REPORT: Putin says Assad could have avoided war, criticizes West

Philippine's President Benigno Aquino III says he wants better protection and a more robust mandate for U.N. peacekeepers if a Philippine contingent stays in the Golan Heights.
               
Aquino said Tuesday he is weighing his foreign secretary's proposal to withdraw all 342 Filipinos. The recommendation follows two separate abductions and shelling by Syrian rebels inside the U.N.-patrolled demarcation line separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied plateau.                  

Austria announced last week that it would remove its 377 peacekeepers from the 911-member U.N. force, which also includes troops from India. That leaves the Philippines as the largest single contributor.                  

Croatia withdrew in March for fears its troops would be targeted.        

Meanwhile the United Nations refugee agency is talking to Germany about resettling up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Tuesday.      

Edwards said UNHCR was also working with other European governments to find ways to help the 1.6 million Syrians who have fled the country, a number the United Nations expects to reach 3.45 million by the end of 2013.               


On the Field:               

Meanwhile, two suicide bombers hit a central Damascus square, killing at least 14 people, activists and the state media reported. Activists said one of the explosions took place inside the police station there and that many among the dead were policemen.           

Syrian state TV quoted a security official as saying 14 people died in explosions caused by two "terrorist" suicide bombers near a police station in the bustling Marjeh Square in the heart of the capital. The official said another 31 were wounded.    

The state-TV Ikhbariya TV station showed footage of broken shop facades and mangled cars in the central square as ambulance workers were seen carrying the wounded on stretchers.            

Marjeh Square was scene to previous attacks earlier this year.        

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said 15 were killed in the explosions, one of which caused by a man who blew himself up inside the police station in Marjeh square.                      

The Observatory said the other explosion occurred outside the police station. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two accounts.                   

Tuesday's twin explosions in the capital are the first since government troops, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, captured al-Qusayr, a strategic town in the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking Damascus with the regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast.        

Following the capture of al-Qusayr, Syrian state-run media and the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV have said the regime is preparing an offensive reportedly named Operation Northern Storm to recapture Aleppo.              

The regime was also believed to be advancing on the central city of Homs.                  

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but car bombs and suicide attacks targeting Damascus and other cities that remain under government control have been claimed in the past by the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra one of scores of rebel factions fighting the forces of President Bashar Assad.                     

The Observatory added that heavy fighting around a military base on the outskirts of rebel-held Raqqa city on Monday night resulted in the deaths of two rebel fighters.    
              
Raqqa, on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, was captured by rebels three months ago but they have been unable to enter the 17th Task Force Base which is resupplied by helicopter. Artillery units inside the base shell the city of Raqqa daily.    

Activists also reported that military jets attacked rebel-held areas around the Minnig air base, one of Assad's last military outposts in the rural areas of Aleppo province, north of the country.                                

Rebels have surrounded Minnig and captured part of the base itself, the Observatory added, but opposition activists say the army has been airlifting troops to Aleppo and reinforcing two rural Shi'ite Muslim enclaves nearby in preparation for a fresh offensive to try to reassert control in the north.          

On Saturday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car in the central city of Homs, tearing through an area largely populated by the regime's Alawite sect and killing seven people.                     

Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war that has killed more than 80,000 people, according to the United Nations.                       


POSITIONS:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could have avoided the bloody civil war in Syria by responding more quickly to demands for change.         

In comments to Russia's English-language state television network Russia Today, Putin reiterated that Russia is not acting as an advocate for Assad but also broadly blamed the West for violent upheaval in the Middle East.                   

This as Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdallahaan announced from Moscow that Iran received a verbal invitation to attend a future conference on Syria; however, did not specify who invited Iran.       

For his part, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Moqdad said that "a political solution is Syria's chance out of the crisis after the political project that President Assad called for in January," adding that "arming the 'terrorist groups' and imposing economic sanctions on Syria is inconsistent with the values adopted by Europe." 

In turn, Spokesperson of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry said that the Syrian situation calls for holding further talks and discussions in order to arm the Syrian opposition.                      

For his part, Tunisian Foreign Affairs Minister Othman Al-Jarnadi said that his country asked from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to receive dozens of prisoners held in Syria after Damascus expressed its willingness to release them.                

This as, Jordan's State Security Court sentenced 3 Jordanians, who tried to sneak into Syria to fight against president Assad's regime, for 3 and a half years imprisonment.   
                 
On another note, the Federal Court, which is the highest legal body in Switzerland, confirmed that it had banned each of Mohammad and Hafez Makhlouf, the uncle and cousin of the Syrian President, from entering into the Swiss territories.         

The court added that it had ordered a freeze on their assets.


REUTERS/AP/LBCI

For the full report, please click on the VIDEO above