Syrian troops and pro-regime militias stormed and torched a southern town, reports said, as UN observers visited the village of Tremseh where a mass killing has provoked harsh global condemnation.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what a UN reconnaissance mission said was "indiscriminate" bombardment of the central Hama province village, including rocket-firing helicopters. He questioned Assad's commitment to a UN-sponsored peace plan for Syria.
The US has branded Syria's leaders murderers after the deadly attack. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Syrian leaders that the Syrian people will "make them pay" for massacres like the reported killing of dozens in the village of Tremseh by government forces.
Erdogan calls the killings an attempted "genocide" and says such acts of violence are “the footsteps of a regime that is on its way out.”
The bloodshed in the country continued yesterday, when British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 33 people were killed, several by an army bombardment in Homs province.
The International Committee of the Red Cross now views fighting in Syria as an internal armed conflict — a civil war in layman’s terms, Reuters reported last night.
Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships attacked Khirbet Ghazaleh in the province of Daraa amid heavy gunfire, the observatory said.
An activist on the ground gave a similar account, saying pro-regime militias were setting alight houses in the town.
Elsewhere, a pregnant woman was among 28 people killed across the country, the Observatory said.
Nawaf Fares, Syria's former ambassador in Baghdad, said Iran must not support a tyrant and dictator who is killing his own people, regardless of its interests.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera in Qatar, where he has fled, Fares added: "The Syrian revolt will win despite Iran and all countries backing the tyrant."
IMPLICATION OF ICRC LABEL
In classifying the Syrian conflict as a civil war, the ICRC has crossed a threshold experts say can help lay the ground for future prosecutions for war crimes.
The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions setting down the rules of war, and as such is considered a reference in qualifying when violence has evolved into an armed conflict.
The independent humanitarian agency had previously classed the violence in Syria as localized civil wars between government forces and armed opposition groups in three flashpoints — Homs, Hama and Idlib.
But hostilities have spread to other areas, leading the Swiss-based agency to conclude the fighting meets its threshold for an internal armed conflict and to inform the warring parties of its analysis and their obligations under law.
“There is a non-international armed conflict in Syria. Not every place is affected, but it is not only limited to those three areas, it has spread to several other areas,” ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan told Reuters in response to a query.
“That does not mean that all areas throughout the country are affected by hostilities,” he said.
The qualification means that people who order or commit attacks on civilians including murder, torture and rape, or use disproportionate force against civilian areas, can be charged with war crimes in violation of international humanitarian law.
For most of the 17-month-old conflict, the ICRC has been the only international agency to deploy aid workers in Syria who deliver food, medical and other assistance across frontlines.
All fighters caught up in an internal armed conflict are obliged to respect international humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict, according to the ICRC. This includes specific sections of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
“What matters is that international humanitarian law applies wherever hostilities between government forces and opposition groups are taking place across the country (Syria),” Hassan said. “This includes, but is not necessarily limited to Homs, Idlib and Hama.”
Andrew Clapham, director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, said the ICRC assessment of the conflict, which he shared, was important.
“It means it is more likely that indiscriminate attacks causing excessive civilian loss, injury or damage would be a war crime and could be prosecuted as such,” Clapham told Reuters.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a speech on June 26 that his country was in a state of war.
RULES OF WAR
The rules impose limits on how fighting may be conducted, so as to protect civilians and ex-combatants not taking part in the hostilities.
They require the humane treatment of all people in enemy hands and the duty to care for the wounded and sick. It also means parties to the internal conflict are entitled to attack military targets, but not civilians or civilian property.
UN observers entered the central Syrian village of Tremseh on Saturday, two days after activists said about 220 people had been killed there by helicopter gunships and militiamen, prompting international outrage.
Amnesty International said on Friday some rebel fighters were committing rights abuses although they paled in comparison to the government’s campaign of violence.
The ICRC uses the term “non-international armed conflict” as it reflects the wording in common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applying to situations such as Syria.
“The term ‘civil war’, which is used by some as a synonym for internal armed conflict or non-international armed conflict, has no legal meaning as such,” Hassan said.
The ICRC’s three criteria of a non-international armed conflict are the intensity and duration of fighting, and the level of organization of rebels fighting government forces.
In early May, the agency said Syrian rebels represented an “organized” opposition force and there were localized conflicts in Homs and Idlib, later adding Hama to its list.
In contrast, the ICRC was quick to describe last year’s conflict in Libya as a civil war, once rebels had set up a headquarters and a command and control structure.
In areas of Syria which are outside of the hostilities but also hit by violence linked to civilian demonstrations, international human rights law - which bans extrajudicial executions, torture and arbitrary arrests - continues to apply, according to the agency.
“In particular, measures taken against such demonstrations with the purpose of restoring order must respect international law and standards governing the use of force in law enforcement operations,” Hassan said.
