Beirut/damascus: Syrian fighter jets bombed the Palestinian Yarmouk camp in Damascus yesterday, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque in an area where rebels have been trying to advance into the capital, opposition activists said.
The attack was part of a month-old campaign by President Bashar Al Assad’s forces to eject rebels fighting to overthrow him from positions hemming in Damascus. Yarmouk, on the southern fringes of the Syrian capital, falls within a swathe of territory running from the east to southwest of the city from where rebels hope to storm into the main redoubt of Assad.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned the air strikes on Palestinian refugee camps and said the regime of Assad was nearing its end.
“It’s a scandalous attack,” the foreign minister told French television, accusing Assad wanting to “inflame the situation”.
“We must do everything to avoid anything that could lead to a regional flare-up,” Fabius said.
“I think the end is approaching for Bashar Al Assad,” he added. “You have seen, even if it’s controversial, even the Russians see it coming,” Fabius told TV5 and Radio France Internationale.
Referring to the issue of Islamist extremists fighting in Syria against the Damascus regime, Fabius stressed that the “longer the war goes on, the greater the risks of extremism.”
“The best defence against extremism is the Syrian National Coalition,” Fabius said, welcoming the move last week by Arab and Western states to recognise the National Coalition as the sole representative of Syrians.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, said yesterday the rebels in Syria could not emerge victorious from the 21-month-long uprising against President Bashar Al Assad.
Nasrallah, a staunch ally of Assad, said: “The situation in Syria is getting more complicated (but) anyone who thinks the armed opposition can settle the situation on the ground is very very very mistaken.”
Syrian rebels accuse the Shia group of sending fighters to neighbouring Syria to help Assad overcome the largely Sunni Muslim revolt. Hezbollah denies these accusations.
The uprising started as peaceful demonstrations calling for greater freedoms but turned into an armed insurgency largely in response to heavy crackdown and attacks by Assad forces.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said yesterday that planned deployment of US-made Patriot missiles in Turkey was a “provocative” action which could bring about “uncalculated” results. “The deployment of Patriot missiles will achieve nothing but to provoke and, God forbid, result in being forced into an uncalculated action,” Ali Akbar Salehi said in remarks reported by the official Irna news agency.AFP
