Saudis press Kerry for hardline on ‘genocide’
26 Jun 2013 10:56 PM GMT
Saudi Arabia urged global action to end Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, telling US Secretary of State John Kerry the civil war had turned into ‘genocide’ as fierce fighting raged in Damascus.
In the Syrian capital yesterday the army pressed a major assault to crush rebels around the capital, a monitoring group and activists said. And in the contested city of Aleppo in the country’s north, rebels attempted to advance into western regime-held districts, sparking clashes with government forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
‘The army is trying to take over Qaboon, Barzeh, Jubar, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Yarmuk,’ said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, referring to neighbourhoods in the northern, eastern and southern outskirts of the capital.
‘The army doesn’t have the capacity to take over these neighbourhoods, and the rebels are fighting back. But the humanitarian situation there is catastrophic,’ Abdel Rahman told AFP. Kerry met leaders of the Sunni Arab monarchy as part of a regional tour in which he has called for greater support for Syria’s rebels.
In the Syrian capital yesterday the army pressed a major assault to crush rebels around the capital, a monitoring group and activists said. And in the contested city of Aleppo in the country’s north, rebels attempted to advance into western regime-held districts, sparking clashes with government forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
‘The army is trying to take over Qaboon, Barzeh, Jubar, Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Yarmuk,’ said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman, referring to neighbourhoods in the northern, eastern and southern outskirts of the capital.
‘The army doesn’t have the capacity to take over these neighbourhoods, and the rebels are fighting back. But the humanitarian situation there is catastrophic,’ Abdel Rahman told AFP. Kerry met leaders of the Sunni Arab monarchy as part of a regional tour in which he has called for greater support for Syria’s rebels.
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