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Subscribe to RSSThe International Red Cross declares the conflict in Syria to be a civil war. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports on the significance of the designation.
Updated at 2:01 p.m. ET: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday it now considers the conflict in Syria a civil war, meaning international humanitarian law applies throughout the country. The declaration came as opposition fighters battled Syrian government forces in Damascus.
The Geneva-based group's assessment is an important reference that helps parties in a conflict determine how much and what type of force they can or cannot use.
ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said Sunday that the humanitarian law now applies wherever hostilities are taking place in Syria, where fighting has spread beyond the hotspots of Idlib, Homs and Hama.
International humanitarian law grants parties to a conflict the right to use appropriate force to achieve their aims. But attacks on civilians and abuse or killing of detainees can constitute war crimes.
Syria denied U.N. claims that government forces used heavy weapons during a military operation that has brought widespread international condemnation against President Bashar Assad's regime.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the violence Thursday was not a massacre, but a military operation targeting armed fighters who had taken control of the village of Tremseh.
"What happened wasn't an attack on civilians," Makdissi told reporters in Damascus. "What has been said about the use of heavy weapons is baseless."
But the United Nations has already implicated Assad's forces in the assault. The head of the U.N. observer mission said Friday that monitors stationed near Tremseh saw the army using heavy weaponry and attack helicopters.
The latest massacre began with a military bombardment of the village of Tremsi. After the heavy artillery and shelling, villagers said pro-government militia men swept in to kill at close range. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
On Saturday, U.N. observers investigating the killings found pools of blood in homes and spent bullets, mortars and artillery shells, adding details to the emerging picture of what anti-regime activists have called one of the deadliest events of Syria's uprising. The observers were expected to return to Tremseh on Sunday.
Dozens of people have already been buried in a mass grave, and activists are still struggling to determine the total number of people killed in what they say was a bombardment by government tanks and helicopters on Thursday.
Some of the emerging details suggested that, rather than the outright shelling of civilians that the opposition has depicted, the violence in Tremseh may have been a lopsided fight between the army pursuing the opposition and activists and locals trying to defend the village. Nearly all of the dead are men, including dozens of armed rebels. The U.N. observers said the assault appeared to target specific homes of army defectors or opposition figures.
Running tolls ranged from around 100 to 152, including dozens of bodies buried in neighboring villages or burned beyond recognition. The activists expected the number to rise since hundreds of residents remain unaccounted for, and locals believe bodies remained in nearby fields or were dumped into the Orontes River.
Independent verification of the events is nearly impossible in Syria, one of the Middle East's strictest police states, which bars most media from working in the country. The observers are in the country as part of an all but mordant peace plan by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, who has been trying for months to negotiate a solution to Syria's crisis.
In Damascus on Sunday, numerous residents contacted by Reuters said they could hear loud explosions, persistent gunfire and sirens wailing. Thick black smoke was visible above the Damascus skyline in live internet video links.
"I can't believe it, it sounds incredibly close. I hear shooting and other stuff, like blasts. I can hear the sounds of ambulances rushing past. I am so afraid. People may die tonight," said a resident in a district close to the fighting, contacted by telephone.
Cousins who defected from the army fled to a valley along with more than 100 other men and boys. For the first few hours they appeared to be safe, until Syrian forces found them. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Activist Samir al-Shami, who spoke to Reuters by Skype from Damascus, said the fighting was under way in the al-Tadamon district in the capital's south, after a night of sustained battles in the nearby Hajar al-Aswad district.
"There is the sound of heavy gunfire. And there is smoke rising from the area. There are already some wounded and residents are trying to flee the area," he said, using Skype to show live video images of smoke visible over the skyline.
"There are also armored vehicles heading towards the southern part of the neighborhood," he said.
Like others contacted by Reuters, he described it as the most intense fighting he had heard in the capital.
"This area has had a lot of fighting ... The area is kind of a slum. The people who live there are poor. There's a lot of people and a lot of grassy areas around it so it's easy for rebels to sneak in and out," he said.
An explosion hit a security forces bus in Damascus on Sunday and wounded several people, activists said. Residents said they heard a powerful blast, followed by the sirens of ambulances rushing toward Damascus's southern ring road near the neighborhood of Midan.
Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign minister was quoted as saying that Iran is ready to host talks between the Syrian government and opposition groups, but members of the opposition quickly rejected the offer.
The statement by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi appeared to suggest a possible shift in the Iranian leadership's approach. Iran has consistently supported Assad's efforts to suppress the 17-month-long uprising.
Tehran has repeatedly accused Western and regional powers of meddling in Syria's internal affairs through backing extremist militant groups.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to sit down with the Syrian opposition and invite them to Iran," Salehi was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency. "We are ready to facilitate and provide the conditions for talks between the opposition and the government."
Samir Nashir, an executive board member of the exile Syrian National Council, turned down the offer.
"We will not participate in any meetings or talks with the regime as long as Assad is in power. Assad does not need talks, he needs to go to the International Criminal Court for the massacres he's committed," he said.
"We will not speak to any mediators whether they are Iranian, Syrian or Russian."
The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Another reason to stay out.
It funny how history works,look back 30 years.See how many off the middle eastern countries that the U.S. supported.Even trained there army's.Now were paying for it.3 war later and billions spend,Untold number of live lost.
America can't there nose out of other countries business.While i don't blame the American public,I do blame Agency that is ran with very little oversight off the elected officials.You know who im talking about.The people that can tell the president to F.O.
I am not a right wing fanatic.These are only what i have seen in my life.
It's really kind of amazing how much Muslims enjoy greasin' each other. I mean, since it's such a "peaceloving religion" and all.
My guess is Shamir Nashir won't live to see the day of a calm Syria. It's obvious he's not interested in peace but in what he may gain in the bloodletting process. Not a good time to lambast the Russians , let alone the Iranians next door.
Let the arabs figure it out on their own. NO AMERICAN BOOTS ON THE GROUND..............PERIOD!!!!!!!!!! And to "HIGHWAY STAR". Amen. You said it all.
Turkey & Jordan are taking refugee's. Lets see if Syria's other neighbor's help them out!
if you are humanitarian, then you send in aid, not caring what side the people are on.
So, why should we care? From a humanism aspect, I feel bad for the innocent. From an American Aspect, I am sick and tired of the Middle-East. The US is the first place the world comes running to when things like this happen. The Red Cross comes running to the US public when disaster happen. So now Syria is at Civil War...Blah, blah, blah....this claim was made a month ago. Even if they go to civil war, it's only because the people allowed dictators to claim their stake on itself.
The US spends around $11 BILLION DOLLARS just trying to keep peace in that area. Only to have the entire region to turn around and stab us in the back. I say...clear out all Americans, give each one something to point at each other and kill themselves. I don't have the stomach anymore. If they can't respect one another, why should I care. Give me the next story. I have the Kardashians to care less about.
Looks like a serious game of Dominos - Tunisia/Egypt/Libya/Syria, and freedom for their people. Educated and hard working people want democracy, not monarchy. Take away the right to control their destiny in life from a lot of people and a monarch will be attacked and hopefully removed. Go freedom fighters in Syria, good luck and I hope your Arab region supports freedom for you. I am sure Europe and the USA will help you if the rest of the Arab world leads the way in taking down your violent monarch. It will be a good chance for you to see if Israel believes in democracy for everyone too and they want your monarch taken down.
Well, at least now no one has any right to complain when the legitimate government of Syria deploys the full force of its military against those rebellious Islamist scum.
What will the Red Cross and UN do when blood is shed on U.S. soil? Join your local militia today!
hussain obama has already quit checking those big storage containers being shipped in on the coast!
Sorry Syrian people! This is an election season and there are a lot of golf and campaign fundraisers to focus on! Besides, what is a genoside now and then!
What was their first clue? 10,000 DEAD. Another shining example of satan's Greatest Lie (islam).
Bad things happen in civil wars. The Spanish Civil War in the '30s is a good example. Each side is fighting for survival. The idea that sombody's "rules" are going to influence what happens seems, well, ludicrous.
Ok, you know the rules. I want a nice clean fight. No attacking civilians and no using dirty weapons.
Lets go - Ding Ding Ding.
With our blood soaked bitch and animal whoop pulling the strings that was the guaranteed outcome taking the most shameful and destructive path to reduce uncertainty by the smallest percent so another meaningless outcome-that holder hides behind to strip US citizens of the most basic Geneva convention privileges by torturing innocent citizens to death to dismiss a five year war crime along the thinnest and spreading surface using lethal force and putting this nation under covert military rule to defend negative profiles citizens were dropped into using full blown torture to defend hypothetical story lines propping up the perception of rule of law -so we can have the upper hand over a third world @!$%# whole like Iran after full blown civil war isolates them just a little increasing a controlled outcome by virtually nothing to keep the dangerous mic of Poets back to save gay rights and hold the simplest economic theories held together...
I think your government has lost its legitimacy blood soaked bitch when you have to torture innocent citizens to death (that had their head scanned by what has to end in a lethal process when their was not one fact to justify it) in order to defend the perception of rule of law (and your life) using having the upper hand -by taking the most destructive path ensuring certainty by virtually nothing in third world @!$%# holes-as an excuse to make this the most destructive and repulsive dictatorship on the face of the Earth...
The only good intelligence officers and counter intelligence agents are the ones that don't come back to war because of these pieces of absolute trash innocent citizens on @!$%#in US soil have less rights than full blown prisoners of war as our no talent compromised media entertainers debate the virtues of gay rights and Obama care all day while sitting in the equivalent of what should be 4th grade chairs where their teacher had less control over them...
Don't worry that the government knows the exact size and activity of your bedroom but worry that we are such an inbred perversion because of such pathetic coverage that you are willing to overlook full blown war crimes and a society under military rule to protect the most fragile and simple gains along the surface that always go backwards under Poet anyway cause the two are related...
How these @!$%#s look in the mirror, and how you find your way to work everyday, is the only mystery Cameron...
"Red Cross: Syria is now in civil war, humanitarian law applies"
Thank you, Captain Obvious....
This is just a way to try to condemn the Syrian government for defending itself when terrorists are turning the cities into warzones.