Activists say mortars hit anti-government protest in eastern Syria, kill at least 10 | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Activists say mortars hit anti-government protest in eastern Syria, kill at least 10

In this image made from amateur video released by Shaam News Network and accessed Monday, June 11, 2012, purports to show smoke near a mosque from Syrian government forces shelling in Rastan town in Homs province, Syria. Syrian troops attacked a central, rebel-held town with helicopter gunships Monday and shelled other restive areas across the nation, activists said. The aerial assault targeted the strategic river crossing town of Rastan, which has resisted repeated government offensives for months, the activists said. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video) TV OUT, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CANNOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE CONTENT, DATE, LOCATION OR AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MATERIAL

BEIRUT - Syrian forces pelted the eastern city of Deir el-Zour with mortars as anti-government protesters were dispersing before dawn Tuesday, killing at least 10 people as government troops kept up an offensive in a coastal province where Washington says regime forces may be preparing another massacre, activists said.

The offensives were part of an escalation of violence in recent weeks that has brought more international pressure on President Bashar Assad's regime faces over its brutal tactics against the opposition. The U.N. accused the government of using children as human shields in a new report. It said children have been victims of detention, torture and sexual violence.

Amateur video of the mortar attack on Deir el-Zour showed some of the dead in a street as survivors screamed in panic and tried to remove their bodies. Other videos showed some of the wounded receiving treatment at a hospital. The Local Coordination Committees activist group and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people died in the shelling.

Both sides of the 15-month-old revolt to oust Assad have ignored an internationally brokered cease-fire that was supposed to go into effect April 12 but never took hold. The U.S. and its allies also have shown little appetite for getting involved in another Arab nation in turmoil.

Syria is veering ever closer to an all-out civil war as the conflict turns increasingly militarized. Already more than 13,000 have died since March 2011, according to activist groups.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria Kofi Annan has asked governments with influence to "twist arms" to halt the escalating violence in the country, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. Annan is also working to convene a diplomatic meeting soon to discuss the situation in Syria amid worsening fighting between government troops and opposition forces. Earlier this year, he put forward a six-point peace plan, including the cease-fire, to try end the violence.

"It is totally unacceptable and it must stop, and that is why Annan has invited governments with influence to raise the bar to another level, to the highest level possible, and twist arms if necessary, to get the parties to implement the plan," Fawzi told reporters in Geneva. He didn't specify the countries that might be able to pressure Assad into halting its onslaught against the opposition, but Russia, China and Iran are considered Syria's closest and strongest allies.

The two main activist groups reported clashes in areas including the central province of Homs, the northern regions of Idlib and Aleppo and areas around the capital Damascus and the southern province of Daraa.

The Observatory said troops kept up an offensive in an eastern coastal region where the U.S. says Assad's forces may be preparing a massacre. The group said regime forces shelled Haffa and neighbouring villages in Latakia province Tuesday for the eighth straight day, it said, as regime forces try to push through against stiff resistance. Activists say the government has brought in helicopter gunships to aid their offensive, an increasingly common practice.

The Haffa region is dominated by the Alawite sect and is close to Kardaha, which is the hometown of Assad's family. Assad and most of Syria's ruling elite belong to the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the opposition is dominated by the Sunni Muslim majority.

The United States had accused Assad's government Monday of using "new horrific tactics." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland also said the regime "may be organizing another massacre" in Latakia, where U.N. monitors have been impeded.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that government forces are still tracking down "terrorists," who it blamed for attacking residents of Haffa. It said the search led to the killing of a number of gunmen and the wounding others. Some were also arrested, it said, adding that two Syrian troops were killed and some others wounded in the clashes.

Attempts to contact activists in Haffa failed because of bad cellular phone connections.

State-run news agency SANA said a reporter and a cameraman for the pro-government Ikhbariya TV were wounded when their car was hit with bullets in Haffa on Monday.

The government restricts journalists from moving freely, making it nearly impossible to independently verify accounts from either side.

The pro-government daily Al-Watan said Syrian troops were able to retake control of "large areas" of the rebel-held neighbourhoods of Khaldiyeh and Bab Sbaa in the central city of Homs, adding that the army planned to "expel all gunmen and terrorists" from the city.

Tarek Badrakhan, an activist in Khaldiyeh, denied the report, saying rebels have control of the whole neighbourhood and had repelled several attacks by the army. The Observatory also said that troops are heavily shelling the neighbourhood, but still trying to capture it.

Late Monday, the United Nations said children as young as 9 had been used as human shields and some as young as 14 had been tortured in detention. Children described being beaten, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions, whipped with heavy electrical cables, scarred by cigarette burns and in one case subjected to electrical shock to the genitals, the report said.

It quoted a witness as saying that, in a March 9 attack on the village of Ayn l'Arouz in Idlib province, several dozen boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 13 were forcibly taken from their homes and "used by soldiers and militia members as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on the village."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday demanded an immediate end to the "dangerous intensification" of violence across Syria and called on all countries with influence to urge the parties "to pull back from the brink."

News from © The Associated Press, 2012
The Associated Press

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