The Syrian government vehemently denies it was behind a massacre that left at least 85 people dead, and accuses world leaders of conspiring against it |
The Syrian government vehemently denied Sunday it was behind a massacre that left at least 85 people dead, and it accused world leaders of conspiring against the regime.
Foreign Ministry
spokesman Jihad Makdissi said he addressed the media Sunday "to make a
clear stance against the tsunami of lies."
"We deny that the Syrian
armed forces were responsible of what took place in Houla," where the
United Nations said at least 32 young children were slaughtered in an
attack Friday, he said.
Makdissi also accused
some U.N. countries of "openly working against Syria" and refuted the
notion of an armed opposition in the country.
"There is no armed
opposition in Syria. There is either an intellectual opposition, and we
welcome their participation in national dialogue, or there are armed
terrorist gangs that refuse the political resolution," Makdissi said.
But opposition activists
and many world leaders say President Bashar al-Assad's regime has been
lethally cracking down on dissidents seeking an end to the al-Assad
family's 42-year rule.
U.N.-Arab League special
envoy Kofi Annan is scheduled to visit Syria on Monday, Makdissi said.
Annan's spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Annan brokered a
six-point peace plan two months ago and both sides agreed to it. But
members of the rebel Free Syrian Army said the Annan plan is "dead,"
with some rebels vowing to retaliate against government forces after
Friday's massacre.
"After such a long wait, a
test of patience and steadfastness, the joint command of the FSA inside
Syria announces that it is no longer possible to abide by the peace
plan brokered by Kofi Annan, (which) the regime is taking advantage of
in order to commit more massacres against our unarmed civilians," Free
Syrian Army spokesman Col. Qasim Saad Eddine said in a video posted
Saturday.
A cessation of violence
is a key point of the peace plan. But since the Syrian regime and
opposition members accepted the plan in March, at least 1,635 people
have been killed, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria
said Saturday.
International outrage
grew amid new details on the attack in Houla, where at least 32 children
younger than 10 were killed on Friday, said Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, head
of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria. He said observers counted a
total of at least 85 bodies.
Opposition activists
said entire families were slaughtered by government forces in Houla, as
the regime's 14-month crackdown on dissidents continues unabated.
"This is a clear
evidence that Kofi Annan's plan is dead and a clear indication that
Bashar Assad and his criminal gang do not understand anything but the
language of force and violence," Eddine said. He urged the U.N. Security
Council to "issue urgent and swift resolutions to save Syria, its
people and the entire region by forming an international coalition
mandated by the UNSC to launch airstrikes" against regime forces and
their strategic points.
While opposition
activists put the blame squarely on al-Assad's regime, the Syrian
government blamed regional and Western "enemies" for the Houla massacre.
"The Houla massacres are
an integral part of the so-called intelligence war -- or the
psychological warfare -- against Syria," said Jamal al-Mahmoud of the
state-run Department of Political Science at Damascus University,
according to the state-run Tishreen newspaper. "It is a policy carried
out the enemies of Syria such as the United States, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi
Arabia and France to stage acts of revenge and to create chaos instead
of restoring the security and the stability that the Syrian citizen
needs."
Sunday, Syrian state-run
TV said residents in Houla reported "terrorists from al Qaeda" carried
out the violence in Houla. The Syrian regime has accused Western
countries and Arab oil-rich Gulf states of conspiring with al Qaeda to
attack Syria.
Several world leaders --
including Mood, Annan and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- have
denounced the killings in Houla, a suburb not far from the anti-Assad
bastion of Homs.
But to many, words have no effect.
"No more initiatives, no
more proposals, no more political resolutions after today," said
Eddine, the Free Syrian Army spokesman.
"We call on our
fighters, the soldiers and the revolutionaries, to conduct organized and
planned military strikes against Assad battalions and regime members,"
Brig. Gen. Mustafa Al-Sheikh, a top leader in the rebel group, said in a
video statement posted on YouTube.
A graphic video posted
on YouTube purports to show the lifeless bodies of small children killed
in Houla. They are spread on the floor amid blankets, caked in blood.
One child is turned to reveal a head wound.
CNN could not
independently confirm the authenticity of the video, nor can it confirm
reports from within the country because the government strictly limits
access by foreign journalists.
Lt. Bassim al-Khaled, a
spokesman of the rebel Free Syrian Movement, said more bloodshed is
coming. The al-Assad government is using the cease-fire and peace plan
"to kill more people and is trying to crush the uprising," al-Khaled
said.
"So the only language
this regime is going to understand is the language of the gun,"
al-Khaled said. "Wait and see, we will make them pay for each drop of
blood which was shed."
U.N. officials say more
than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, have died and tens of thousands
have been uprooted since the uprising began in March 2011. Opposition
groups report a death toll of more than 11,000 people.
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