BY GLEN CAREY | BLOOMBERG NEWS RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Syrian army troops battled opposition fighters in the south of the country Saturday, two days after the government regained control of the Baba Amr district in the central city of
BY GLEN CAREY | BLOOMBERG NEWS
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Syrian army troops battled opposition fighters in the south of the country Saturday, two days after the government regained control of the Baba Amr district in the central city of Homs.
Six soldiers were killed and nine wounded in clashes near the southwestern city of Daraa when armed rebels attacked armored personnel carriers and military buses, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an emailed statement.
Syrian forces killed 70 people, Al Jazeera television said, citing activists. The government executed 47 soldiers who attempted to defect in the northwestern province of Idlib, Al Arabiya television reported on its website, citing the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
The monthlong siege of Homs has intensified international pressure on President Bashar Assad a year after his forces began a crackdown on protests. The army has used tanks and artillery to protect Assad’s regime and more than 7,500 people have died in the conflict, the United Nations estimates.
Assad forces restored “security and safety” to Baba Amr, “ridding it of members of armed terrorist groups,” the Syrian Arab News Agency said. Shelling of districts in Homs continued, Al Arabiya reported. A suicide car bomber killed two civilians and injured 20 people and security personnel in Daraa, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
“We’ve got a full-scale civil war now,” British Ambassador to the U.N. Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Friday at U.N. headquarters in New York. “You’ve seen what’s happened in Homs over recent days.”
“There is a chance” that the mission by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan “could at least start the process of stopping the hostilities, starting a political dialogue which leads to a political transition,” Grant said.
An International Commit-tee of the Red Cross team that arrived in Homs Friday with Syrian Red Crescent Society personnel wasn’t allowed into the Baba Amr district, the Red Cross said. The Syrian government told the Red Cross it can’t enter until mines and booby traps are cleared, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday, without saying where it got the information. The BBC also said there were unconfirmed reports of revenge killings, mass arrests and summary executions by Syrian forces in Baba Amr.
International pressure on the Assad regime has mounted as the conflict has intensified.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council members are ready to participate in any joint effort to help Syrians protect themselves from the Assad government, Saudi Press Agency said Friday.
The Syrian government “lost its legitimacy once it killed its citizens,” the news service cited Abdullah bin Yahya al- Mua’lemi, the kingdom’s ambassador to the U.N., as saying.
The European Union separately said Friday that it is preparing “further targeted restrictive measures” against Syria, according to a statement from a summit of its leaders in Brussels. The EU also said it recognized the Syrian National Council, the main opposition alliance, as “a legitimate representative of Syrians.”
Iraq has increased border security to stop the smuggling of weapons and insurgents into Syria, the Iraqi government said Saturday in an emailed statement.
