Syria fighting rages amid UN warning

4 Aug 2012, 6:58 pm   -   Source: AAP
Syrian government forces have intensified their onslaught on rebel-held areas in Aleppo. (AAP)

Syrian government forces have intensified their onslaught on rebel-held areas in Aleppo. (AAP)

The battle for Syria's two major cities of Damascus and Aleppo is raging as the UN chief warns the world's powers they must act to end the "proxy war".

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Syrian government troops with air cover have fought rebels for control of a television centre in Syria's commercial hub Aleppo as clashes also rage in Damascus, a watchdog reports.

Loud explosions shook Aleppo as fighter jets and helicopter gunships overflew the northern city and rebels attempted to storm the state TV building on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

"Rebel forces planted explosives (at the TV station) and regime forces shelled the area" before the rebels withdrew, the Observatory said.

Syrian state media said the army defended the site from "mercenary terrorist groups".

In Damascus, the Observatory reported that the southern suburb of Tadamun was hit by some of the "most violent" shelling that it has seen since government forces launched a huge offensive against rebels in the capital last month.

The violence, which killed at least 13 people across the country on Saturday, has been relentless, with the international community struggling to find common ground on ending the nearly 17-month conflict.

On Friday, 84 peopled died around the country - 46 civilians, 19 rebels and 19 soldiers, the Observatory said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned world powers that they must overcome their rivalries to put an end to a "proxy war" in Syria.

Ban was speaking ahead of a UN General Assembly vote that overwhelmingly condemned the Security Council for its failure to act and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad for using "heavy weapons".

The UN chief evoked the world body's failure in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and warned the divided council that "the immediate interests of the Syrian people must be paramount over any larger rivalries of influence".

Ban said growing radicalisation and extremism had been predicted at the start of the conflict in March 2011.

"The next step was also forewarned: a proxy war, with regional and international players arming one side or the other. All of these dire predictions have come to pass," Ban told the General Assembly.

The Security Council had become paralysed by divisions over Syria, Ban said, adding: "Now, with the situation having worsened, they must again find common ground."

After Ban's address, the General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a Saudi-drafted resolution criticising the Security Council's failure to act and condemning Assad's use of heavy weapons.

The resolution said members deplored "the Security Council failure to agree on measures" to make Damascus carry out UN demands to end the bloodshed.

Condemning the regime's use of "heavy weapons including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters", it passed by a vote of 133-12, with 31 abstentions.

After the vote, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice echoed the calls for action.

"Despite the continued opposition of an increasingly isolated minority, the overwhelming majority of UN members clearly stands resolutely with the Syrian people," Rice said.

But Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin warned that the resolution gave "blatant" support to Syrian rebels and that its backers were the countries providing "mercenaries and arms" to the opposition.

China's deputy ambassador, Wang Min, said pressuring only the Syrian government would "cause further escalation of the turmoil and let the crisis spill over to other countries in the region".

Russia and China have so far vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria.

Syria strongly opposed the resolution and its UN envoy, Bashar Jafaari, accused Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states of arming rebel groups.

Jafaari said he and his family had been the targets of death threats.

"There have been several threats of murder against me and various Syrian diplomats from sites that exist in Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the United States," he told the General Assembly.

South Africa, while voting in favour, said the resolution should have been tougher on the opposition.

The head of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said the resolution showed Assad's regime had lost legitimacy.

"This vote confirms that ... the international community does not believe in its legitimacy any more," said SNC director Abdel Basset Sayda, adding that the rebels would not pull out of Aleppo.

"The Free (Syrian) Army did not withdraw, and will not withdraw from Aleppo, and we are in contact with them to provide them with supplies," Sayda said.

A Syrian security official said troops were "testing the terrorists' defence systems (in Aleppo) before annihilating them by carrying out a surgical operation".

Russia expressed serious concern over rebel attempts to gain control of Aleppo and condemned foreign nations for providing the opposition with military supplies.

"Moscow is very worried by the dangerous development in the situation, the violence and provocations aimed at expanding the scope and the cruelty in the civil war," the foreign ministry in Moscow said in a statement.

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