By Khaled Yacoub Oweis
The U.S. ambassador made a surprise trip to a southern Syrian
town on Tuesday, his second visit to an area rocked by protests against
President Bashar al-Assad and a move likely to antagonize the authorities in
Damascus.
As a U.N. humanitarian team
toured the country, security forces raided the countryside near the city of
Hama, killing at least five people in assaults to subdue pro-democracy
demonstrations, local activists said.
Houses were stormed in several
villages and towns in the al-Ghab Plain, farmland east of the Mediterranean
coast that contains the Roman city of Apamea, they said.
"Shabbiha (pro-Assad
militiamen) accompanied the military. We have one name of the five martyrs,
Omar Mohammed Saeed al-Khateeb," said an activist in Hama, which has been
under military siege since it was stormed at the beginning of the Muslim
fasting month of Ramadan on August 1.
The United Nations says 2,200
people have been killed in Syria and the U.N.'s human rights council launched
an investigation on Tuesday into the violence, including possible crimes
against humanity, despite objections from Russia, China and Cuba.
The bloodshed was wrought by
Assad's crackdown on a five-month-old popular uprising which prompted the
United States and European Union to widen sanctions against Syria last week and to call on the Syrian
president to step aside.
In Jassem, a town about 30 km
(19 miles) east of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, residents said U.S.
Ambassador Robert Ford toured an area where activists say Syrian forces killed
at least 12 people in May in response to major unrest.
Ford angered Damascus seven
weeks ago when he paid a visit to Hama in a gesture of solidarity with the city
where huge anti-Assad protests occurred in June and July. At the start of
August, Assad sent troops into Hama to crush demonstrations.
Damascus accused Ford of
inciting unrest -- a charge which Washington denied -- and banned Western
diplomats from leaving Damascus and its outskirts. Days later, a crowd broke
into the U.S. embassy compound, breaking windows and spraying graffiti.
"He came by car this
morning, although Jassem is swarming with secret police," a resident told
Reuters. "He got out and spent a good time walking round. He was careful
not to be seen talking with people, apparently not to cause them harm."
U.S. State Department
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Ford spent about four hours in
Jassem. She said he had informed Syrian authorities only after the trip was
complete.
"In this case he
informed the Syrian Foreign Ministry after the visit and he made clear to them
that the reason that he didn't inform them before the visit was because they
haven't been approving any visits by anybody, anywhere," she said.
Ford, the first U.S.
ambassador to Damascus since Washington withdrew its envoy in the wake of the
2005 assassination of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri, has been outspoken in
criticizing authorities for firing at civilian protesters.
Nuland said Ford spoke with a
number of Jassem residents, including some associated with the opposition, and
expressed support.
"His message back to
them was that we stand with them and that we admire the fact that their action
has been completely peaceful," she said, adding that Syria's official
reaction to the trip had so far been "relatively muted."
International condemnation of
Syria's harsh repression of street unrest escalated this month after Assad sent
the army into several cities including Hama, Deir al-Zor and Latakia.
Arab states broke months of
silence to call for an end to the violence and neighboring Turkey,
which for years had close relations with Damascus, has also told Assad to rein
in his security forces.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said on Monday it was "troubling" that Assad had not kept a
promise he made last week to call off military and police operations.
U.N. INQUIRY
The U.N. Human Rights Council
launched an international commission of inquiry into Assad's crackdown,
condemning what it called "continued grave and systematic human rights
violations by Syrian authorities such as arbitrary executions, excessive use of
force and the killing and persecution of protesters and human rights
defenders."
The 47-member forum easily
adopted a resolution presented by the European Union, the United States and
Arab countries including Saudi Arabia.
The council launched the
inquiry to establish the facts "and where possible to identify those
responsible with a view of ensuring that perpetrators of violations, including
those that may constitute crimes against humanity, are held accountable."
EU foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton said in a statement: "Urgent and proper action is paramount
to investigate these violations, identify those responsible and ensure that
perpetrators of violations are held accountable."
Separately on Tuesday, the EU
agreed to extend sanctions against Syria, adding 15 people and five
institutions to the list of those already targeted by travel bans and asset
freezes.
Syria's ambassador to the
United Nations in Geneva, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, rejected the council
resolution as unbalanced.
"This once again confirms
that there is a determination to politically condemn Syria and pass over any
proposal for opening and reform that exists in this country," he said in
an appeal before the vote for members to reject the resolution.
The delegations of Russia,
China and Cuba all took the floor to denounce what
they called interference in Syria's internal affairs and said that they would
vote against the text. Ecuador also voted against the resolution.
The vote came after Syrian
forces shot dead three people in the city of Homs on Monday, the same day that
a U.N. humanitarian team visited the city, according to activists.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said security forces and loyalist gunmen known as
"shabbiha" opened fire after hundreds of people took to the streets.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq
told reporters in New York that "a protest situation developed" in
Homs during the team's visit "and the mission was advised to leave for
security reasons.
"The mission did not
come under fire," he added.
The official Syrian news
agency SANA said gunmen had opened fire at police in front of the governorate
building in Homs as the U.N. team was passing by, killing one policeman.
Syria has expelled most independent
media since the unrest began, making it hard to verify reports of events on the
ground.
Assad's government has blamed
armed groups for the violence and has said more than 500 soldiers and police
have been killed since the unrest erupted in March.
(Additional reporting by Stephanie
Nebehay in Geneva,
Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans;
Editing by Mark Heinrich and Paul Simao)
Source : Reuters
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