THE AUSTRALIAN
From AP
October 29, 2012 12:00AM
A Syrian warplane flattened a three-storey building, suspected rebels detonated a car-bomb and both sides traded gunfire as a UN-backed truce was left in tatters. Source: AFP
A SYRIAN warplane flattened a three-storey building, suspected rebels detonated a deadly car-bomb and both sides traded gunfire in several hotspots across the country, activists said, as a UN-backed holiday truce was left in tatters.
The unravelling of the cease-fire marked the latest setback to ending Syria's civil war through diplomacy. Foreign military intervention is unlikely, raising the grim prospect of a drawn-out war of attrition between President Bashar al-Assad and those trying to topple him.
The proposed four-day truce during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha had been a longshot from the start, since international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi failed to get solid commitments from all combatants.
Fighting dropped off in the first hours of the ceasefire on Friday but activists said by nightfall 151 people had been killed in bombings and shootings, a standard daily toll in Syria.
On Saturday, the first regime airstrike since the start of the truce reduced a three-storey building in the suburb of Arbeen in the capital, Damascus, to rubble, killing at least eight men, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which compiles reports from activists
In the remote eastern town of Deir el-Zour, assailants detonated a car-bomb near a military police compound, then opened fire at those rushing to the scene, killing eight people and causing extensive damage.
The attack bore the hallmarks of Jabhat al-Nusra, a radical rebel-allied Islamic group that has rejected the ceasefire.
The Syrian air force also bombed rebel positions on Saturday during a fierce battle for control over the main road linking Aleppo, Syria's largest city, with the capital, activists said.
Earlier this month, rebels seized Maaret al-Numan, a town along the highway, and besieged a nearby military base, disrupting regime supplies to embattled Aleppo. The Syrian air force has responded with sustained bombing raids on area villages.
By late on Saturday, at least 76 people had been killed across Syria, including 20 Syrian soldiers, activists said. The observatory reported deadly regime shelling and sniper attacks in several spots, while Syrian state media said rebels ambushed a number of military positions.
Military analyst Joe Holliday said neither side had an incentive to halt fighting, noting that rebels had disrupted regime supply routes to the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
"The regime can't accept the current military status quo without a fight and the rebels have no reason to, since they believe they have the momentum," said Mr Holliday, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.
Mr Brahimi's spokesman declined to comment on the apparent failure of his initiative.
When Mr Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy, floated the idea of a holiday truce, he did not say what his long-term plan was.
Some said his initiative allowed a paralysed international community to show briefly it was doing something to try to end a war that has claimed more than 35,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Shadi Hamid, of the Brookings Doha Centre, said the truce at least "provides the illusion of movement, that something is being done, that the international community is still trying to find a solution".
The US said on Friday both sides had violated the ceasefire, but singled out the regime.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi accused the US of being one-sided.
AP
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