The fighting for the Syrian rebel stronghold of Hama continues, with the reported number of victims reaching 100. Meanwhile the UN Security Council session discussed the latest developments of the civil conflict, but failed to produce a resolution.
Elite troops of the Syrian army were sent to Hama to fight what protesters call a desperate general population and the authorities call terrorists.
Syrian state news agency SANA says the rebels there have captured military depots and use the weapons, including land mines, machine guns and grenade launchers against army units.
Opposition says the army is using tanks and other armor in the city, shooting at residential areas. Official Damascus denies the allegations.
Anti-governmental activists state the number of people killed in the conflict over several days as high as 100. Monday’s confrontation resulted in 24 deaths, they say.
The government did not publish any number of casualties, but confirmed that some officers and soldiers have been killed or wounded in the operation. The military say the troops are being targeted by sniper fire from rooftops.
Several European countries and the United States pushed for a condemnation of Damascus’s actions in Hama during a UN Security Council session on Monday night.
However Russia and China said they would veto such a move, while observer members Brazil, India and South Africa backed this position.
Members of the Council agreed that the situation in Syria is of concern for the international community.
Canadian political analyst Michel Chossudovsky says intervention should be the last possible option in resolving the current stalemate.
“If there is a military intervention is Syria, then we are in for an extended war, which goes from the Mediterranean right to the Chinese border, because then we’ll have integration of the war theaters in Afghanistan, Iraq and, of course, Palestine and Lebanon — and so we are in for a much larger war,” he said. “Let’s understand that [if there is] any kind of military intervention in Syria at this stage using the pretext of a protest movement or responsibility to protect, we’ll have devastating consequences leading to a military escalation in a vast area.”
