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Peace Envoy Heads For Tough Task In Syria

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  • Peace Envoy Heads For Tough Task In Syria

    PEACE ENVOY HEADS FOR TOUGH TASK IN SYRIA
    By Michel Moutot

    Agence France Presse
    Sept 12 2012

    DAMASCUS - Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi heads to Syria on Thursday to
    meet President Bashar al-Assad, an Arab official said, after admitting
    he faces an "extremely difficult task" against an escalating conflict.

    In violence on Wednesday, rebels killed at least 18 soldiers in a
    car bomb and ground attack on a military position in Idlib province
    of northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

    Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said "there were 70 to 100 soldiers
    there when the attack occurred" in the town of Saraqeb.

    Separately, four Syrian Armenians were killed and 13 wounded in
    the war-battered commercial capital Aleppo on the way home from the
    airport after a trip to Yerevan.

    A friend of the victims in Aleppo told AFP: "It's not obvious who
    opened fire, but the result is that five cars were attacked and four
    Armenians were killed and 13 or 14 others were wounded."

    One of those killed "had left his family behind in Armenia, his wife
    and kids. He had gone back to take care of some things in Aleppo and
    then return," the friend said.

    Outside Aleppo, fighting erupted at dawn in the Nayrab area, around
    five kilometres (three miles) from the airport, which remained fully
    operational, the Observatory said.

    Over the past several weeks, rebels have taken to attacking military
    airfields in an attempt to prevent them from being used for launching
    air strikes, while commercial facilities have been left unscathed.

    Meanwhile, the army shelled a string of neighbourhoods in central
    Aleppo, including Suleiman al-Halabi, Sheikh Khodr and Qadi Askar,
    the Britain-based Observatory said.

    Helicopter gunships also strafed the rebel district of Bustan
    al-Basha, a witness said, and the Observatory reported that rebels
    used rocket-propelled grenades to attack a security branch in the
    adjacent Midan neighbourhood.

    In Hama province of central Syria, the Observatory reported that 20
    bodies, including those of two children, had been found in farmland
    in Halfaya village following an assault by government forces.

    In eastern Syria, troops shelled several districts of Deir Ezzor city,
    and an unspecified number of people were killed in air strikes on
    the town of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, the Observatory said.

    Overall, at least 83 people -- 36 soldiers, 34 civilians and 13 rebels
    -- died in Syria on Wednesday, the Observatory said.

    More than 27,000 people have been killed since the revolt against Assad
    broke out in March 2011, according to figures from the Britain-based
    monitoring group which gathers its information from a wide network
    of activists.

    -- Brahimi heads for Assad talks --

    -----------------------------------

    In Cairo, an Arab League diplomat said Brahimi would head for
    Damascus on Thursday and meet with Assad the following day, but gave
    no further details.

    Brahimi held talks in the Egyptian capital with Qatari Prime Minister
    Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, briefed envoys to the Arab League
    and met Syrian opposition officials, UN spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci
    said in New York.

    He told envoys of the Cairo-based League that "he was approaching
    the crisis in Syria with his eyes open and the full knowledge that
    it was an extremely difficult task," she told reporters.

    The UN-Arab League envoy replaced former United Nations chief Kofi
    Annan who quit in August over Security Council divisions on the
    conflict that has gripped Syria for nearly 18 months.

    Coupled with the violence is the humanitarian crisis caused by the
    large number of people fleeing the country or displaced within its
    borders.

    The UN refugee agency said the number of civilians who have fled
    the violence has reached more than 250,000. And it says more than
    1.2 million civilians, more than half of them children, have been
    displaced inside Syria.

    In Beirut, film star and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie said on
    Wednesday she was moved at how Lebanese families were opening their
    homes to Syria refugees, after Beirut ruled out setting up camps
    for them.

    "I was very moved today to meet again with the Syrian families. And
    to meet them here, not in a camp, but in homes where they are welcomed
    and protected," the Oscar-winning star told reporters.

    The Lebanese government has ruled out the possibility of establishing
    refugee camps amid fears that the crisis in neighbouring Syria could
    spill across its borders.

    Already, areas of northern Lebanon where a large number of refugees
    have concentrated have come under shelling from inside Syria.

    In the embattled city of Aleppo, a rebel commander vowed on Wednesday
    to retake a major barracks in Syria's commercial capital, a day after
    it was recaptured by the army.

    "We lost the Hanano barracks, and I regret that. But I assure you
    we will retake it within a week," Abu Mohammed, who did not give his
    real name, told AFP in a house in the centre of Aleppo.

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