BEIRUT, (Reuters) – U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan kept up efforts to broker a halt to hostilities as Syrian government forces killed dozens of people in the northern city of Idlib, dumping their bodies in a mosque, opposition activists said.
While Annan waited for an answer from President Bashar al-Assad to his proposals to end the violence, the army intensified its assault on the province of Idlib near the Turkish border, intermittently shelling built-up areas and spraying houses with machinegun fire in a bid to dislodge anti-government fighters.
The rebels said they had hit back, killing some 22 soldiers in two separate ambushes.
Clashes also were reported in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and security forces shelled Homs, Syria’s third largest city, as the year-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian rule increasingly came to resemble a civil war.
The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have died in the uprising and its refugee agency said on Tuesday that some 230,000 Syrians had fled their homes during the past 12 months, of whom around 30,000 have sought safety abroad.
In an apparent bid to deter the exodus, Syrian forces have laid landmines near its borders with Lebanon and Turkey along routes used by refugees to escape the mayhem, advocacy group Human Rights Watch said.
Speaking after meeting opponents of Assad in Turkey, Annan said he was expecting to hear a response from Syria later on Tuesday to “concrete proposals” he had made to end the escalating violence.
But by evening there was no word on an answer, although the Syrian parliament said Assad had ordered a legislative election for May 7. It will be held under a new constitution, approved by a referendum last month which the opposition and their Western and Arab backers dismissed as a sham.
Russia and China have welcomed Assad’s reform pledges, including the promised election, and have blocked moves in the United Nations to censure the Syrian leader.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Syrian government forces would not stop fighting or withdraw from their positions unless rebel forces instantly mirrored their move.
The U.S. State Department was dismissive of Assad’s election plan: “Parliamentary elections for a rubber-stamp parliament in the middle of the kind of violence that we’re seeing across the country? It’s ridiculous,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
STREWN BODIES
Following a brutal crackdown in the central city of Homs, the army has intensified its operations in the north and has been shelling the town of Idlib for the past three days.
An activist in the town, speaking by telephone, said security forces had killed more than 20 people trying to leave the area in the past two days and dumped their bodies in al-Bilal mosque. When locals went to inspect the corpses, they too came under fire, pushing the death toll above 50, he said.
Another activist gave a slightly lower death toll.
“When people came from the neighbourhood early this morning, the security forces also started firing at them. In total, about 45 people were massacred,” said the man, who like many in Syria gave only his first name, Mohammed, for fear of reprisals.