opposition activist based in the U.S. “The impotence of the opposition and continued dithering by international leaders seem unfathomable to locals after so many months of bloodshed, and so many massacres. Who can blame them?”
