6 Dead across Syria as Regime Forces Resume Shelling of Rastan
Syrian forces on Monday bombarded the city of Rastan for a second straight day, monitors said, as former U.N. chief Kofi Annan and other world envoys prepared a diplomatic drive to end the bloodshed in Syria.
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, meanwhile, said Syria had finally approved a visit, which she would make from Wednesday to Friday, following widespread complaints about President Bashar al-Assad's refusal to let her in.
And the Red Cross negotiated for a fourth day with Syrian authorities to be allowed to deliver aid and evacuate the wounded from the battered Baba Amr rebel district of the city of Homs in central Syria.
Rastan, which activists expect to be the next target of a drive by regime forces to expel rebels who have regrouped from Homs, 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, came under renewed shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said seven civilians, including four children, were killed on Sunday in shelling of the city, which like Homs sits on the main highway linking Damascus to northern Syria.
On Monday, security forces killed at least six people across the country, including two teenagers, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory.
An activist was killed in the early hours of the day while he was filming fighting that erupted in the southern city of Daraa, cradle of the anti-regime revolt, the Observatory said.
"A civilian died after being tortured by security forces" in Mleiha al-Gharbiya near Daraa, it added.
A 14-year-old boy was killed by sniper fire in Saraqeb in the northwestern province of Idlib, and a civilian was killed when the army stormed the town of Yabrud in the province of Damascus.
A 13-year old girl was also killed by sniper fire in Homs province and a civilian was killed in Aleppo province.
The security forces conducted a campaign of arrests in the Jobar neighborhood of Homs.
In Syria's second city Aleppo, police dispersed a demonstration and arrested three students at the university.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi told reporters that Annan, who has been named special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and League, is to travel to Damascus on Saturday.
He will be accompanied by his deputy, former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Qudwa, a nephew of Yasser Arafat, on their first trip to Syria, where state media said Damascus welcomed the mission.
Annan and Qudwa are due to arrive on Wednesday in Cairo where the pan-Arab organization is based and to hold talks with Arabi on Thursday before flying to Damascus on Saturday, the League chief said.
The two envoys are to serve under a mandate set out by a U.N. General Assembly resolution passed last month and Arab League resolutions on the crisis in Syria.
The General Assembly resolution demands that Damascus "cease all violence and protect its population," free everyone detained in connection with the unrest, withdraw troops from urban areas and guarantee freedom of demonstration.
Echoing resolutions passed by the League, it insists on "full and unhindered access and movement" for Arab League monitors and international news media "to determine the truth about the situation on the ground."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, said he was to meet on Saturday in Cairo with his Arab counterparts to discuss Syria.
"Considering the urgency of the Syria issue, when collective approaches for a settlement need to be found, we view this as a valuable and important format," Lavrov said of the Cairo meeting.
Moscow and Beijing have since October twice wielded their Security Council veto to block U.N. action on the crisis.
In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Weimin said that China's former ambassador to Damascus, Li Huaxin, would travel to Syria on Wednesday for meetings with the government and other parties.
"Although the situation is complex and tense, China still thinks that the political resolution of the Syrian issue is the fundamental way to solve the crisis," he said.
In New York, U.N. humanitarian chief Amos said the aim of her visit to Damascus would be "to urge all parties to allow unhindered access for humanitarian relief workers so that they can evacuate the wounded and deliver essential supplies."
The moves came as the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday it had still not been granted permission to enter Baba Amr, the rebellious district of Homs overrun four days earlier by regime forces.
"Negotiations are still ongoing," ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told Agence France Presse, amid mounting international outrage against President Bashar al-Assad's regime for its crackdown which the U.N. says has cost at least 7,500 lives since last March.
And days after Britain and France joined the United States in closing their embassies in Damascus over security fears, Air France canceled its Monday flight to the Syrian capital, citing the unrest sweeping the country.
Rebel fighters fled Baba Amr last Thursday in the face of a ground assault by regime forces following a month-long shelling blitz which the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said had killed some 700 people.
The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society have sought in vain permission to enter Baba Amr with a seven-truck aid convoy.
The authorities say the relief agencies are being barred for their own safety due to the presence of bombs and landmines. But anti-regime activists say authorities are keeping the groups out to buy time to hide their "crimes."
The ICRC said on Sunday it delivered relief supplies in a nearby village to refugees who had fled Baba Amr.
Source: Agence France Presse
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