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Summary Peace Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has urged cease fire between Syrian security forces and the rebels.
International mediator Lakhdar Brahimiwill meets Syrian officials in the capital Damascus over the next few days in the hope of a securing a brief ceasefire in the war between President Bashar al-Assads government and rebel forces.Brahimi arrived in the city on Friday afternoon and will meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on Saturday morning, the U.N. spokesman in Damascus, Khaled al-Masri, said. He did not say whether the envoy would meet Assad himself.We will talk about the ceasefire and the Syrian issue in general. It is important to decrease the violence - we will talk with the government and political parties and civil society about the Syrian issue, Brahimi told reporters on arrival.The violence showed no sign of abating however, with opposition activists reporting heavy street clashes in Aleppo, Syrias biggest city, and intensified army bombing of towns along the strategic north-south highway.Brahimi, envoy for the United Nations and the Arab League, has been criss-crossing the region with the aim of convincing Assads main backers and his foes to support a truce during the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha next week.Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Friday called for all sides to observe the three or four-day ceasefire.Despite positive words from the different backers of the warring factions, the task of securing even a temporary ceasefire appears daunting in an intensifying conflict in which more than 30,000 people have been killed over 19 months.A previous ceasefire in April collapsed after just a few days, with each side blaming the other. Mediator Kofi Annan resigned his post in frustration a few months later. Next weeks truce would be self-imposed, with no international observers.Lebanese political scientist Hilal Khashan said that Turkey and Iran were probably promoting the ceasefire because they need to seem like they are doing something.The war pitting Assads troops against the loosely-organized rebel army trying to end his 12 years in power has intensified in recent months.On Thursday, 240 people were killed across the country in fighting and bombardments, from Damascus to Aleppo, the countrys commercial centre.Rebels captured Maarat last week and the government is maing a concerted effort to retake it and restore the link to Aleppo.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that has a network of informers in Syria, said that bombings continued into Friday in the same area.In other battlefield action, a rebel fighter was killed in clashes in Jusiya village close to the border with Lebanaon and the nearby town of Qsair was bombarded by government forces, the Observatory.The besieged Khaldiya neighborhood of Homs - which has been pulverized for months by Assads forces - was also hit by artillery barrages again on Friday, the Observatory said.
