Turkey says NATO readying to deploy missiles on its soil -report

Syrian rebels killed 10 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a faction loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, on Wednesday in clashes near a Palestinian camp in Damascus, opposition sources said.
   
Fighting between the two sides has escalated in the last few days in 'Street 30' and Hajar al-Aswad near Yarmouk, a camp inhabited by 150,000 Palestinians and as many Syrians. Syrian army artillery and warplanes have bombarded rebel positions in the area, the opposition sources said.

This after multiple bomb explosions on Wednesday hit a hilltop area in Damascus populated by members of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite sect, marking escalation of sectarian attacks in a conflict that has deepened religious Middle East divides. Chairman of the Military Council in Homs Colonel Qassen Saad el-Dine announced in a video that he survived an assassination attempt.
    
The attack occurred a day after deadly tit-for-tat attacks in segregated neighbourhoods of the capital, deepening the  divide between the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam backed by Iran that has ruled Syria since the 1960s, and Sunnis leading the 19-month revolt against the Assad family rule.
    
Smoke was seen rising from the Alawite enclave, known as Mezze 86, which is situated near the presidential palace, from what appeared to be heavy-calibre mortar bombs, several residents of Damascus said by phone.
       
Syrian state television said the attack was carried out by mortar bombs, causing casualties, but gave no further details.
    
A car bomb exploded on Tuesday near a mosque in al-Qadam, a southern working-class Sunni neighbourhood of the capital, killing and wounding dozens, opposition activists said.
   
Al-Qadam, from where rebels operate, has been the target of heavy Syrian army artillery barrages in the last several weeks. Syrian warplanes have also hit the area.
   
Air strikes and artillery barrages unleashed by the Syrian military in the last few weeks have wrecked whole districts of the capital, as well as parts of towns and cities elsewhere.
  
Earlier, in Hai al-Wuroud, an Alawite neighbourhood on a hill on the northwest edge of the city, a bombing killed at least 10 people, according to state media.
   
Bomb attacks along sectarian lines have escalated lately in the 19-month-old uprising against Assad. Last month several bombs exploded during the Muslim Eid holiday near mosques in Sunni districts and the Damascus suburbs, killing and injuring dozens of people, activists said.
   
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said Assad's forces killed 154 people across Syria on Tuesday, mostly civilians in aerial and ground bombardment on Damascus and its suburbs, and the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.

REACTIONS:

The Vatican has dropped plans to send a mission to Syria and instead is sending a delegation to neighboring Lebanon to coordinate relief efforts for Syrian refugees and those needing help inside the country.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has suggested offering Assad immunity from prosecution as a way of persuading him to leave power, said on Wednesday that Assad would still have to face justice.

The U.N. human rights office has said Syrian officials suspected of committing or ordering crimes against humanity should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court.  U.N. investigators have been gathering evidence of atrocities committed by rebels as well as by Assad loyalists.
   
"I would like to see President Assad face full international justice for the appalling crimes he has meted out on his people," Cameron said on a visit to Zaatari, a camp housing about 30,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.
   
"I am standing with the Syrian border just behind me and every night 500 refugees are fleeing the most appalling persecution and bloodshed to come to safety and frankly what we have done so far is not working," he added.
   
Cameron said Britain wanted Assad to leave power and see a peaceful political transition and a safe country for the future.

For his part, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi said that the Syrian regime will not last for long.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that NATO was preparing to deploy Patriot missiles on his country's soil, local media reported.   

Davutoglu was speaking to Turkish reporters in Brussels.

Earlier on Wednesday, a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Turkey planned to make an "imminent" request to NATO for the missiles to be deployed along its border with Syria.


AP/REUTERS/LBCI