UNITED NATIONS: The “main battle” for the Syrian city of Aleppo is about to start, a top UN official said Thursday, highlighting the spiralling violence in the civil war.
UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous also said after briefing the UN Security Council on the conflict that UN observers had not yet seen opposition rebels using the tanks and other heavy weapons that they now have.
“The spiral of violence is still increasing,” Ladsous told reporters.
“The focus two weeks ago was on Damascus, the focus is now on Aleppo where there has been a considerable buildup of military means and where we have reason to believe that the main battle is about to start,” he added.
Aleppo has been under siege from President Bashar Assad’s forces since July 20 and military observers have predicted a prolonged battle for the northern city.
Syrian rebels used tanks for the first time to attack a military airport northwest of Aleppo on Thursday, a rebel commander said. Rebel commander Abdel Aziz Salameh told AFP his forces had captured four tanks from government forces.
Ladsous said unarmed military observers who have been near Aleppo have seen the heavy weapons.
“We have not yet seen the opposition in the action of using those heavy weapons against government forces. But we know that they have tanks, that they have armored personnel carriers et cetera — that’s a fact,” he said.
The UN Supervision Mission in Syria has cut its number of observers from nearly 300 to less than 150 in the past two weeks because of the increased strife and the suspension of most of its operations.
Ladsous said the mission had still been able to carry out about 50 patrols in the past two weeks and had tried to arrange local cease-fires to let civilians get out of conflict zones.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is preparing recommendations on the future of the UN presence in Syria after the UNSMIS mandate ends on August 20.
Western nations want the mission closed down while Russia is arguing that it should be extended and strengthened, despite the increased violence and the resignation of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said UNSMIS was still playing an “important and useful role.”
France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud said the observers will probably have to leave because there is no agreement on the 15-nation Security Council about the future of UNSMIS.
“Honestly, I think there will be no agreement. I think the mission will disappear on August 19,” Araud told reporters. “I cannot see a scenario, except a change on the ground, that would allow the mission to stay.”
McCain hits UN, Obama on Annan ‘failure’
US Senator John McCain took a jab at the United Nations and President Barack Obama’s administration Thursday by saying Kofi Annan’s Syria mission was “doomed to failure from the beginning.”
While the White House blamed former UN chief Annan’s resignation as UN-Arab League envoy on the refusal of Russia and China to back resolutions targeting Syrian President Bashar Assad, McCain said Washington and the United Nations should share the responsibility.
“It was doomed to failure from the beginning,” McCain said of Annan’s mission during a 14-minute Senate floor speech on the Syria crisis.
“It was motivated on the premise that somehow UN observers could come in and stand between the two fighting forces and totally ignore the fundamentals of this conflict,” he said.
The Republican McCain, a national security hawk who ran unsuccessfully for the White House against Obama in 2008, said it was “ludicrous” for the president to rely on Russia, the key weapons provider for the regime in Damascus, to convince Assad to relinquish power.
“Isn’t it foolish to base your policy and non-intervention on the belief that somehow a former secretary general of the United Nations’ mission would succeed, when it was clear that the Syrian people were not going to be satisfied with the continuous barbarous regime of Bashar Assad?“
Like the White House, McCain too slammed Russia and China for refusing to support the UN Security Council resolutions, but he said Washington must no longer be naive about the conflict, and further “failure of leadership” will cost lives.
For months, McCain has advocated arming the Syrian opposition forces, and he applauded Obama’s reported signing on Wednesday of a covert document authorizing US support for the rebels.
But Washington must do more, the senator said, including helping set up a “sanctuary” where rebels can train and build an opposition government.
“Why doesn’t the president of the United States speak up for them? I’ve never understood that,” he said.
“If we continue on this path of inaction, mass atrocities will continue to unfold in Aleppo and other places in Syria. We have the power to prevent this needless death, and advance our strategic interests in the Middle East at the same time.”
