Assad: Spare no efforts to end Syria war

Fierce fighting broke out between Syrian troops and rebel forces in the suburbs of the capital Damascus yesterday as Turkey issued a stark warning to its neighbour over the downing of a jet last week.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his country was in “a state of war”, more than a year after the uprising against his rule began.

Addressing his new cabinet, Assad said that all efforts had to be directed towards winning the war.

Earlier, activists said fierce fighting in the suburbs of the capital Damascus had been the worst there so far.

Turkey warned Syria to keep its forces away from the countries’ troubled border or risk an armed response — a furious reply to the downing of a Turkish military plane last week by the Damascus regime.

Nato backed up Turkey and condemned Syria for shooting down the plane, but stopped short of threatening military action, reflecting its reluctance to get involved in a conflict that could ignite a broader war.

More than 14,000 people have been killed in the last 15 months. Despite global outrage over the crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad regime, the international response has been focused entirely on diplomacy and sanctions, not intervention.

In a speech to parliament, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Syria shot down the unarmed reconnaissance plane in international airspace without warning in a “deliberate” and “hostile” act.

“Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria and poses a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target,” Erdogan said.

He said border violations in the region were not uncommon and Syrian helicopters had violated Turkish airspace five times recently without a Turkish response. The two countries share a 910-kilometre frontier.

Turkey’s limited response to last Friday’s incident suggested there was no appetite for a violent retaliation. Still, Edrogan cautioned Syria against testing his resolve.

“No one should be deceived by our cool-headed stance,” he said. “Our acting with common sense should not be perceived as a weakness.”

Syrian officials insist the plane violated its airspace, saying a Syrian officer shot it down with anti-aircraft fire after spotting an unidentified jet flying at high speed and low altitude.

Turkey disputes that. Turkey says although the RF-4E jet had unintentionally strayed into Syrian airspace, it was inside international airspace when it was brought down over the Mediterranean.