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Violence flares up in Syria

UN ends observer mission; western nations boycott Russia meeting

Agencies
Syrian forces yesterday shelled the northern battleground of Aleppo and fierce fighting was reported in Damascus, a day after the United Nations called time on its observer mission.
The UN announced its decision on Thursday, with the international community still deeply at odds over how to end the bloodshed and also deal with the embat-
tled regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
"It is clear that both sides have chosen the path of war, open conflict, and the space for political dialogue and cessation of hostilities and mediation is very, very reduced at this point," said deputy UN peacekeeping chief Edmond Mulct.
"The conditions to continue UNSMIS were not fulfilled," France's UN ambassador Gerard
Araud said, referring to the mission whose mandate is due to end at midnight Sunday.
Russia called off a meeting planned for yesterday of an international action group on the Syria conflict after western nations told them they would not attend, diplomats said.
Russia said the meeting at the UN headquarters, called by its UN envoy Vitaly Churkin, had been "postponed."
Diplomats said, however, that the United States, France and Britain had told the Russians they would not attend. Only China and a UN representative had confirmed they would go to the talks, one diplomat told AFP.
The observer mission is ending less than three weeks after Kofi Annan quit as envoy for Syria, complaining that divisions among world powers and the increasing militarisation of the conflict had hindered his peace plan.
More than 23,000 people have died since the revolt against Assad's iron-fisted rule broke out in March 2011, according to activists, while the UN puts the toll al around 17,000.
In Syria, the army clashed with rebels near the main military airport in Damascus and shelled southern parts of the capital as well as districts in the northern hub of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The fresh violence was reported after a day which saw 180 people killed across the country, the majority of them civilians, according to the Observatory, which has a network of activists on the ground.
It also reported that the bodies of 65 unidentified people were found in Qatana, a town southwest of Damascus, without providing any further details.
Meanwhile, UN agencies
yesterday said as the conflict between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels intensifies, refugees are fleeing Syria in ever greater numbers.
Rights groups accused the Syrian regime of another atrocity Wednesday when around 40 people, including women and children, were killed in a massive air strike on civilians in the rebel bastion ofAazaz north of Aleppo.
More than 170,000 Syrian refugees have been registered in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, the UN refugee agency said.
"There has been a further sharp rise in the number of Syrians fleeing to Turkey," spokesman Adrian Edwards of the UN H i g h Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in Geneva. Forty percent of those in Turkey had arrived this month, he added.
Humanitarian conditions in Syria have deteriorated as fighting worsens, cutting off civilians from food supplies, health care and other assis-
tance, UN agencies say. S e w a g e - c o n t a in i n a t e d waler has led to a diarrhoea outbreak in the countryside around Damascus, with 103 suspected cases.
Some 1.2 million people are uprooted within Syria, many slaying in schools or other public buildings, UN officials say. UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, ending a visit to Syria, said on Thursday up to 2.5 million people needed aid in the country, scene of a 17-month-old revolt against Assad.
The Organisation for Islamic Cooperation on Thursday suspended Syria after a similar move by the Arab League last year, saying it can no longer accept a regime that "massacres its people."
Assad, whose regime was also hit by a bomb attack that killed his top security chiefs last month, insists he is fighting a "terrorist" plot aided by the West and rival Sunni Muslim powers including Saudi Arabia.