UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council is expected to vote next week on a resolution to haul Syria before the International Criminal Court, although the measure is likely to fail because of opposition from Russia and China.
The resolution drafted by France aims “to send a message that there is accountability for the crimes committed in Syria,” one diplomat said.
“There is a clear need to demonstrate that the international community is interested in accountability” for the more than three years of violence visited by the Damascus government upon the Syrian people, the diplomat said.
Western powers have decried mounting atrocities said to include systematic torture, chemical attacks and the use of “barrel bombs” packed with explosives.
The conflict in Syria so far has killed 150,000 people and displaced nearly half the population, as the government employs what one diplomat called “starvation and siege tactics” against its people.
Next week’s Security Council vote also comes amid growing suspicions that Syria has been using chemical weapons on its own people.
Human Rights Watch said in a report earlier this week it had gathered evidence showing the Damascus government put chlorine canisters inside the barrel bombs it dropped from helicopters on opposition-held towns in northern Syria.
But many diplomats said they anticipate that Russia, as it has on three prior occasions, would reject the measure in the Security Council, which requires at least nine yes votes for approval, and no veto from any of the council’s five permanent members — China, France, Russian, Britain and the United States.
Russia opposes
Moscow already has indicated it doesn’t back the measure.
“We believe you need to build a positive momentum,” said Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, who voiced concern that the vote could “exacerbate” differences among parties within the council.
The draft resolution expresses the council’s “strong condemnation of the widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the Syrian authorities and pro-government militias.”
It also assails “human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law by non-state armed groups,” in Syria.
Meanwhile, rebel rocket fire killed 13 people in the northern city of Aleppo yesterday, as troops launched an offensive on rebels in Daraa province of southern Syria, state media said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the bloodshed in Aleppo and said a large-scale army operation was underway in Daraa for control of hills held by rebels.
State television said rocket fire by rebels on the government-held Ashrafiyeh district of Aleppo killed 13 people, including women and children, and wounded 17.
The Britain-based Observatory said at least 16 people were killed, including six children, and 60 wounded in rocket fire by Islamist rebels.
Aleppo has been split into areas held by the regime and opposition since shortly after fighting broke out in Syria’s former economic hub in 2012.
Regime warplanes have waged an aerial offensive on the eastern, rebel-held districts, frequently dropping barrel bombs on the area.
And opposition forces have regularly fired rockets into government-held areas, as rival forces clash on the ground.
Water supplies to the city were cut for a week by rebel groups, including Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al Nusra Front.
But the Red Crescent said on Thursday that some supplies had been restored.
Also yesterday, government troops “carried out a wide-scale operation in the (Daraa) town of Nawa against terrorist groups” and rebel-held hills, state news agency Sana said.
The Observatory said regime warplanes carried out at least 15 raids in and around Nawa as ground forces battled the rebels.
The hills connect rebel positions in Daraa and Quneitra, near the frontier with Israel.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of activists on the ground, said dozens of rockets were fired on Nawa “within a short time”.AFP
