UN puts Syria on list for killing children

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A U.N. report released Monday includes Syrian government forces and their allied "shabiha" militias for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts.

In Syria, it said, children as young as 9 years old have been victims of killing and maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, and sexual violence, and have been used as human shields.

Meanwhile, the Syrian National Council called on Syrian opposition members and friends of the Syrian people across the world to rally on Wednesday outside Russian embassies and missions to protest against Russia’s support of the Syria regime.

Separately, a spokesman for Kofi Annan says the U.N.'s envoy on Syria could be forced to ask governments with influence to "twist arms" to enforce the peace plan for the country.

Ahmad Fawzi told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that escalating violence in Syria mirrors the spike in fighting that occurred shortly before a ceasefire plan was agreed in April.

Fawzi says that with sectarian violence rising and spilling over into neighboring Lebanon, Annan is pushing countries with influence "to put irrevocable pressure on the parties to implement the plan and stop the killing."

Separately, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday that international efforts to stabilize Syria were focused on trying to reach a peaceful transition, and that foreign military intervention was not being considered.

"We are not looking for any foreign military intervention. I think we should not think about it in terms of another Libya," he told a news conference in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

In turn, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday demanded an immediate end to the "dangerous intensification" of violence across Syria and called on all countries with influence to urge the parties "to pull back from the brink."

Turning to field events, activists reported on Tuesday that a mortar round has hit an anti-government demonstration in an eastern Syrian city, killing at least 10 people.

The Local Coordination Committees and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday's attack in Deir el-Zour hit the protesters as they were dispersing.

The mortar attack came hours after a late Monday car bomb killed a dozen people in Deir el-Zour, which is close to the border with Iraq.

AP/REUTERS/LBCI

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