Wounded protesters tortured in hospital and unarmed children shot dead: UN accuses Syria of crimes against humanity as Assad continues brutal assault on rebels

  • Brutal military crackdown on city of Homs continues for a twentieth day
  • Villages on Turkish border targeted to stop rebel supply routes
  • U.S. and other countries now 'looking at arming rebels'
  • World leaders meet in Tunisia tomorrow to look at how to help opposition
  • William Hague: 'Time is against the regime'

Syrian forces have shot dead unarmed women and children, shelled residential areas and tortured wounded protesters in hospital under orders from the 'highest level' of army and government officials, the United Nations said today.

Independent UN investigators called for perpetrators of such crimes against humanity to face prosecution and said they had drawn up a confidential list of names of commanding officers and officials alleged to be responsible.

Investigators said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council: 'The commission received credible and consistent evidence identifying high- and mid-ranking members of the armed forces who ordered their subordinates to shoot at unarmed protesters.

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A bullet-riddled building in Homs shows the damage wrought on the city by Assad's forces

Chaos: A bullet-riddled building in Homs shows the damage wrought on the city by Assad's forces

Marie Colvin: Always in the heat of the action
French photographer Remi Ochlik

Killed: Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin (left) and French photographer Remi Ochlik (right) died yesterday after a make-shift media centre in Homs was hit by a rocket

'They were also told to kill soldiers who refused to obey such orders, arrest persons without cause, mistreat detained persons and attack civilian neighbourhoods with indiscriminate tanks and machine gun fire.'

The commission of inquiry, headed by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, found rebel forces led by the Free Syrian Army had also committed abuses including killings and abductions, 'although not comparable in scale'.

The report, which also said Syria is 'on the brink' of civil war, added: 'Army snipers and Shabbiha gunmen posted at strategic points terrorised the population, targeting and killing small children, women and other unarmed civilians.

'Fragmentation mortar bombs were also fired into densely populated neighbourhoods.

'On several occasions in January and February 2012, entire families - children and adults - were brutally murdered in Homs. On both sides, there is a pattern of abducting people not directly involved in the clashes for the purposes of revenge, ransom or as hostages.

'Security agencies continued to systematically arrest wounded patients in state hospitals and to interrogate them, often using torture, about their supposed participation in opposition demonstrations or armed activities.'

Bombardment: Fire and smoke rising from buildings in the Baba Amr neighbourhood in Homs during an attack by Syrian forces

Bombardment: Fire and smoke rising from buildings in the Baba Amr neighbourhood, where Marie Colvin was killed yesterday

A market in the city of Homs shows the aftermath of yet another assault by government forces

A market in the city of Homs shows the aftermath of yet another assault by government forces

The panel, the report said, had 'documented evidence that sections of Homs Military Hospital and Al Ladikah State Hospital had been transformed into torture centres'.

It also said the four main intelligence and security agencies reporting directly to Assad - Military Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, the General Intelligence Directorate and the Political Security Directorate - 'were at the heart of almost all operations'.

Emergence of the report came on the day Syrian troops stepped up their attack on anti-regime rebels by using helicopter gunships to target mountain villages where they could be hiding.

'TIME IS AGAINST THE REGIME': HAGUE'S WARNING TO ASSAD

William Hague

British Foreign Secretary William Hague (right) today voiced 'frustration' at the continuing bloodshed, insisting Britain was doing all it could to try to stop Assad's brutal attacks and saying 'time is against' the regime.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Hague said: 'It is a deeply frustrating situation... people have been dying in their thousands, that continues.

'The Assad regime has continued to act seemingly with impunity.'

He said an international conference in Tunisia tomorrow would seek to agree a 'wide set of measures across a large group of nations', and there would be further efforts to bolster UN sanctions next week.

The aim was to tighten the 'diplomatic and economic stranglehold' on the Middle East state.

He added: 'Do not underestimate the cumulative impact of that over time. None of (the measures) on their own are the solution, but we are operating under many more constraints than we were in the case of Libya.'

Britain wanted Assad 'to go', and the economic and other measures were making 'life much more difficult' for him.

'Time is against the Assad regime,' he added. However, Mr Hague played down the prospect of any direct intervention, saying Syria's proximity to flashpoints such as Israel and Lebanon made the consequences 'much more difficult to foresee'.

He also insisted the UK's embassy in Damascus would remain open for the time being, although the situation was kept under 'constant review'.

He said: 'Having an embassy there so far has of course increased our knowledge of what is happening there. I don't rule out, of course, withdrawing our embassy.'

Forces are now also staging vicious door-to-door raids in Damascus and 'systematically cleansing' villages on the Turkish border to destroy safe haven supply routes.

Tank columns have also been spotted streaming towards the rebel stronghold city of Homs, which has been continually bombarded by rockets and mortars over the last 20 days.

It is now being compared to the Libyan city of Misrata, which withstood withering attacks last year by troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.

Yesterday, 80 people were reported to have died across the country, including Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

It was claimed that Syrian forces may have murdered Marie Colvin after pledging to kill 'any journalist who set foot on Syrian soil'.

Communication between Syrian Army officers intercepted by Lebanese intelligence staff has revealed that direct orders were issued to target the makeshift press centre in which Colvin had been broadcasting.

If journalists were successfully killed, then the Syrians were told to make out that they had died accidentally in fire fights with terrorist groups, the radio traffic revealed.

Of the many images released by activists yesterday, one showed a man with a bandaged head mourning his son killed by government shelling.

Observers said the intense bombardment in parts of Homs - with blasts occurring sometimes just a few seconds apart - appeared to have had no clear pattern over the past week, hitting homes and streets randomly.

Elsewhere in Syria, the military is also intensifying attacks.

In the northwestern province of Idlib, a main base of the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed Syrian military helicopters fitted with machine guns strafed the village of Ifis.

Around 60 people were killed.

Another opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees, said troops conducted raids in the Damascus district of Mazzeh district and the suburb of Jobar, where dozens of people were detained. In Jobar, the group said troops broke down doors of homes and shops and set up checkpoints.

The group also said troops backed by tanks stormed the southern village of Hirak and conducted a wave of arrests.

Regime: Syrian tank in Erbeen, near Damascus, yesterday

Regime: Syrian tank in Erbeen, near Damascus, earlier this week. A column of armed vehicles has been seen making its way from the capital to Homs

Defences: Sandbags piled high in a Homs street yesterday

Defences: Sandbags piled high in a Homs street, as desperate residents try to save themselves from the onslaught

Other activists also claim Assad's troops are 'systematically cleansing' villages along the border between Syria and Turkey in an apparent attempt to destroy supply routes vital for opposition safe havens.

Wassim Sabbagh, directing communications for the rebels in that area, told the Independent: 'What we saw in these attacks is the total disregard with which Assad holds the people of Syria.

IS HUGO CHAVEZ HELPING TO PROP UP ASSAD'S REGIME?

Hugo Chavez

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (right) is believed to have sent a ship carrying fuel to Syria to help prop up Assad's regime - the day before the UN voted to condemn the bloody crackdown of the uprising.

A ship owned by the Venezuelan state oil company was captured on a satellite system that tracks maritime movements sailing into the Syrian port of Baniyas - the second time it had docked there since December.

The Negra Hipólita, named after national hero Simón Bolivar's nanny, left a Venezuelan refinery complex at Puerto La Cruz on January 25.

It arrived in Syria on February 15, said Commodity Flow chief executive John Paskin.

A Venezuelan shipping broker said the shipment probably carried diesel and possibly other types of fuel.

When asked about the shipments and whether the fuel delivered could be used by Syria’s military, Chavez said: 'Have we by any chance asked the United States what it does with the fuel we sell to the United States?'

'Have we by any chance allowed anyone to impose conditions on our sale of petroleum to the United States?'

He said that the answer was no and added: 'We are a free country.'

'Regime forces have gone into these villages and killed people and destroyed homes just as a punishment for carrying out protests.'

The brutal military crackdown shows little sign of stopping, as the regime appears to be stepping up assaults to block the opposition from gaining further ground and political credibility with the West and Arab allies.

It led to the U.S. and other countries to say they were cautiously examining possible military aid to the rebels.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Tunisia for a meeting tomorrow of more than 70 nations to look at ways to assist Assad's opponents, which now include hundreds of defected military officers and soldiers.

In Saudi Arabia, the state news agency described King Abdullah scolding Russian President Dmitry Medvedev - one of Assad's few remaining allies - for joining China in vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution this month condemning the violence.

But even Moscow said the ongoing bloodshed adds urgency for a cease-fire to allow talks between his regime and opponents.

Washington had strongly opposed arming anti-Assad forces, fearing it could bring Syria into a full-scale civil war.

Yet the mounting civilian death tolls has brought small but potentially significant shifts in U.S. strategies. It remains unclear, however, what kind of direct assistance the U.S. would be willing to provide.

The toppling of Assad also could mark a major blow to Iran, which depends on Damascus as its main Arab ally and a pathway to aid Iran's proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

'We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarisation of Syria because that could take the country down a dangerous path,' White House press secretary Jay Carney said.

'But we don't rule out additional measures if the international community should wait too long and not take the kind of action that needs to be taken.'

The UN estimates 5,400 people have been killed in repression by the Assad regime against a popular uprising that began 11 months ago.

Rebels: Militants look out from a rooftop in Idlib

Rebels: Militants look out from a rooftop in Idlib

Resistance: Free Syrian Army militant clutching his gun in Idlib

Resistance: Free Syrian Army militant clutching his gun in Idlib

That figure was given in January and has not been updated. Syrian activists put the death toll at more than 7,300. Overall figures cannot be independently confirmed because Syria keeps tight control on the media.

On Wednesday, the UN said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would dispatch Valerie Amos, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, to Syria to assess the situation. No date was set.

In the Gulf nation of Bahrain, some anti-Assad protesters at a Syria-Bahrain Olympic qualifying football match waved the rebel flag and threw shoes at a small group of pro-regime supporters.

Bombardment: Shelling by government forces of Baba Amr on Monday

Bombardment: Shelling by government forces of Baba Amr on Monday


 

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