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Subscribe to RSSViolence in Syria continues to escalate despite a UN-backed cease-fire agreement that is scheduled to take effect within days. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
The United Nations' secretary general issued a harshly worded condemnation of Syrian authorities on Friday, saying they were still attacking innocent civilians despite promises to stop using heavy weapons in population centers.
Earlier this week, the government of President Bashar al-Assad publicly accepted an official deadline of April 10 to begin withdrawing government troops from urban centers and flashpoints such as the battered city of Homs.
"The 10 April timeline to fulfill the Government’s implementation of its commitments, as endorsed by the Security Council, is not an excuse for continued killing," said the statement from the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The statement said Ban was concerned about reports of growing numbers of refugees arriving in neighboring countries to escape the fighting. It said he had been briefed on the situation by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu by phone on Thursday night.
Media reports Friday said thousands of refugees were crossing the border with Turkey. Reuters said 2,800 arrived in Turkish camps on Thursday as violence in bordering Idlib province worsened.
Ban's statement demanded that the Syrian government "cease all military actions against the Syrian people."
Reuters reported Friday that rebel activists and a Turkish official at the frontier said Syrian forces are pressing a military offensive and laying mines near the border with Turkey in an attempt to block a flow of refugees and supplies for insurgents.
Reuters said the Syrian army activity was visible across olive groves from the small Turkish border village of Bukulmez.
"The whole of northern Idlib has become another Baba Amr," Ahmed Sheikh, a law student and activist, told Reuters, referring to a district of the town of Homs devastated by shelling in the past two months.
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Here we go again. Contrary to popular belief at the UN, Assad does NOT consider the UN as a pen pal and is not even reading the scathing letters he is receiving from them -- or anyone else, for that matter. Assad understands ONE THING. That is violence perpetrated against his own countrymen. Until someone opens a can of whoopass on Assad himself, this will continue, regardless of all the letters the UN writes (since that is ALL the UN is prepared to do.)
Assad doesn't fear the UN. The UN can't even kick Syria off the UNESCO committee on human rights. The UN has become a waste of tax dollars.
The U.N. is a TOOTHLESS TIGER !!!!
All it does is suck money, food and other forms of foreign aid money from us. Most nations that belong to it, do nor contribute anything to it . They just suck it dry and cut sweet heart deals for themselves . When push comes to shove. They run to the U.S. and beg for us to shed blood for them !!!! Get out of the U.N. and all of it's various agencies period .
HEY people , Did you see all the heavy weapons the rebels have , I Mean what the heck you all looking at , the report clearly showing you these ALQUIDA thugs shooting at the SYRIAN army , I mean what the hell you ASSAD or anybody in any freaking Government will do , The Syrian army have the right to Defend its people and should not have to about anybody telling them what to do , ASSAD is too nice ,I will tell the United Nations and its puppets to go to hell , that's what the ISRAELIS ,THE TURKS and us too ,Assad have the right to protect his people from these Alquida And Muslim brotherhood thugs And if the Saudis and Qataris do not like it let them send their army like they did in Bahrain , the only difference here is the Syrian will kick their butts, so they want us to do their dirty job , Just like the dam Europeans they always want to do their dirty job and they go and steal all of little countries wealth just like did years ago and still doing till now , wake up people and check the facts , this reporter reporting from Cairo Egypt a thousand mile away and telling whats happening in Syria and then they say we cannot confirm these report but they still show knowing that its a fat lie , I remember seeing LOTS of WMDs report and pictures from Iraq before the war and all of these Iraqi defectors telling us they knew where all Saddam weapons , what so sad we destroy a country and killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions ,and in the process we lost our heroes that died on a pure lie , and the bad thing is nobody answered to that till this day , wake people and try to learn from our mistakes , and do not let other countries push to do their dirty job , Our troops lives are more valuable to us , we should honor them and protect them from harm , just like they protect us , God bless our troops and God bless the USA .
Assad is attacking heavy armed rebels trying to overthrow the government. If it was the Israeli government doing the attacking, the South Korean Ban and the zionist pandering media would say that the Israeli government was defending itself against "terrorists". The rebels have murdered many Syrian Alewites and Christians, but the pro American Ban does not condemn that.
Were all those people who attempted to protest peacefully also "heavily armed"? And, what about the attacks on doctors and medical personnel who attempted to aid the wounded? In all civilized parts of the world, medical personnel are considered neutral and off-limits.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and all UN employees should be sent home. UN and other agencies have wasted huge tax monies and are most partisan.
Why do they act like they are dead in Bahrain and when there are genocides of non-Muslims, Shiites in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other places?
Our global sat pics miss nothing. We know exactly what is going on as it happens. We see it , we know it, we ignore it. Because of possible fear of position of Russia and China. We gotta walk tippie toe. If we had oil interest in there it would have been all over and done with. So now it is back door stuff. So we can say , who us, guns , ammo, money. Na, not us, the Arabs did it. What a stupid game for life. Just not nice!!!
What's your point? Of course we have a different foreign policy in areas that don't have an immediate impact on us. We should expend our resources where we can have the most influence, and leave the UN to handle the rest.
We fail to remember the terrorist run Lebanon next door to Syria and all those years Syrian troops policed Lebanon in and out. We fail to consider how a next Syrian government propped up after the fall of the Assad regime may be even worse. We see over and over again the demonstration that all Muslim countries can function in an orderly fashion only with cruel leaders who rule with a merciless fist of iron. Peaceful democracy works only in countries which are, by and large, led as Christian nations, having a love for the rule of law and order. The world needed to watch this year long spectacle of Muslims slaughtering other Muslims, with the Arab League sitting idly upon its hands, neither caring nor remorseful to act. You ought to get down on your knees and thank God you are an American. Let them burn. They deserve one another and their Alley Oop religion.
Muslums slaughtering muslums..i dont see a problem with that...its been happening for centuries..we just never had the technology to get the pictures out like we do today...let the muslums continue to slug it out..bring home our troops.
I don't know about you, but I am totally relieved knowing Ban Ki-moon has condemned Assad. Wow, the killings will stop for sure. Anyone else he's condemned? Didn't think so. And think how scared Assad is know he's been condemned. The man is soft. The man is irrelevant. The man is limp. But he sure as hell knows how to condemn.
oh, well, there's a surprise.
Assad is done and he knows it. he can't leave anymore because they would find him worldwide. I believe he'd rather die on "his" land. and he's not going alone.
when there's no way out, you go further in. he's going to die but on his terms.
that's all folks, it's a mass murder-suicide scenario. he's got nothing to lose.
Uh oh. Now Syria's in deep crap. Once the UN condemns a dictator they immediately promote him to Head of the UN Commission on Human Rights. That's showin' em, alright.
How much do we pay these people at the UN and why do we have to pay someone to "condemn" these attacks? I thought this organization was created to STOP stuff like this, not condemn it. When a serial killer gets his third or fourth victim do we "condemn" with nasty letters?
Just how is the UN supposed to stop these atrocities? It doesn't have a standing army, nor would the US permit it to do so. Even if it did have a military force available, the Russians or Chinese would veto its deployment.
I'm not a fan of the UN, but we must recognize that it is a diplomatic, not military, organization.
Barry, they do have the blue helmets. don't know if they have heavy weapons to fight the heavy weapons, don't think so. Just suit the 101st airborne with the blue and get her done. Paid for by everyone in the UN.
The blue helmet troops are peace keepers, not peace makers. They're supposed to hold a peace, not impose one on unwilling warring parties.
In addition, if the 101st were to be put under UN command, the right wing in the US would freak out. Actually, I'd be against it, too. The ultimate commander of American troops should always be an American (the NATO Supreme Commander, for instance, is always an American).
hey Save the enviroment -- are you from Alaska buddy because you sure talk just like the dumb ex Governor and her boss McCain , you send our troops everywhere, why don't you get a blue helmet and go fight in SYRIA next to these Alquida rebels and Muslim brotherhood , the prop,em is somebody should have been prosecuted for sending our troops to Iraq on A big fat lie , that's what should have happened ,so none of these people in office can talk so easy about sending our troops anywhere and defend countries we should have punished for helping the 9/11 hijackers , war,, war, war , that's all what some of us understand , we should leave everybody alone because , as far as i remember God did not put anybody in charge here , and especially not these gulf states and the fing Europeans .
A government protecting their nation's interests...
The only difference-when you boil it down-is they do not have the power nor control nor cowardly society to do it under cover of no cause tin foil investigations...
Really, the longer the people around a target have the same murder program running through their heads that causes suffering being used to emulate psychological conditions toward the exact same ends for the target the more they dismiss it and that has to do with the level of control and number of cowards being exploited inferring control and threat over each other...
And they draw there most punishing power along the lowest standards too but their population does not justify the slaughter -and destruction of their own rights to be monitored as an on demand whores for life because demonstrating their innocence caused them to become threats for life-as part of their nation's interest...
...because you need enough power and control to smoother people in ways that make it look like it is their fault to make the claim that this non conclusive power -that far exceeds theirs -is in our nation's best interest even though its lethal and powerful force maintains the perception that it doesn't exist so they can be called the bad guys...
You should probably remove any destruction of your people along the lines of national interests because the United States of America is no exception but they conceal the slaughter within the power and control of investigations that stretch well beyond anyone calling them the bad guys...
May they rest in peace in this complicated world...
I do not think any of us should be 'celebrating' the loss of these 100 souls, if that how it turns out. We are a country with a majority being Christian and the majority good, God-fearing people. Hatred, however, is everywhere...right next door, and right here on this panel of posts.
Let the hatred go, (your) life is too short!
You posted a comment about the Pakistan avalanche disaster, a news item not even reported yet on this web site when all these other posts were scribed late last night about the U N chief condemning Syria's Assad for his continued slaughter of Syrian civilians. You are posting in the wrong news article and at a time inappropriate to this one from yesterday, and I have no mercy nor sympathy for dead Paki soldiers who were training to continue harrassment of Kashmiri peasants, I hope they take it as a sign from Allah to chill out, no pun intended.
It's an Arab problem, let the other Arab Nations handle it. If they are too scared to do that, so be it. While I hate saying this, those Muslims would just as soon kill us, while killing other Muslims. The Western worlds need to stay out of this mess.
Let them kill each other for their silly Moohanhead dung eating person. They need to join the 21st Century, not stay in the 7th Century.