Crisis in Syrië #10 Bloedbad!

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Op zaterdag 25 februari 2012 14:40 schreef Stephen_Dedalus het volgende:

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Het doel van de eerste golfoorlog was om Koeweit te bevrijden. Niet het regime van Saddam omverwerpen.

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SyriaParliament twitterde op zaterdag 25-02-2012 om 13:04:49 Syrian state TV accuses Colvin and Ochlik of being terrorists, army spies or foreign intel. [Arabic]: ( http://t.co/Ww4yp8wT ) #Syria #Syrie reageer retweet

Syrian state news accuse Colvin and Ochlik of being terrorists, army spies or foreign intel.

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Arab World: 'Either Assad stays or we do'

IDLIB – A week ago, I traveled to Idlib province in Syria, to spend some time in the company of the Free Syrian Army. My intention was to gain an impression of this force – its unity, its strength – and whether the possibility that it could be the instrument to destroy President Bashar Assad’s regime was feasible.

Crossing over the mountains from Turkey with smugglers, I linked up with FSA members in the town of Bini’ish, deep in Idlib province, and spent the subsequent days in the company of the rebels. I spoke to them after their return from attacks on army positions, watched them maintain the roadblocks that guard the entry to the “free zones” and saw them guard the mass demonstrations that take place across Idlib every Friday.

The Assad regime’s war against its own people has been continuing for almost a year. The city of Homs is under daily bombardment by regime artillery. A humanitarian crisis is looming in Homs, with parts of the population denied access to food and medical attention.

Assad remains determined to pummel the revolt into submission.

In Idlib province, meanwhile, the precarious free zones carved out by the FSA and the civilian opposition defiantly await the coming attentions of the dictator.

The Assad regime no longer has any visible presence in these areas. The rebel flag flies everywhere.

But the regime’s agents are still present, and FSA and civilian activists know that the current balance cannot hold.

The rebels understand that they are now engaged in a war of attrition with the regime. Assad is sending his depleted forces from town to town to crush centers of revolt which spring up again once the army leaves. Assad knows he must completely extinguish the fire of revolt before his own forces grow too weak to do so.

THE FSA has gradually increased in importance in recent months, as it became clear that the Assad regime was not going to fade quietly, and thus the question – who was stronger, the regime or the protestors – became more central. What were the main impressions I gained from observing the FSA on the ground in Idlib, one of its heartland areas? My first observation was that the high quality and determination of many of the FSA fighters and officers was immediately apparent. The majority were recent deserters from Assad’s army, many from frontline infantry and armored units. The stories they told of the reasons for their defection were similar and similarly harrowing.

They described being ordered to shoot live ammunition at demonstrators, the presence of non Arabic- speaking personnel (Iranians) operating within Assad’s army units and terrible punishments – including execution – meted out to soldiers who refused to follow orders. In many cases, the FSA men had taken considerable risks to get away from the army and join the rebels.

Despite the odds against them, they appeared convinced of their eventual victory. “The regime has the heavy weapons,” one FSA officer in the town of Sarmin told me. “The people are with us...either Bashar [Assad] stays or we stay.”

Secondly, the absence of unity and a real chain of command was acutely apparent.

No one I met seemed to regard themselves as under the command or authority of the notional FSA leadership in Antakya, Turkey. In many ways, indeed, there is no single FSA. Rather, there is a collection of local militias, formed of a combination of army deserters and local men wanting to take up arms.

These militias are in contact, cooperate with one another and receive general directives. But each appears to regard itself as autonomous, and is mainly concerned with ensuring the integrity of its own area and the safety of the area’s civilian protestors.

My third impression was that the arms available to the FSA are basic, but not quite as basic as the “ragtag army with only Kalashnikovs” image might suggest. The AK-47 rifle is indeed the standard issue to all FSA fighters (who must purchase the rifles themselves if they do not already have them courtesy of Assad’s army). But the FSA units I saw also possess RPG-7s, heavy machine guns and mortars. They would not be able to resist a frontal assault from Assad’s forces on the free zones. But they would certainly be able to conduct a guerrilla campaign, should they elect to do so.

Lastly, I observed that the Syrian uprising is very much a sectarian affair, although the FSA activists prefer not to openly characterize it that way. Idlib is a very conservative, traditional Sunni province, and the FSA there is composed entirely of Sunnis.

Anger against the Alawites, on whom the regime relies for support, spills out at unguarded moments. The murderous “Shabiha” Alawite paramilitaries are an object of particular hatred.

The FSA fighters I spoke to said again and again that without arms from the West and the establishment of a buffer zone, the killing in Syria could continue “for years.”

Whether these calls will begin to be heeded by the West, as the carnage in Syria continues, is now the crucial question. A de facto international coalition stands behind Assad: Iran, well skilled in the art of suppressing civil revolt, is providing equipment and expertise. Russia continues to provide diplomatic cover and arms. Hezbollah, too, is lending manpower and expertise.

The FSA, from what I saw, possesses the raw material to become an effective and potent fighting force, and has the potential capabilities to protect the Syrian people from the rage of the dictator and challenge his rule. It does not yet constitute such a force, however.

The crucial variable will be whether the West begins to aid, advise and equip it – as Assad’s friends are doing for his regime. If so, the uprising has a chance. The outcome of the crisis in Syria may well now depend on this decision.

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Shoot the journalists: Syria's lesson from the Arab spring

The killing of the foreign correspondent Marie Colvin and the photographer Rémi Ochlik in the siege of Homs has led to growing international pressure on the regime of Bashar al-Assad

The media centre in the Homs suburb of Baba Amr is nothing more than a family house. Once it had four storeys and a satellite dish on the roof. Reporters, photographers and cameramen had been forced to move there after their previous bolthole came under attack.

Two weeks ago, the top of the house was reduced to rubble during a visit by a CNN television crew, who had placed their own dishes there to broadcast live footage. The assault continued until the dishes were knocked down.

If other evidence were needed that the building had been targeted, before the attack last week that led to the deaths of the Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin and the French photographer Rémi Ochlik, it was supplied by another of the group that travelled to Homs with them, Jean-Pierre Perrin, who described how the building's own dish had been peppered with sniper rounds.

Even after their deaths, the regime has continued to attack Colvin and Ochlik. Footage was shown on state television on Saturday of their bodies, accusing them of being "spies."

The regime of Bashar al-Assad has learned the lessons of the Arab spring when it comes to dealing with the media – both citizen journalists and international outlets. As the Committee to Protect Journalists noted in a 2011 report, the regime quickly "enforced an effective media blackout" as soon as the protests began last March.

It banned, arrested and expelled international journalists and detained local reporters who tried to cover the protests.

It disabled mobile phones, landlines, electricity, and the internet in cities where the protests broke out, and used violence to extract the passwords of social media sites from journalists, allowing the Syrian electronic army, a pro-government online group, to hack the sites and post pro-regime comments. "In April," the report continues, "al-Jazeera suspended its Damascus bureau after several of its journalists were harassed and received threats.

Three days after the brutal assault of the famed cartoonist Ali Ferzat in August, the government passed a new media law that 'banned' the imprisonment of journalists and allowed greater freedom of expression. It followed this by jailing several journalists. In November, cameraman Ferzat Jarban was the first journalist to be killed in Syria in connection with his work since the committee began keeping detailed records in 1992.

If Jarban was the first, he has not been the last. Gilles Jacquier, a French cameraman, was killed in Homs in January, while on a government sponsored press trip, a killing first blamed on opposition fighters but later blamed on the regime by two Swiss colleagues who accused the soldiers accompanying them of leading them into an "elaborate trap".

The regime went further. Those who had entered the country before, such as Anthony Shadid of the New York Times – who collapsed and died in Syria a few days before Colvin's death – were denounced on Syrian state television as "spies", while those visiting Homs illegally were warned that they would be killed by the regime.

Last week, all the evidence now suggests that the regime delivered on its promise, targeting not just the latest group of foreign reporters to visit Homs but also Rami al-Sayyed, a citizen journalist whose video link to Baba Amr had kept news of events in the city in the forefront of the world's attention.

The war in Syria has become not simply a conflict between a brutal regime and those who want to see it fall, but a war on information itself: a calculated desire to destroy the fractured opposition's centres and erase all knowledge of what happened.

On Friday the difficulties of reporting from Homs were reinforced in a series of tweets by Javier Espinosa of the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, who survived uninjured in the attack that killed and injured four colleagues, including Colvin, last week. He described drones flying overhead guiding the bombing of the suburb, saying: "I would love to interview who is launching the mortars right now. What he thinks when he is sending tons of shrapnel to kill people."

Asked to describe the drone, Espinosa said it was too dangerous to "get my head from where I am hiding".

Assad's war on the media, like that on his people, is unlikely to be successful in the long run. Journalists may have been pushed out of Syria, but it seems certain they will return yet more determined to tell the world what is happening.

As for the regime, Assad's ferocious tactics may be making short-term gains but in the long term the outcome is most likely to be the fall of his regime, the Chatham House thinktank said in the Political Outlook for Syria, a report last week. The question now is not if but when. And also in what circumstances.

As the "Friends of Syria" meeting ended in disarray in Tunis on Friday, it was not with suggestions about how to bring the violence to an end but amid threats from two key regional actors – Saudi Arabia and Qatar – who said that they supported military escalation against Assad. In doing so they have raised the terrifying spectre of a proxy war with Shia Iran, Assad's remaining regional ally, now that even Hamas has formally backed the uprising.

The remarks of the two countries – including a Saudi statement, before its delegation walked out of the conference, that arming the opposition was an "excellent idea" – came only hours after the disclosure by rebel sources that they were already receiving foreign arms and equipment.

The Saudi threat to arm the opposition has come amid increasing rhetoric from the US – including the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's description of Russia's blocking tactics as "despicable". In a subtle shift in policy, US officials, quoted by the Washington Post, said that "steps toward arming the opposition were likely to become a reality the [US] would not oppose if the Syrian leader does not yield."

The Saudi intervention on Friday should not, perhaps, have been surprising. The day before, in a telephone call, King Abdullah told the Russian president Dmitri Medvedev in the bluntest terms that discussion on the issue was "useless", and criticised Russia for not co-ordinating with Arab states before vetoing a UN security council resolution. All of which appears to confirm the view of some regional analysts that Saudi Arabia decided some time ago that intervention was inevitable.

Another challenge facing the regime is not direct intervention by neighbours but an ever-growing isolation. The regime has been told that it is no longer welcome at the next Arab league summit in Baghdad. The move by Hamas, which for long kept its political bureau in Damascus, meant that there was now no Sunni group or government allied with the regime.

Russia too – despite its objection to intervention and its veto – in recent days has shown increasing frustration, calling for a ceasefire, although it has continued to supply weapons.

Few even among the closest observers of Syria have any certainty, however, of the endgame. The Chatham House report lists a menu of potential scenarios, from the survival of a deeply "embattled and unpopular" regime for several years, to a coup of Alawite officers against the Assad family, to various kinds of collapse that include a Yemen-style implosion.

And if the authors are cautious about predicting an outcome, they are deeply sceptical too about the opposition Syrian National Council. Britain and other governments recognised the council in Tunis on Friday as a "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.

But the authors describe the group as "not necessarily representative of Syrians" and report concern that "it has focused excessively on wooing international support rather than building domestic strength". Overall, the message is clear, reinforced by the fallout from Tunis: the outcome in Syria is unpredictable and likely to be extremely messy.

None of this will bring comfort to civilians trapped in Syria by the fighting, or the two injured journalists, Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times and Frenchwoman Edith Bouvier, as they await evacuation from Homs.

While the Red Cross evacuated a small number of wounded women and children from the city on Friday, and was in negotiations on Saturday to bring out more, the attacks continued as the military took its bombardment of rebel-held Baba Amr into a fourth week.

Nadir al-Husseini, an opposition activist in the city, described desperate conditions in Baba Amr. "It would be good if they [the Red Cross] could bring in some aid. But even if they brought us some medical supplies how much would it really help?" he told the Reuters news agency. "We have hundreds of wounded people crammed into houses all around the neighbourhood. People are dying from lack of blood because we just don't have the capability of treating everyone. I don't think any amount they could bring in would really help."

The description of conditions in Baba Amr, which has been hit by Russian-made 240mm mortars – the world's largest – came as others in the city condemned the Tunis meeting.

"They [world leaders] are still giving opportunities to this man who is killing us and has already killed thousands of people," said Husseini. "I've completely lost faith in everyone but God. But in spite of that, I know we will continue this uprising. We'll die trying before we give up," he said. "The shelling is just like it was yesterday. We have had 22 days of this. The women and children are all hiding in basements."

"No one would dare try to flee the neighbourhood, that is instant death. You'd have to get past snipers and soldiers. Then there is a trench that surrounds our neighbourhood and a few others. Then you have to go past more troops."

For now the suffering of Homs continues without an end in sight.

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Op zondag 26 februari 2012 21:00 schreef Frikandelbroodje het volgende:
Toch wel opvallend dat Hamas de banden verbreekt met Assad. Haniyeh was een paar weken geleden nog in Teheran en daar leek alles nog koek en ei. Hebben Iran en Syrië al een reactie gegeven? Op Press TV heb ik nog niks gezien.

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Ik weet het ook niet hoor, maar ik vind een poll waarin maar 100 syriërs zijn ondervraagd niet echt betrouwbaar

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Polen onderhandelt om evacuatie gewonde journalisten Syrië

Polen heeft aangegeven dat het naast, onder andere het Internationale Rode Kruis en Frankrijk, ook onderhandelt met de Syrische autoriteiten om de gewonde journalisten in Homs te evacueren.

Dat liet Marcin Bosacki, een woordvoerder van het Poolse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, weten aan perbsureau AP. De Poolse ambassade behartigt de belangen van de Verenigde Staten in Syrië. Ook zei Bosacki dat Polen samen met de VS, Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk samenwerkt om de lichamen van de Amerikaanse journalist Marie Colvin en de Franse fotograaf Remi Ochlik door Damascus te laten vrijgeven. Lees ook het indringende verhaal van onze correspondent Gert van Langendonck die bevriend was met Ochlik.

Afgelopen woensdag kwamen Colvin en Ochlik om bij een raketaanval op een geïmproviseerd perscentrum in Homs. Daarbij raakten ook twee andere journalisten gewond, de Franse Edith Bouvier en de Britse Paul Conroy. Op 23 februari kwamen beelden naar buiten waarop Conroy en Bouvier de internationale gemeenschap oproepen tot evacuatie. Vandaag liet de Franse president Nicolas Sarkozy weten dat plannen om de gewonde journalisten uit Syrië te krijgen in een vergevorderd stadium bevinden.

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Britse fotograaf 'veilig' in Libanon; onzekerheid over Franse verslaggeefster

De Britse journalist Paul Conroy die gewond raakte in Syrië, zou in veiligheid zijn in Libanon. Dat meldde een betrokken diplomaat vandaag aan persbureau Reuters.

Conroy, die als fotograaf voor dagblad The Sunday Times bij de gevechten in Homs aanwezig was, raakte vorige week woensdag tijdens een beschieting door het Syrische leger gewond. Volgens de diplomaat is de journalist inmiddels in veiligheid gebracht, nadat hij door onbekenden het land kon worden uit gesmokkeld.

Française
Het is nog onduidelijk of Edith Bouvier, een Franse verslaggeefster die net als Paul Conroy gewond raakte tijdens het geweldsincident, net als de Brit naar Libanon is gesmokkeld. Syrische activisten meldden dat Bouvier veilig is aangekomen in het buurland, maar dat werd later ontkend door andere bronnen.

Volgens een goed ingevoerde Franse diplomaat bevindt de verslaggeefster zich nog in Homs. Bouvier zou garanties over haar veiligheid willen van de Syrische autoriteiten, voordat ze zich laat verplaatsen.

Bij de aanval waarbij Conroy en Bouvier hun verwondingen opliepen, werden twee andere journalisten gedood. De lichamen van de Amerikaanse journaliste Marie Colvin van The Sunday Times en van de Franse fotograaf Remi Ochlik liggen nog altijd in Homs.

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RAGreeneCNN twitterde op dinsdag 28-02-2012 om 12:40:35 BREAKING: Wounded journalist Edith Bouvier REFUSING to leave #BabaAmr #Syria #Homs without promise govt won't confiscate photos/recordings reageer retweet

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Paul Conroy: Syrian activists killed during rescue

• Volunteers die while getting photographer out to Lebanon
• Three other journalists remain trapped in Homs
• UN human rights chief calls for immediate ceasefire

Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer who was wounded in the besieged city of Homs, has been smuggled out of Syria to Lebanon in a dramatic rescue.

According to those familiar with his escape a number of Syrian opposition activists died during the rescue effort after they came under artillery fire while leaving the city.

The evacuation party came under fire twice. Three activists were killed on the first occasion while more were reportedly killed when they came under fire again.

A spokesman for the paper said: "The Sunday Times can confirm that the photographer Paul Conroy is safe and in Lebanon. He is in good shape and good spirits."

"I have heard that he is out," Conroy's wife Kate Conroy said. "All I can say is that we are delighted and overjoyed at the news, but I am not going to say any more than that at this point."

An FCO spokesperson said: "We can now confirm that the injured British journalist Paul Conroy is safely in Lebanon, where he is receiving full consular assistance from our embassy."

Conroy's father Les, said his wife had spoken to their son and described him as being in "very good spirits", though he confirmed he had not personally talked to the photographer.

"We're all very relieved and happy that Paul's out," he said.

Despite the successful rescue of Conroy – whose colleague Marie Colvin was killed last week in Homs along with French photographer Rémi Ochlik during an attack on the makeshift media centre in the suburb of Baba Amr – three other journalists remain trapped in the city. They are Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro, who sustained a broken femur, French photographer William Daniels and the Middle East correspondent of El Mundo, Javier Espinosa.

The dramatic nature of Conroy's evacuation underlines the high level of risk being faced by those who have been trying to run medical, food and other supplies into the besieged suburbs of Homs and evacuate the injured, including foreign journalists.

The regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has recently moved the elite 4th Division commanded by his brother Maher into the battle for Homs, has been using a foreign-supplied drone to target its artillery and mortar fire into the city.

Conroy had twice refused to leave Baba Amr without the body of Colvin, who was killed during a rocket attack last Wednesday. The group of reporters has been holed up in Baba Amr ever since and protracted negotiations to evacuate them have failed.

According to the Avaaz network, it had been working with 35 Syrian activists in Homs who volunteered to help free the reporters.

"Paul Conroy's rescue today is a huge relief but this must be tempered with the news that three remain unaccounted for, and with our respects for the incredibly courageous activists who died during the evacuation attempts," said Ricken Patel, executive director of Avaaz.

"The rescue is ongoing and we are deeply disappointed that sections of the media broke this story before all the journalists are safe."

According to activists, Bouvier and Daniels have been refusing to leave Baba Amr without an embassy escort to guarantee their safe passage.

In recent days the attacks on Homs have intensified, targeting up to six neighbourhoods of the city.

News of Conroy's rescue came as the UN's human rights chief called for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, saying the situation had deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks as authorities reinforced their onslaught against the opposition.

Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the international community has to take action to prevent Syrian security forces from continuing their attacks against civilians, which had resulted in "countless atrocities".

"There must be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to end the fighting and bombardments," Pillay told an urgent meeting of the UN human rights council.

She urged Syria to end all fighting, allow international monitors to enter the country and give unhindered access for aid agencies to Homs and other embattled cities.

The appeal prompted a bitter riposte from Syria's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, who accused the 47-nation council of promoting terrorism in his country.

Before walking out of the room, Fayssal al-Hamwi said Tuesday's meeting would only prolong the crisis in his country, where the UN estimates at least 5,400 people have been killed since March. Anti-government activists say the real figure is much higher.

Pillay cited the report of a UN expert panel last week, which concluded that Syrian government officials were responsible for crimes against humanity committed by security forces against opposition members. The crimes included shelling civilians, executing deserters and torturing detainees. Some opposition groups had also committed gross abuses, it said.

The panel has compiled a confidential list of top-level Syrian officials who could face prosecution over the atrocities.

Pillay reiterated her call for Syria to be referred to the international criminal court "in the face of the unspeakable violations that take place every moment".

"More than at any other time, those committing atrocities in Syria have to understand that the international community will not stand by and watch this carnage and that their decisions and the actions they take today ultimately will not go unpunished," she said.

Members of the council are expected to pass a resolution on Tuesday condemning "widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities".

A draft resolution supported by many Arab and western nations says the regime's use of heavy artillery and tanks to attack civilian areas has contributed to the deaths of thousands of people since March.

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Op dinsdag 28 februari 2012 15:31 schreef AryaMehr het volgende:

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Allemaal voor de show.

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Spanish reporter escapes from Homs

Javier Espinosa, El Mundo correspondent trapped in besieged Syrian city, is smuggled to safety as fighting rages in Baba Amr

Javier Espinosa, the El Mundo correspondent who had been trapped in a besieged suburb of the Syrian city of Homs, has escaped to safety, according to executives on his paper.

While details were sketchy on Wednesday evening, it appears that Espinosa, who has written a series of dramatic dispatches from Homs – some published in the Guardian – was smuggled out afternoon after making the perilous journey out of the city.

In his dispatches, he detailed the suffering of the suburb of Baba Amr, which has been under siege for 25 days, and he was one of the tiny group of journalists trapped in Homs when two journalists, including the Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, were killed last week.

Espinosa's escape was announced as it was disclosed that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had refused permission for the UN's humanitarian aid chief, Valerie Amos, to enter the country, despite the urgings of Moscow. Reports also emerged of heavy fighting on all four sides of Baba Amr.

Meanwhile, Kofi Annan, the newly appointed UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, said he would hold talks in New York with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and member states. He will then meet the Arab League chief, Nabil Elaraby, in Cairo.

According to witnesses' accounts, the Syrian army's 4th Division has moved towards the outskirts of the suburb, where troops were involved in heavy clashes with members of the Free Syrian Army.

Espinosa's escape follows that of Colvin's colleague, the Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy, who was smuggled to safety on Sunday evening after the journalists were split up during their escape attempt while under attack by government troops. Thirteen activists were killed trying to get them to safety.

The fate of two other remaining journalists – Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and William Daniels, a photographer based in France – was uncertain. Some reports said they remained trapped in Baba Amr. Bouvier broke her leg badly during the attack that killed Colvin and the French photographer Remi Ochlik last week.

Espinosa's escape came as the situation in Baba Amr grew more precarious amid claims by a Syrian government official that it was preparing to "clean" the rebel-held areas of Homs.

Sources of reliable news from inside Homs were also scarce on Wednesday as activists in the city were cut off for long periods from communicating with the outside world.

The rebels have sworn to fight to the last man, according to Ahmed, an activist who said he had just left Baba Amr. He said other opposition areas of Homs were also under attack but gave no details of casualties. "Pray for the Free Syrian Army. Do not be miserly in your prayers for them," activists in the city said in a statement.

"We call on all Syrians in other cities to move and do something to lift the pressure off Baba Amr and Homs. They should act quickly," Ahmed said via Skype.

However, some activists said leaders of the Farouq Brigade had already left Baba Amr.

Homs, a symbol of opposition to Assad in a nearly year-long revolt, was without power or telephone links, Ahmed said.

YouTube footage posted by activists showed army trucks and tank carriers on a highway purportedly heading for Homs.

Reports from the city could not immediately be verified due to tight government restrictions on media work in Syria, where Assad is facing the gravest challenge of his 11-year rule.

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hicham Hassan, said the violence was making the humanitarian situation more difficult.

"This makes it even more important for us to repeat our call for a halt in the fighting," he said.

"It is essential that people who are in need of evacuation – wounded people, women and children – that we are able to offer them that with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent."

Libya will donate $100m (£62m) in humanitarian aid to the Syrian opposition and allow them to open an office in Tripoli, a government spokesman said, in a further sign of its strong support for forces fighting Assad.

Representatives from the Syrian National Council visited Tripoli this week after Mustafa Abdel, chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), made the initial offer earlier this month to host an office there.

The United Nations estimated on Tuesday that Assad's security forces had killed more than 7,500 civilians since the revolt began last March. This figure was significantly higher than previous estimates.

This is disputed by Syria's government, which said in December that "armed terrorists" had killed more than 2,000 soldiers and police during the unrest.

France said this week that the UN security council was working on a new Syria resolution and urged Russia and China not to veto it, as they have previous drafts.

An outline drafted by Washington focused on humanitarian problems to try to win Chinese and Russian support and isolate Assad, western envoys said.

But they said the draft would also suggest Assad was to blame for the crisis – a stance opposed particularly strongly by his long-time ally, Russia.

But China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, also called for political dialogue in Syria, something ruled out by Assad's opponents while the bloodshed goes on.

Russia has warned against interference in Syria under a humanitarian guise.