Army shells Damascus suburb as rebels urge fighters to respect rights

SYRIAN TROOPS battled rebels street by street in Aleppo as at least five people were reported killed by shelling in the Yarmouk suburb of Damascus during clashes between the army and rebels.

Palestinians living in this strategic suburb have tried to stay out of the Syrian conflict but have come under increasing pressure to join one side or the other.

The rebel Free Syrian Army promised to investigate a video of rebels executing a man said to be a member of a pro-regime militia in Aleppo. Last month video emerged of rebels killing loyalist clan leaders in the city, prompting the Free Army to ask brigades to sign a pledge to respect human rights. But few did so.

Riad al-Assad, the Turkey-based commander of the Free Army, has rejected Turkish pressure to unite all factions in a force called the Syrian National Army.

At least 60 people, 31 of them children, drowned after a boat packed with mainly women and children bound for Europe sank off the coast of Izmir in Turkey. The 43 people rescued are Kurds from Iraq and Syria. Others are missing.

The Syrian army is said to have recaptured Tel Chehab, a town on the country’s border with Jordan which has been used as a staging area for refugees fleeing to Jordan. Rebels had been in control of the town for several months, the Britain-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin lashed out at western powers calling for change in Moscow’s policy on Syria.

“In our view, the most important thing today is to stop the violence and make all the parties to the conflict . . . sit at the negotiating table.”

He equated western backing for Muslim militants seeking the ouster of the Syrian regime with Muslim fundamentalists fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

“Today,” he asserted, “some want to use militants from al-Qaeda or . . . organisations with equally radical views to accomplish their goals in Syria. This policy is very short-sighted and is fraught with dire consequences.”

To stop the bloodshed, he said, there had to be a halt to arms supplies to the war zone and to efforts to impose “unacceptable solu- tions on either side . . . Syria needs change, but this doesn’t mean change should come with bloodshed.”

Russia has said Syrians, not external powers, should decide whether Mr Assad remains in power.

Former UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan reportedly said the Russians accept he must step down, but not at the price of Syria’s collapse. Moscow and Beijing fear the West could use the UN Security Council to endorse a resolution permitting Nato to in- tervene as it did in Libya.

France has begun funding and providing aid to local councils in five rebel-held Syrian cities in the north of the country. The assistance is meant to restore water supplies, bakeries and schools and encourage the rebels to administer these cities, which have a to- tal population of 700,000. The effort is seen as a first step in a plan to create “liberated areas”.