G8
Foreign Ministers who held a meeting on Thursday in London expressed
their "shock" over the number of victims in Syria estimated by the
United Nations at 70,000 with over 1 million refugees.
In this context, the G8 foreign ministers called all countries to boost their aid to the Syrian people.
Separately,
the Syrian Foreign Ministry announced that the statement made by
Al-Qaeda Wednesday confirms the warnings voiced by Syria.
For its
part, Al-Watan newspaper considered that the al-Nusra in Syria adopting
Al-Qaeda as its leader confirms the absence of any form of "peaceful
revolution", stressing that Syria is facing a war against "terrorism".
Meanwhile,
the Syrian local coordination committees dismissed on Thursday the call
of the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for an "Islamic state" to be
established in Syria, stressing that the revolution's goal is "the
establishment of a civil state."
On another note,discussions
between the United Nations and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
government on a possible investigation into the alleged use of chemical
weapons in Syria have reached an impasse, U.N. diplomats said on
Wednesday.
Syria and the United Nations have
been exchanging letters for weeks but the two sides are far from
agreement on how the investigation should be run, diplomats said on
condition of anonymity.
Syria has asked the United
Nations only to investigate what it says was a rebel chemical attack
near Aleppo last month.
The opposition has blamed President Bashar
al-Assad's forces for that strike and also wants the U.N. team to look
into other alleged chemical attacks by the government.
There
have been three alleged chemical weapons attacks - the one near Aleppo
and another near Damascus, both in March, and one in Homs in December.
The rebels and Assad's government blame each other for all of them.
So far, the Syrians are refusing to let inspectors go
anywhere but Aleppo, while the United Nations is insisting that the team
goes to both Aleppo and Homs. France and Britain wrote to U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last month saying the mission should look
into all three cases.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry
restated that position in a news release on Monday, saying the U.N.
request to go anywhere in Syria where chemical weapons may have been
used was not in keeping with the Syrian government's original request.
In an April 6 letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Moualem to Ban, obtained by Reuters, Assad's government said the
inspectors should go first to Aleppo and if they are seen to be
impartial, the possibility of visiting Homs could be discussed.
Meanwhile Iraq said it grounded on Wednesday a third Iranian
aircraft heading toward Syria for inspection purposes, after Baghdad has
stressed the need to take airtight measures in regards to the flights
heading to Damascus, a Senior Iraqi official said.
The inspection team only found humanitarian goods, allowing the aircraft to carry on the flight to Damascus.
Positions:
Iran called on Thursday for sending a UN team to Syria in order to launch a chemical arms probe.
In
the details, the Islamic Republic of Iran's Envoy to the Organization
for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Kazem Gharib Abadi, stressed
the need to launch an independent investigation over the use of
chemical weapons in March.
In this regard, Abadi called on all the
countries that possess chemical weapons, mainly the US, to fully honor
their commitments in regards to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC ).
On the field:
Four members
from the Syrian Army were killed after a group of rebels in Idlib downed a
military aircraft carrying ammunition, the Syrian Observatory reported.
At least 45 Syrians were killed,
some of them in cold blood, after troops stormed the contested town of Sanamein
in the southern province of Deraa, opposition activists and a monitoring group
said on Thursday.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said dozens of civilians, including children, were killed on
Wednesday in shelling and summary executions after forces loyal to President
Bashar al-Assad entered Sanamein.
There was no immediate comment from Syrian
state officials.
Security forces had been fighting anti-Assad rebels in the town in
Deraa, a province bordering Jordan that has become a focal point of battles as
both sides seek to control Syria's frontiers and seize supply lines to the
capital, Damascus.
Activist groups in Deraa said more than
60 people had been killed.
REUTERS/LBCI
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