UN ends mission in Syria

The United Nations called an end to its observer mission in Syria yesterday, while activists reported more bloodletting in an attack on civilians in the main battleground of Aleppo.

The UN decision was announced as the international community piled the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime to end 17 months of fighting that is now threatening to entangle neighbour-ing Lebanon.

“The conditions to continue UNSMIS were not fulfilled,” France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud said after a meeting on the conflict, referring to the mission that is due to end at midnight on Sunday.

Major powers have long been at odds how to end the increasingly brutal battle for Syria, and the withdrawal of the observers follows the collapse of a peace plan drawn up by former peace envoy Kofi Annan.

On the ground, activists reported that Syrian forces shelled a group of people queuing outside a bakery in the eastern Qadi Askar district of Aleppo, the city at the epicentre of the battle between the regime and armed rebels. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were killed in the district, and that 84 had died in violence across the country.

On Wednesday, around 40 people, including women and children, were killed in a massive air strike on civilians in the rebel bastion of Aazaz just north of Aleppo, according to rights groups and residents.

Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Syria after the air strike on Aazaz, saying: “Yet again, Syrian government forces attacked with callous disregard for civilian life”.

Mohammed Nur, director of the now closed Aazaz media centre, said 40 people were killed – including 30 from one extended family – and 150 wounded.

“Bashar al-Assad doesn’t care where the bombs land and in any case, his pilots are not that accurate,” he said.

With the violence showing no signs of abating, Russia – which along with China – has blocked three UN resolutions on the crisis, called for world powers to make a joint appeal for the regime and rebels to end the fighting. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi also urged a visiting Syrian envoy to implement a ceasefire and accept international mediation.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius repeated the call for Mr Assad to go.

“France’s position is clear: we consider Assad to be butchering his own people.

“He must leave, and the sooner he goes the better,” Mr Fabius said at a refugee camp for Syrians in Jordan, before flying to Lebanon.

Earlier yesterday, the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation suspended Syria, with its chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu saying: “This (Muslim) world can no longer accept a regime that massacres its people using planes, tanks and heavy artillery.”

The US and the opposition Syrian National Council welcomed the move, but it was rejected by Syria’s staunch ally Iran and Damascus, which charged it was the victim of a US-mastermind-ed “conspiracy”.

Assad, whose regime has been hit by a spate of high-level defections and a bomb attack that took out his top security chiefs, insists he is fighting a “terrorist” plot aided by rival Sunni Muslim powers including Saudi Arabia.