UN blames Syria for massacre
Smoke billowing from the scene of a bomb explosion in central Damascus yesterday near the hotel used by the UN observer mission, left, a woman holds her dead baby following an air strike by regime forces, right.Photo: AFP
UN investigators yesterday said the Syrian regime had committed crimes against humanity, as at least 30 people were reported killed in a major air strike in a rebel bastion in the north.
Regime forces were also bombarding the key battleground city of Aleppo in the north, activists said, while Damascus was shaken by a bomb attack targeting military headquarters and a firefight near the prime minister's office.
A report by the UN Commission of Inquiry said government forces and their militia allies committed crimes against humanity including murder and torture while rebel fighters were guilty of lesser offences.
The report was issued as pressure mounted on President Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime with the world's largest Muslim body set to suspend Syria over the unrelenting violence, following a similar move by the Arab League.
A final draft statement says Syria should be suspended over "the obstinacy of the Syrian authorities in following the military option" and the failure of a peace plan brokered by outgoing international envoy Kofi Annan.
The UN investigators also said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that government forces and their shabiha allies were responsible for other "gross violations of international human rights law" including arbitrary arrest, unlawful killing and indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
The report was issued as reports emerged of a major air strike in Aazaz, a rebel bastion north of the second city Aleppo that activists said had killed at least 30 people, including children.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 30 people were killed, including civilians and rebels, in an attack on a Free Syria Army base, as Muslims were observing the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast.
In all at least 73 people were killed yesterday in Syria, where more than 23,000 people have died in violence since an uprising against the regime erupted in March 2011, said the Observatory.
In Damascus, the FSA claimed a bomb attack targeting a military headquarters near a hotel used by UN observers, saying it was a warning to Assad that it could strike anytime at the very heart of the regime.
A gunbattle also erupted between rebels and troops near the offices of new Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi.
Damascus has been rocked by several bomb blasts since the start of the increasingly brutal conflict, including a July attack also claimed by the FSA that killed four top security chiefs in a major body blow to the regime.
Yesterday's attack came a day after former prime minister Riad Hijab, the highest profile government figure to defect, said the regime had collapsed and only controlled 30 percent of the country.
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