Assad determined to keep on fighting

Syria’s president defied international pressure to end the year-old crackdown on an uprising against him and said yesterday he was determined to go on fighting what he called “foreign-backed terrorism”.

After a powerful American senator called for air- strikes on Syria, President Barack Obama said unilateral US military action against President Bashar Assad’s regime would be a mistake.

The US said it is proposing a new UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to violence in Syria, first by government forces and then by opposition fighters. Russia and China, powerful allies that have blocked a Security Council resolution against Syria, made clear they were still standing by the regime in Damascus.

“The Syrian people, who have in the past managed to crush foreign plots... have again proven their ability to defend the nation and to build a new Syria through their determination to pursue reforms while confronting foreign-backed terrorism,” President Bashar Assad said, according to state news agency SANA.

The military crackdown has turned to southern Daraa province, where the uprising began a year ago. Troops shelled a village in Daraa and clashed with military defectors.

Activists said the military blasted a bridge and a tunnel near the border with Lebanon used as escape routes for the wounded and refugees fleeing central Homs province.

Rupert Colville, spokes- man for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, described video of torture victims allegedly shot secretly in the Military Hospital in Homs as “truly shocking.”

The video, broadcast this week on Britain’s Channel 4, shows wounded civilian victims blindfolded and chained to the beds, some with clear torture marks on their bodies, allegedly at the hands of medical staff.

The international outcry against Syria has grown louder by the day. On Monday, US Sen John McCain called for air strikes against Syria, saying the United States has a moral and strategic obligation to force out Assad and his loyalists.

Obama said yesterday, “For us to take military action unilaterally, as some have suggested, or to think that somehow there is some simple solution, I think is a mistake.

“What happened in Libya was we mobilised the international community, had a UN Security Council mandate, had the full cooperation of the region, Arab states, and we knew that we could execute very effectively in a relatively short period of time. This is a much more complicated situation.”

A special Chinese envoy to Syria arrived in Damascus yesterday to press the regime for a ceasefire.