Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Syria Update

Activists and local opposition groups in Syria accused regime forces for using poisonous form of gas in the city of Douma and Adra, outskirts of Damascus.According to the local media offices, Syrian army has launched a series of attacks on these two big cities on Monday. More than 400 people have been hospitalized showing symptoms of convulsion, shortness of breath, profuse sweating and frothy sputum, activists said.
The video footage below, which cannot be independently verified by Al Jazeera, shows injured civilians rushing into a hospital.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2HpTETmOLyY
[Al jazeera]

Ballistic missiles used by the Syrian regime are killing many civilians, including children, an international rights group said on Monday.
These missiles "are hitting populated areas, causing large numbers of civilian deaths, including many children", said Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has investigated nine ballistic missile strikes that killed at least 215 people in  six months.
Among those killed in nine attacks from February 2013 to July 2013, 100 were children, said HRW, which has visited seven of the sites.
Such missiles have what the group described as a wide-area effect, and when used in populated areas cannot distinguish between civilian and military  targets.
The New York-based watchdog said "military commanders, as a matter of policy, should not order the use of ballistic missiles in areas populated by
civilians".
[AFP]
 Syria's President Bashar al-Assad described the main opposition National Coalition as a "failure", adding that it can have no role in ending the country's war.
"This opposition is not reliable, it is a failure at the popular and moral levels, and it has no role in solving the crisis, because it only seeks to make gains," Assad said in a rare speech televised on Syria's state TV channel on Sunday.
[Source: AFP]

Former US envoy to Syria Robert Ford is being considered as Washington's next ambassador to Cairo, sources familiar with internal discussions said on Sunday as US and European mediators sought a peaceful resolution to Egypt's crisis.
Ford was described as a leading candidate for the post, according to two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The State Department declined to comment and Ford did not
respond to emails.
Ford, a fluent Arabic speaker, had antagonized Syria's government with his high-profile support for demonstrators trying to end 41 years of rule by President Bashar al-Assad.
He was withdrawn from Syria briefly in October 2011 because of threats to his safety. He left Damascus for good four monthslater after the United States suspended embassy operations as the situation in Syria deteriorated.
[Reuters]

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