Damascus: Syrian activists are losing hope about being able to oust President Bashar al-Assad as his government continues to ignore international calls for a ceasefire, and carries on with its bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protestors.
The peace plan, which was accepted by the Syrian Government on Tuesday, calls for an UN-supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties.
Activists, however, say that it would take a ‘miracle’ for UN peace envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan to succeed.
On Friday, government troops used helicopters to attack opposition villages. According to The Telegraph, after flattening the former opposition stronghold of Baba Amr in Homs, the regime has moved to crush the other remaining armed opposition bolt-holes in Idlib and the Az Zawiyah mountains on Syria’s border with Turkey.
Troops reportedly bombarded villages that had for weeks been under Free Syrian Army control.
“The Syrian Government wants to finish the Free Syrian Army no matter what. They have pushed them into one area. Now, they are shelling the border areas to cut weapons supply lines,” the paper quoted Mohammed, an activist with the Avaaz campaign, as saying. According to the paper, another Syrian activist stressed that ‘if the international community keeps waiting for the UN and Arab League it will be a disaster.’
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met with Saudi Arabia`s King Abdullah yesterday to discuss the conflict ahead of a “Friends of Syria” conference with Arab and Western foreign ministers at the weekend in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia, with Qatar, has led Arab efforts to press Assad to end his crackdown and step aside.
ANI