Syria to halt fighting but with right to respond to attacks

THE SYRIAN government last night agreed to halt all military activity at 6am today, according to UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

In a letter to Mr Annan, the government said it would halt hostilities throughout Syria while “reserving the right to respond proportionately to any attacks carried out . . . against civilians, government forces or public and private property”.

Mr Annan said: “We’ve been in touch [with the rebels] and have had positive answers from them. I think [after the deadline] . . . we should see a much improved situation on the ground.”

The ceasefire announcement, also broadcast on Syrian state television, coincided with clashes in the north where troops were mopping up areas held by rebels for several months. Opposition spokesmen reported that troops shelled a six-storey mall in the central city of Homs and that there was fighting between defectors and loyalist troops on the outskirts of Damascus.

Mr Annan’s spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said he “looks forward to the continued support of relevant countries” for his mission.

The Syrian state news agency Sana said gunmen had killed Brig Gen Jamal Khaled and his driver in a suburb of the capital, while the Syrian Revolution General Commission reported at least 16 people killed, most of them in Deraa, Homs and the Damascus area. Five of those died under torture, it said.

Fighting was also reported between government troops and the rebel Free Syrian Army in Deraa and Idlib. Shots fired by Syrian troops hit a refugee camp on the Turkish side of the border.

Avaaz, the citizen journalist network, said people in Deir Baalba found the bodies of 18 men who had been taken to a warehouse, where they were tortured before being executed and their bodies set on fire.

“The army is exploiting the ceasefire to arrest more dissidents than ever and security forces are burning houses,” activist Omar al-Hariri said.

While the UN has ruled out military intervention in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, which favour such involvement, have provided funds and arms to the rebels, while Turkey is hosting hundreds of army defectors who have conducted cross-border raids into Syria.

The US, UK and France have also supplied the rebels with non-lethal aid, such as medical supplies and communications equipment.

Mr Annan warned that any further militarisation of the conflict would be disastrous given Syria’s strategic geopolitical location in an already unstable region. The Syrian government has called on Mr Annan to guarantee not only that the rebels will abide by the ceasefire but also that the flow of money and weapons will end.

Russian deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov said the fate of the ceasefire, backed unanimously by the UN Security Council, depended on the opposition and dozens of armed groups that have no central command. While many of these groups associate themselves with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) founded by defectors, most groups operate independently and do not communicate with each other or the FSA’s headquarters in Turkey.

Following talks with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, Mr Annan was upbeat about the prospects for his six-point peace plan. “Iran, given its special relations with Syria, can be part of the solution,” he said. Iran and Syria have been allies since 1980 in spite of strained relations between Shia Iran and Sunni states.

Mr Salehi repeated Iran’s rejection of external interference in Syria and said President Bashar al-Assad should be in charge of “change”, since he had pledged to move from political domination by the Baath party to a multiparty system.

A ceasefire could ease the concerns of neighbouring countries hosting tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. It is estimated that there are 24,000 in Turkey, 95,000 in Jordan and more than 8,000 in Lebanon. The UN puts the death toll during 13 months of violence at 9,000 while the government says that more than 2,500 security men and soldiers have been killed.

British prime minister David Cameron has urged members of the security council to back the Annan plan but he expressed pessimism about the intentions of the Syrian government, accusing it of exploiting Mr Annan’s mission to “crack down even harder” on its people. – (Additional reporting Guardian service)