Opposition activists report 48 air strikes in a few hours, UN reports failure of Muslim truce and Damascus car bomb kills 11
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Email Ian Black, Middle East editor
The Guardian, Monday 29 October 2012 18.48 GMT
A Syrian rebel fighter looks at smoke billowing from a bus in Aleppo. Government air force planes launched dozens of attacks on the city during the final day of the Muslim holiday. Photograph: Javier Manzano/AFP/Getty Images
Syrian air force planes have launched dozens of attacks from Damascus to Aleppo as the truce declared for the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday ended as it began – in violence.
Opposition activists reported 48 air strikes in a few hours while the UN and Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, admitted that the four-day ceasefire had failed. "The situation is bad and getting worse," he told reporters in Moscow after talks with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Russia is Syria's closest and most supportive ally at the UN.
Air raids were reported overnight from the Damascus suburbs of Qaboun, Zamalka and Irbin and described by residents as the heaviest since planes and helicopters first bombarded pro-opposition parts of the Syrian capital in August.
In Jermana, near Damascus, a car bomb killed 11 people, including women and children, and injured 50 others, Syrian state media reported, blaming "terrorists" for deliberately breaching the truce.
Fighting was also reported from Homs, Idlib and Deir al-Zour on the Iraqi border.
The truce, for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of the sacrifice which marks the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, began on Friday morning. An estimated 400 people have died during it. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 110 people were killed on Sunday alone. Of those, 39 were civilians, 34 armed opposition fighters and 35 members of the state security forces, said the UK-based group.
Shelling and car bombings resumed hours after the ceasefire had been due to take effect on Friday, with each side blaming the other for breaking it.
Its chances seemed poor from the start in the absence of enthusiasm from the warring parties or any independent mechanism for monitoring and enforcement.
Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who succeeded Kofi Annan as the international Syria envoy in September, said he was continuing his mission despite the grim situation. "I have said and it bears repeating again and again that the Syrian crisis is very, very dangerous, the situation is bad and getting worse. If it's not a civil war, I don't know what it is."
Brahimi is to go to the UN security council in November with new proposals to push for talks between President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition. He is also due to visit China on Tuesday. Beijing has followed Moscow in blocking any action against Syria at the UN.
Brahimi had hoped that the Eid truce might lead to a longer-term ceasefire and pave the way for a political solution of the conflict that has claimed 35,000 lives, according to opposition groups.
Its failure points to the determination of the regime to continue its security strategy and to what many see as the dangerous fragmentation of the anti-Assad forces. "It's not just about the Syrian military and the army defectors who form the backbone of the Free Syrian Army rebel group anymore," said Hassan Abdul-Azim, of the Damascus-based National Co-ordination Bureau. He told reporters that there were so many foreign fighters and other external actors involved in Syria that only an agreement among international and regional powers could end 19 months of fighting.
Lavrov said Moscow was also "disappointed" that the ceasefire was not respected, but said there was no point disputing who breached it. He emphasised Russia's position that the crisis will be resolved once western powers and neighbouring countries such as Turkey start negotiating with Assad, not just the opposition. "Hardly anything will be accomplished without dialogue with the (Syrian) government, and that is the only problem that remains in the path towards a political process," he said.
Moscow has repeatedly criticised western powers for what it says are obstructions of peace efforts in Syria. Last week it alleged the US was co-ordinating arms deliveries to the rebels, which the state department has called "ludicrous".
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said he was "deeply disappointed" that the fighting had not stopped. "This crisis cannot be solved with more weapons and bloodshed. The guns must fall silent."
Syrian opposition figures, including FSA commanders, started three days of talks in Istanbul on Monday in the latest attempt to unite disparate groups.
In a separate development, the Turkish military fired back after a shell from Syria landed near the village of Besaslan in the southern province of Hatay, state media said, amid clashes between Syrian soldiers and rebels in the nearby border town of Harim. Five Turks were killed by Syrian fire on 3 October.
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