“The charge will be called here. (Syria) has not lived up to its international obligations,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, explaining that the Syrian ambassador was on vacation.
A French Foreign Ministry official said the Syrian authorities had done nothing to stop the assault on its embassy. “They (the attacks) are recurring,” the official said in Paris. “The (Syrian) security forces are not doing anything.”
Security guards used live ammunition to prevent hundreds of loyalists of President Bashar Assad from storming the French Embassy, diplomats said.
They tore down US Embassy plaques and tried to break security glass, diplomats said, in an escalation of protests against a visit by US and French ambassadors to the city of Hama, focus of demonstrations against Assad’s rule.
“Four buses full of shabbiha (Alawite militia loyal to Assad) came from Tartous. They used a battering ram to try to break into the main door,” a resident of Afif, the old district where the US Embassy is located said.
A Western diplomat in the Syrian capital said: “This is a violent escalation by the regime. You do not bring bus loads of thugs into central Damascus from the coast without its consent.”
“A television station that is heavily influenced by Syrian authorities encouraged this violent demonstration,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
No casualties were reported in the attacks.
Assad loyalists also attempted to attack the US ambassador’s residence in Damascus on Monday but failed to gain entry. Ambassador Robert Ford was at the embassy compound when the assaults occurred.
In other violence on Monday, Syrian forces killed one civilian and wounded 20 in heavy-machinegun fire on Homs, Syria’s third city, and went house-to-house arresting suspected opponents in Hama, human rights activists said.
