UNITED NATIONS Rights Head Warns Of 'Civil War' In Syria – Al-Jazeera Intl News

International community urged to take immediate action as UN's estimated death toll since protests began exceeds 3,000.

The number of people killed in Syria in violence related to protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government has now reached more than 3,000, the United Nations human rights chief has said, as she has called for "the international community to take immediate measures to protect the Syrian people".

Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, expressed her deep dismay at the "remorseless toll of human lives", according to a statement released from the body's head office in Geneva on Friday.

"The number of people killed since the violence started in March has now exceeded 3,000, including at least 187 children. More than 100 people have been reported killed in the last 10 days alone," she said.

"In addition, thousands have been arrested, detained, forcibly disappeared and tortured. Family members inside and outside the country have been targeted for harassment, intimidation, threats and beatings.

"As more members of the military refuse to attack civilians and change sides, the crisis is already showing worrying signs of descending into an armed struggle."

"The Government of Syria has manifestly failed to protect its population. Furthermore, it has ignored the international community's calls to co-operate with international investigations," the UN human rights chief said.

Meanwhile, activists said at least 9 people were killed in demonstrations across the country on Friday and that the number was expected to rise, Al Jazeera's Rula Amin reported from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon.

   "The demonstrations spread from Dera'a in the south to the central part of the country in Homs, in Idlib, and to the eastern part in Deir Azzour," Amin said.

"The slogans today were of course, the toppling of the regime, a call on Syrian officers and soldiers to refuse orders to shoot and a call on international community to provide help and to provide protection for civilians."

International action

Pillay said that the international community must take "protective action in a collective and decisive manner", before the violence drives Syria into "a full-blown civil war".

"Sniping from rooftops, and indiscriminate use of force against peaceful protesters - including the use of live
ammunition and the shelling of residential neighbourhoods - have become routine occurrences in many Syrian cities," Pillay said.

Such call by the UN human rights commissioner "will mean very good news for the [Syrian] people, because it will add pressure on the international community to do something," but it is unclear what exactly they expect the world to do, our correspondent Rula Amin said.

Some say they do want military intervention and even welcome it because of the intensity to which Assad has cracked down on the population with violence, Amin said.

"They're talking about no fly zones, to stop the Syrian military and the government from using planes and tanks."

However, one member of the coalition of opposition groups, said the struggle against the Assad regime must remain peaceful.

"There is a pull by some people to take the country towards armed resistance, [but] most people disagree," said Louay Safi, the chair of the political office of the Syrian National Council (SNC).

"The council itself believe the best option it to have unarmed resistance - a peaceful resistance."

"We should avoid civil war at all costs and we believe the regime will fall if the people continue opposing it and the world stops giving support [to the government] from the outside," Safi added.

Arab League

Arab League foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the ongoing unrest in protest-hit Syria, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said.

The meeting will "apparently look into what measures they can take against the Syrian regime, after it has refused all recommendations put forward by the League in their last meeting on Syria" ... including a list of political reforms and dispatching a fact-finding mission from the League, an Arab League source said, according to Rageh.

The 22-member Arab League has not yet approved the request but such meetings need only the approval of two members to take place.

Six member states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) called for such a  meeting on Thursday, demanding on the need address "the situation in Syria, which has deteriorated sharply, particularly in its humanitarian dimensions, and steps that could help end the bloodshed and halt the machine of violence".

In a meeting on September 13, Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo and called on the Syrian authorities to "immediately stop the bloodshed," drawing a testy response from Damascus.

Nabil al-Arabi, the Arab League chief, had met Assad three days earlier and presented him with a 13-point document outlining Arab proposals for reform.

Source:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/2011101492410996889.html

US open to Afghan peace deal including Haqqani: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signalled that the United States remains open to exploring a peace deal including the Haqqani network, the militant group that US officials blame for a campaign of high-profile violence that could jeopardise Washington’s plans for withdrawing smoothly from Afghanistan.

“Where we are right now is that we view the Haqqanis and other of their ilk as, you know, being adversaries and being very dangerous to Americans, Afghans and coalition members inside Afghanistan, but we are not shutting the door on trying to determine whether there is some path forward,” Clinton said when asked whether she believed members of the Haqqani network might reconcile with the Afghan government.

“It’s too soon to tell whether any of these groups or any individuals within them are serious,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

Inclusion of the Haqqani network in a hoped-for peace deal — now a chief objective in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy after a decade of war — is a controversial idea in Washington.

Officials blame the group for last month’s attack on the US embassy in Kabul and a truck bombing that injured scores of American soldiers.

The State Department is facing heat from Capitol Hill for refraining, at least so far, from officially designating the Haqqani group, which US officials say is based in western Pakistan, as a terrorist organisation.

The White House has backed away from assertions from Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the top US military officer until he retired last month, that Pakistani intelligence supported the Haqqani network in the September 13 embassy attack.

But President Barack Obama and others have put their sometimes-ally Pakistan on notice that it must crack down on militants or risk severing a key relationship.

According to media reports, US officials have held meetings with Haqqani network representatives as part of their efforts — which have not yet yielded any visible results — to strike a peace deal, but the State Department declines to discuss details of the reconciliation process.

In recent months reconciliation has become a more prominent feature of Obama’s Afghan strategy even as US and Nato soldiers continued to battle the Taliban and Haqqani militants in Afghanistan’s volatile south and east.

Earlier this year, Clinton advanced a peace deal as a key plank of regional policy for the first time, saying Washington would support a settlement between the Afghan government and those militant groups that meet certain requirements, including renouncing violence and supporting the Afghan constitution.

Fighting, talking

Despite the conciliatory signals, Clinton said the United States would stick to its military campaign that the White House hopes will make militants more likely to enter serious negotiations.

“Now, it is also true that we are still trying to kill and capture or neutralise them (the Haqqani network),” Clinton said. “And they are still trying to, you know, kill as many Americans, Afghans and coalition members as they can.”

“In many instances where there is an ongoing conflict, you are fighting and looking to talk,” Clinton said. “And then eventually maybe you are fighting and talking. And then maybe you’ve got a cease-fire. And then maybe you are just talking.”

It is unclear how quickly a peace deal could be had, as it remains unclear how military commanders can achieve and defend security improvements as the foreign force in Afghanistan gradually grows smaller.

While parts of the Taliban’s southern heartland are safer than they were, Obama will be withdrawing the extra troops he sent to Afghanistan in 2010 just as commanders’ focus turns to the rugged eastern regions where the Haqqani group are believed to operate.

Clinton did not directly address the question of designating the Haqqani network as a ‘foreign terrorist organisation,’ but suggested the United States would want to keep its options open as it seeks peace in a region known for historic merry-go-round of political and military alliances.

“It’s always difficult in this stage of a conflict, as you think through what is the resolution you are seeking and how do you best obtain it, to really know where you’ll be in two months, four months, six months,” Clinton said.

“We are going to support the Afghans and they want to continue to see whether there is any way forward or whether you can see some of the groups or their leaders willing to break with others.”

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/us-open-to-afghan-peace-deal-clinton.html

CNN: U.N. peacekeepers killed in Darfur

(CNN) -- Three United Nations peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in a camp for displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region, the global body said Tuesday.

Two of the dead were soldiers; the third was a police adviser for the joint U.N. and African Union mission in the troubled region. Another six peacekeepers were injured in the incident.

They came under attack at 10:15 Monday night in the Zam Zam camp in North Darfur while the security unit was on patrol. One of the assailants was also killed, a statement from the joint mission said.

It was unclear why the attack occurred.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "strongly condemns" the attack, the U.N. said in a statement. The attack was carried out by unidentified armed men while the peacekeepers were on a "confidence-building patrol," the statement said.

Ban "appeals to the Sudanese authorities to investigate the incident and to bring to justice the perpetrators as soon as possible," according to the statement.

The peacekeeping mission in Darfur is the world's largest at 20,000 authorized troops. Since it began in 2008, 33 peacekeepers have been killed.

"I condemn in the strongest terms this attack on our peacekeepers who have worked selflessly to bring security to the internally displaced persons of Zam Zam camp where so many Darfuris have sought refuge," said Ibrahim Gambari, head of the mission. "An attack on international peacekeepers is a war crime and we will ensure that justice will be served."

Darfur is among the most dangerous areas of operation for U.N. personnel. The region remains a tinderbox. At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million others driven from their homes as a result of fighting between Sudanese rebel groups and the Khartoum government and its allied armed militia.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/11/world/africa/sudan-peacekeepers-killed/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

Cairo killings raise heat on military: FT

Cairo Protesters Against the Massive Killings

Dressed in black, Teresa Youssef crouched sobbing and banging on the wooden coffin adorned with a large photograph of a young man, outside the morgue at the Coptic Hospital in Cairo.

“Get up, Mina,” she cried, to the 20-year-old in the coffin who was killed by a bullet which burst his lungs. “He was a lion. He had no weapon but he defended us when we were attacked.”

Mina Danial was one of some 25 people, mostly Coptic Christians, killed on Sunday evening when Egyptian military police used force to disperse a demonstration by thousands angered by the burning of a church in the south of the country. The violence, in front of the television building in downtown Cairo, was the bloodiest in the country since the popular uprising which ousted Hosni Mubarak, the former president, in February.

By Monday morning 17 bodies lay in the morgue of the Coptic Hospital, some with bullet wounds, others with smashed heads and limbs after armoured vehicles, driven by military police, ploughed into demonstrators to disperse them.

“They shot at us and the armoured vehicles shook the ground under us as they crushed people,” said Ms Youssef, one of the demonstrators. “We tried to pull our friends out by their feet but we could not.”

The violence in central Cairo has shocked Egyptians and brought renewed calls for the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has ruled the county since the fall of Mr Mubarak, to speed up the transition to elected rule. The council on Monday ordered an investigation into the violence, while Pope Shenouda, the head of the Coptic church, alleged that unknown individuals infiltrated the demonstration to provoke the army to attack the Christians.

In the current atmosphere of mistrust, many Egyptians believe remnants of the former regime are intent on derailing the revolution. Others put the blame on the army.

“The military council is the main reason for what happened last night,” said Ahmed Maher, head of April 6, one of the youth groups which launched the revolt against the former president. “They are using the same tactics used by Mubarak to address sectarian problems [by failing to take action against Muslims who burnt down the church in Upper Egypt.] State television was essentially inciting against the Christians. We need to transfer authority to an elected government as soon as possible.”

The military council initially said it wanted to leave power after six months, during which parliamentary and presidential elections would be held.

It now appears the generals will be in power at least until the end of 2012, when a new president is due to be elected. Although the army is still popular and many Egyptians view the council as the last remaining protection against chaos, their management has come under mounting criticism.

Analysts say the generals’ lack of political experience and their authoritarian inclinations are at the root of the problems in Egypt, rather than a conspiracy to cling to power. The end of dictatorship has unleashed demands and pent-up anger from many sectors of Egyptian society.

Workers and civil servants have staged strikes for higher pay and ultraconservative Muslim groups have emerged. Sectarian tensions have risen, with more attacks against churches. The normally quiescent Christians have also been emboldened to demand their rights.

The military has used increasingly authoritarian methods to maintain its grip, referring thousands of civilians to military courts for summary trials and reviving Mr Mubarak’s hated emergency law and widening its scope.

On Sunday night, the security forces entered the offices of two independent television channels overlooking the demonstration to take them off air. Hisham Kassem, a political analyst, said the violence could have been prevented if the authorities had taken action against those who burnt the church in Aswan that sparked the demonstrations and against the provincial governor who made statements to the press which appeared to justify the attack.

“We do not have trained people in the army or the police capable of dispersing demonstrations peacefully,” he said.

“The solution has to be preventive by applying the law, not by using the methods of Mubarak. There is no joking with these [sectarian] issues. The country could go up in flames and history will place the blame with the council.”

Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b6ab5c00-f35c-11e0-b98c-00144feab49a.html#axzz1aRxTVMtq

Egypt probes deadly sectarian clashes, first victims buried

CAIRO: Egypt’s military rulers ordered a speedy probe into clashes which killed 25 people, mostly Coptic Christians, as the cabinet held crisis talks and thousands attended the funerals of 17 victims.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) “tasked the government with quickly forming a fact finding committee to determine what happened,” in a statement read on state television Monday as world leaders urged restraint.

It called for “all measures against all those proven to have been involved, either directly or by incitement”.

Both the ruling military council and the cabinet held crisis talks, a day after the clashes in Cairo left 25 dead, most of them Copts, and more than 300 people injured, according to health ministry figures.

The SCAF, which took power when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February, stressed it “continues to bear national responsibility to protect the people” until it hands over to an elected civilian authority.

Thousands of people attended a service at the Copt cathedral here late Monday for the funerals of 17 demonstrators.

Live television showed the coffins being brought in a procession from the Copt hospital in downtown Cairo where autopsies were carried out.

The coffins, each bearing the victim’s name and flowers arranged in a cross, were lined up in the cathedral for the funeral service before being taken out for burial.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said US President Barack Obama was “deeply concerned” about the violence.

“Now is a time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can move forward together to forge a strong and united Egypt,” he said.

“As the Egyptian people shape their future, the United States continues to believe that the rights of minorities – including Copts – must be respected, and that all people have the universal rights of peaceful protest and religious freedom.

“These tragic events should not stand in the way of timely elections and a continued transition to democracy that is peaceful, just and inclusive.”

A “deeply saddened” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Egyptian military authorities to defend “all faiths” in the country.

The Congregation for Eastern Churches at the Vatican slammed the “senseless violence”, with Cardinal Leonardo Sandri telling Vatican Radio he hoped it “would not lead as well to a climate of precariousness and difficulty” for Copts.

Egyptian military prosecutors began questioning 25 people accused of involvement in the clashes, state news agency MENA reported, after a security official said 40 were arrested overnight.

Copts had been protesting against an attack earlier this month on a church in the southern city of Aswan when the violence erupted.

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church led by Pope Shenuda III accused “infiltrators” of triggering the street battle on the Nile waterfront.

“The Christian faith denounces violence. Strangers infiltrated the demonstration and committed the crimes for which the Copts have been blamed,” a Church statement said after Shenuda met 70 Church leaders.

“Copts have suffered repeated problems without accountability for the aggressors,” it said, calling on authorities to “solve the root causes of the problems”.

European leaders in Luxembourg expressed alarm at the Cairo clashes.

“It is very important that the Egyptian authorities reaffirm the freedom of worship,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

“We can only call on the Egyptian government to get to the bottom of these incidents as soon as possible and bring those responsible to justice,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told journalists.

And EU foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton urged Egypt to move towards elections “with a desire to see all people part of those elections and to protect the people, whoever they are, wherever they come from, whatever belief and faith they have.”

A curfew was imposed overnight Sunday-Monday in parts of the Egyptian capital.

In a late-night address, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf appealed to Egyptians “not to give in to sedition” and warned the country was “in danger”.

At least five of the dead were mown down by a speeding army vehicle which swerved to hit protesters, a Coptic priest said, while an AFP correspondent saw bodies with gunshot wounds at the hospital.

The grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Tayyeb, the Sunni religious head, called for crisis talks between Muslim and Christian leaders “in a bid to contain the crisis”, state television said.

Some commentators warned of civil religious strife, but others said the clashes were fuelled not only by sectarian strife but also by anger towards the security services and the military council which succeeded Mubarak.

Government-backed provocation was also blamed.

Users of social networking sites such as Twitter said the initial clashes outside the state television building on the Nile were provoked by “thugs” at the scene, while the broadcaster was accused of fanning anti-Coptic sentiment.

On Monday, the authorities announced the hanging of a man sentenced to death for shooting six Copts last year.

Copts complain of systematic discrimination, but since Mubarak’s fall, tensions have also mounted between the military – initially hailed for not siding with Mubarak – and groups which spearheaded the revolt.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/11/egypt-probes-deadly-sectarian-clashes-first-victims-buried.html

Anti-Gadhafi fighters make gains in Sirte

SIRTE: Libya’s revolutionary forces seized a convention center Sunday that had served as a key base for fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in the fugitive leader’s hometown, as they squeezed remaining regime loyalists in the besieged coastal city.

An anti-Gaddafi soldier breaks a picture frame holding a photo of Moammar Gadhafi inside Ibn Sina hospital in the centre of Sirte.

The inability to take Sirte, the most important remaining stronghold of Gadhafi supporters, more than six weeks after anti-Gadhafi fighters seized the capital has stalled efforts by Libya’s new leaders to set a timeline for elections and move forward with a transition to democracy.

Gadhafi supporters also hold the inland enclave of Bani Walid, where revolutionary forces have been stymied by challenging terrain.

But the transitional leadership has said it will declare liberation after Sirte’s capture because that will mean it holds all of the seaports and harbors in the oil-rich Mediterranean coastal country.

Libya’s de facto leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the governing National Transitional Council, said Sunday that anti-Gadhafi fighters have made huge gains in Sirte and Bani Walid, southeast of the capital.

”I do believe, God willing, that the liberation of these cities will happen within this week,” Abdul-Jalil told reporters in Tripoli.

He said that revolutionary forces are advancing on Bani Walid from five sides, while Libyan fighters in Sirte have punched their way into the city center in fierce fighting and are now cleaning out pockets of resistance.

Located 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, Sirte is key to the physical unity of the nation of some 6 million people, since it lies roughly in the center of the coastal plain where most Libyans live, blocking the easiest routes between east and west.

After a three-week siege from the outskirts, revolutionary forces launched an all-out assault on Sirte on Friday, pounding the city with tank shells, field cannons, rockets and heavy machine guns.

Loyalists have put up fierce resistance, and fired back with sniper rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

On Sunday, the Ouagadougou Convention Center, an ornate complex that Gadhafi frequently used for international summits, lay in ruins.

Throughout the siege, Gadhafi fighters used the walled complex as a base and stronghold. From there they were able to dominate surrounding neighborhoods and assault revolutionaries trying to enter Sirte.

At the nearby Ibn Sina Hospital, scores of wounded civilians crowded the corridors, lying on gurneys and floors to protect them from the shelling and gunfire.

There was no electricity or water, and a handful of medical students and nurses were the only medical staff.

Revolutionary fighters roamed the hallways checking IDs and detained about 25 people suspected of being Gadhafi fighters or mercenaries.

”These are all Gadhafi people. They are snipers and we have captured them,” said Ahmed Rahman, a field commander, as his soldiers cuffed a suspected pro-Gadhafi sniper.

The revolutionary forces also now control the University of Sirte on the southern outskirts.

As they push forward, Gadhafi loyalists are fighting in an ever-shrinking defensive perimeter consisting only of a Gadhafi palace complex, some residential buildings and a hotel near Green Square in the city center.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/anti-gadhafi-fighters-make-gains-in-sirte.html