Rebels shot down a helicopter yesterday as troops tried to retake a key Syrian town, a watchdog said, and peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that the conflict risks setting the region ablaze.
The fierce battle for the Damascus-Aleppo highway raged around the northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan even as Brahimi appeared to have won tentative support for a ceasefire.
The UN and Arab League envoy warned of the conflict spreading as he visited neighbouring Lebanon, the latest leg of a Middle East tour aimed at ending more than 19 months of bloodshed.
He said a truce for the four-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday starting on October 26 would be “a microscopic step on the road to solving the Syria crisis”.
“The Syrian people, on both sides, are burying some 100 people a day,” said Brahimi.
“Can we not ask that this toll falls for this holiday? This will not be a happy holiday for the Syrians, but we should at least strive to make it less sad. If the Syrian Government accepts, and I understand there is hope, and if the Opposition accepts, (a truce would be a step) towards a more global ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, Pope Benedict XVI has arranged a high-profile Vatican visit to Syria likely to take place next week.
“We cannot be mere spectators of a tragedy such as the one that is unfolding in Syria,” Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Berton said.
The conflict began in March 2011 with pro-reform protests inspired by the Arab Spring, but is now a civil war pitting mainly Sunni rebels against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
On the battlefront, rebels shot down a helicopter gunship as the army fought to recapture the strategic northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
An amateur video posted on You Tube showed a helicopter spiralling downwards and exploding, as onlookers cried: “Allahu akbar (God is greatest)!”
Warplanes targeted a rebel blockade of a highway in Idlib province, which has halted regime efforts to reinforce Aleppo, the theatre of intense fighting for three months.