WORLD_ Syria Continues Drive to Retake Rebel Strongholds as Diplomacy Suffers a Setback

Syria Continues Drive to Retake Rebel Strongholds as Diplomacy Suffers a Setback

By HALA DROUBI
Published: March 24, 2012

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian troops continued their drive on Saturday to retake rebel strongholds even as there were indications that diplomatic efforts to end the violence might be troubled just days after Western officials claimed a breakthrough.

Those officials had been encouraged by a United Nations vote last week in which both Russia and China, steadfast supporters of the Syrian government, voted to support an attempt to broker a cease-fire. But on Saturday — a day before scheduled talks in Moscow with a United Nations envoy — a senior Kremlin adviser indicated that Russia continues to have a sharply different view than the United States and others in the West, placing the main burden on opposition forces to halt the fighting.

“The main thing is to convince the Syrian opposition to come to the negotiating table and to achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis,” the adviser, Sergei E. Prikhodko, told the Itar-Tass news agency. While the uprising last year started with peaceful protests, army defectors and some others have since taken up arms against the government after months of a brutal crackdown.

On Saturday, Syrian troops intensified a renewed attack against the beleaguered central city of Homs, activists said. The city was the site of a major offensive earlier this year that heavily damaged the restive neighborhood of Baba Amr, but had been calmer in recent weeks.

The government had said that assault had pacified the city, but many opposition fighters appeared to have just moved to other neighborhoods. On Saturday, activists reported that troops continued an assault on the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh that had started last week.

Omar Idilbi, with the Local Coordinating Committees, an activist group, said that Khaldiyeh was one of several neighborhoods being shelled. His group put the number of dead in the city from Saturday’s fighting at 24, out of 45 killed throughout Syria. “There is not one neighborhood in Homs that doesn’t have members of the F.S.A. in it, even Baba Amr,” he said, referring to the Free Syrian Army made up mainly of defectors. “That’s why the shelling continues.”

Abo Mohammed, an activist in Khaldiyeh reached through Skype, said: “There are kids here, and they’re seeing the dead bodies on the streets. You can’t hide them anymore.”

As has been true since the start of the conflict, activists’ reports are difficult to confirm since the country has severely restricted entry by foreign reporters.

Troops also continued their attempts to flush rebels from areas north of Homs, entering the town of Saraqeb in Idlib Province. The London-based Syrian Observatory, another activist group, said tanks had entered the city.

An activist in Turkey who goes by the name Menhal and who recently fled Saraqeb, said people in the town reached by phone said it was bombarded by tank fire. “The situation is horrible, I don’t know what more to say,” he said, when reached by telephone. “They are looting stores and destroying them, burning houses, and there are many wounded people, and God, many wounded kids, many wounded kids.” He said the town was important because it is on a road to Aleppo, a large city that is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power.

The diplomatic efforts to end the violence are expected to continue Sunday, when Kofi Annan, a special representative of the United Nations and the Arab League, is scheduled to meet with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev. Mr. Annan is then expected to continue on to China for more talks.

While Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in recent days has sought to portray Russia’s backing of the United Nations Security Council statement in support of Mr. Annan’s mission as an important policy shift by Moscow, the comments out of the Kremlin suggested that Russia’s fundamental position had not changed and that it would continue to oppose efforts to oust Mr. Assad.

David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting from Moscow.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 25, 2012, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Syria Continues Drive to Retake Rebel Strongholds as Diplomacy Suffers a Setback..



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