Syrian opposition calls for battle of liberation

ISTANBUL: Opposition head Burhan Ghalioun called yesterday for a "battle of liberation" against the regime until the United Nations takes action under Chapter Seven, which allows military intervention.
"I call on the Syrian people to lead a battle of liberation and dignity, relying on its own forces, on the rebels deployed across the country and the Free Syrian Army brigades and friends," he told a news conference in Istanbul.
Ghalioun, outgoing leader of the Syrian National Council (SNC), said such action would be taken "unless the international community assumes its responsibilities under Chapter Seven" of the UN charter.
A Chapter Seven resolution, which can be imposed by the UN Security Council, authorizes foreign powers to take measures including military options.
Ghalioun, in a meeting earlier with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, said the anti-regime uprising in Syria had reached a "turning point" after the killings on Friday and Saturday of more than 90 people in a central town.
"The SNC calls on the international community and in particular (UN-Arab League envoy) Kofi Annan to act immediately to halt the killings," an unnamed Turkish source quoted him as telling Davutoglu.
After an international outcry over what activists branded a massacre, the Syrian government yesterday denied its forces were responsible for the killing of at least 92 people, a third of them children, in the town of Houla.
Images of bloodied and lifeless young bodies, lain carefully side by side after the onslaught on Friday, triggered shock around the world and underlined the failure of a six-week-old UN cease-fire plan to stop the violence.
Opposition activists said Assad's forces shelled Houla after a protest and then clashed with fighters from the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.
Activists say Assad's 'shabbiha' militia, loyal to an establishment dominated by members of the minority Alawite sect, then hacked dozens of the victims to death, or shot them.
Opposition activist Maysara Al-Hilawi said he saw the bodies of six children and their parents in a ransacked house in the town.
"The Abdelrazzak family house was the first one I entered. The children's corpses were piled on top of each other, either with their throats cut or shot at close range," Hilawi said by telephone from the area.
"I helped collect more than 100 bodies in the last two days, mostly women and children. The last were six members of the Al-Kurdi family. A father and his five kids. The mother is missing," he said.
Syrian forces shot dead two men yesterday at a protest in Damascus against the killings in Houla, opposition activists said. The men's funerals also turned into demonstrations.
FROM: Agence France Presse