Syrian FM spokesman, UNSMIS on Tremseh attack

(15 Jul 2012) STORYLINE
Syria on Sunday denied UN claims that government forces used heavy weapons during a military operation that has brought widespread international condemnation against President Bashar Assad's regime.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jihad Makdissi said the violence on Thursday was not a massacre, but a 'military operation' targeting armed fighters who had taken control of the village of Tremseh.
"All of what has been said about using heavy weapons in the attack is not true," Makdissi told reporters in Damascus.
But the United Nations has already implicated Assad's forces in the assault.
The head of the UN observer mission, Major General Robert Mood, said on Friday that monitors stationed near Tremseh saw the army using heavy weaponry and attack helicopters.
On Saturday, UN observers investigating the killings found pools of blood in homes and spent bullets, mortars and artillery shells, adding details to the emerging picture of what anti-regime activists have called one of the deadliest events of Syria's uprising.
"The attacks appeared targeted towards specific homes of activists as well as army defectors," UN spokesperson, Sausan Ghosheh, said.
The observers returned to Tremseh on Sunday.
Dozens of people have already been buried in a mass grave, and activists are still struggling to determine the number of people killed in what they say was a bombardment by government tanks and helicopters on Thursday.
Some of the emerging details suggested that, rather than the outright shelling of civilians that the opposition has depicted, the violence in Tremseh may have been a lopsided fight between the army pursuing the opposition and activists and locals trying to defend the village.
Nearly all of the dead are men, including dozens of armed rebels.
Running tolls ranged from around 100 to 152, including dozens of bodies buried in neighbouring villages or burned beyond recognition.
Makdissi suggested there may be ulterior motives behind claims the government used heavy weapons.
"We know exactly the goal of saying such a thing - if we would like to talk politics - we know exactly the timing and the arguments in the Security Council," he said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and international envoy Kofi Annan have stepped up pressure on the divided UN Security Council, urging that it demand a halt to the escalating violence in Syria and promise "consequences" if the conflict doesn't end.
The council is debating a new Security Council resolution on Syria, spurred by the July 20 expiration of the mandate for the UN observer force there and the failure of the Annan peace plan.
Britain and Syria ally Russia have circulated rival texts, and Ban and Annan's comments indicated a strong preference for the Western-backed British draft.
It threatens non-military sanctions against President Bashar Assad's government if it doesn't withdraw troops and heavy weapons from population centres within 10 days.
The proposed resolution is under the UN Charter's Chapter 7, which can be enforced militarily.
Russia said Thursday it will oppose any resolution on Syria that is militarily enforceable, calling it "a red line."
"They need extra (vitamins) to defeat the wise Russian efforts in the Security Council," Makdissi said.
The Syrian government claims the uprising is a foreign plot to weaken Syria, casting all its opponents - from pro-democracy demonstrators to armed rebels - as "terrorists".
"What we are seeking is only faith in this nation," Makdissi told reporters.


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