The unrelenting bloodshed complicated preparations by the team of UN observers yesterday to monitor the truce. However, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the cease-fire had been “generally observed” although there was still violence, but the mission of 250 observers would be “not enough considering the current situation and the vastness of the country.”
He said in Luxembourg that the United Nations was asking the European Union to provide helicopters and planes to improve the mobility of the operation, which he would propose formally to the Security Council today.
It was not clear whether President Bashar Assad would agree to allow more UN troops and foreign aircraft into the country. The truce is part of an international plan to launch talks between Assad’s regime and those trying to topple him. An uprising against Assad erupted 13 months ago, but became increasingly violent in response to a regime crackdown.
Western military intervention is unlikely at this point, and economic sanctions, while starting to bite, seem insufficient to pressure the regime. Leaders of two Syrian opposition groups said yesterday, a day after meeting Russia’s deputy foreign minister in Moscow, that they have sensed a shift in Russia’s stance and hope Moscow will crank up pressure on Assad.
“Russia has all the necessary levers to apply pressure on Assad’s government and help Annan’s mission,” said Haytham Manna of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, an activist group. Russia twice shielded Assad from UN Security Council condemnation, but has become more critical of the regime.
In Paris, The French foreign minister said yesterday that economic sanctions against Syria have stripped Assad’s regime of half of its financial reserves and should be stepped up.
“We should maintain the pressure on the Syrian regime,” Alain Juppe said at the start of a meeting of officials from 50 countries which support sanctions designed to halt Assad’s violent repression of a popular revolt. “This should be done through stronger sanctions, which have an impact on the Syrian authorities,” he said, as world powers pressured Assad to respect the cease-fire foreseen by Annan’s plan.
“Sanctions are an effective tool to strip the Syrian regime of the resources it needs to finance its militias — the grim death squads it calls the shabiha — and to buy weapons,” Juppe said. “Measures targeting the banking and financial sector, notably a freeze on the holdings of the Syrian Central Bank, have seen oil revenues dry up and withdrawn precious resources from the Syrian state,” he said. “We know that the Syrian authorities, whose financial reserves have according to our information, been cut in half, are actively seeking alternative ways to get round these sanctions,” he warned.
In Syria, the overall level of violence is down since the cease-fire formally took effect Thursday, but the regime has gradually stepped up attacks. The number of people killed every day has also risen steadily since a brief lull that coincided with the start of the truce.
In violence yesterday, army tanks shelled the southern town of Busra Al-Harir, killing at least two people, according to the Observatory. The town, about 70 km south of the capital of Damascus, is a stronghold of the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Adel Al-Omari, an activist in the area, said troops have been shelling Busra Al-Harir and the nearby rural region of Lajat since midday Monday.
