Syria’s leadership is making “a lot of mistakes”

Sergei Lavrov said President Bashar al-Assad’s regime had “responded incorrectly” from the start, when the protests were peaceful. He also said Moscow was prepared to support a UN resolution backing its envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan. It comes a day after Russia called for a daily humanitarian ceasefire. Earlier on Tuesday, US campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused elements of Syria’s armed opposition of carrying out serious human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and execution.
‘Continuing efforts’
“We believe that the Syrian leadership responded incorrectly to the very first manifestations of the peaceful protests,” Mr Lavrov told Kommersant FM radio in a pre-recorded interview.
“The Syrian leadership – despite the numerous promises it has made in response to our calls – is making a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately this is why the conflict is so acute.”
Russia is a key ally of Syria and, along with China, has twice thwarted attempts to agree to a UN resolution condemning Mr Assad’s actions.
But observers believe Moscow’s patience with Damascus has been wearing thin.
Mr Annan, the UN-Arab League special envoy on Syria, has spent the last few weeks meeting all sides in the conflict – putting forward proposals to try and bring about an immediate ceasefire by both sides, access for humanitarian aid and the beginning of political dialogue.
Mr Lavrov, speaking at a news conference after meeting his Lebanese counterpart, said the UN Security Council should support the proposals, “not as an ultimatum, but as a basis of continuing efforts” by Mr Annan to find a solution to the crisis.
Following talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday, Mr Lavrov’s ministry put out a statement urging the Syrian government “and all armed groups who oppose it” to agree to ceasefires “without delay”.
The ministry said it supported the ICRC’s demands for a daily pause in fighting to evacuate the wounded from the worst affected areas and allow in food and medicine, and urged the Syrian authorities to give the organisation “access to all detained persons in Syria following the protests”.
Meanwhile, HRW has called on Syria’s main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council (SNC), to condemn the abuses carried out by some of its supporters.
According to HRW, abuses include kidnapping for ransom, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called Shabiha.
HRW has frequently accused Syria’s government of abuse over the past year of conflict.
The UN says more than 8,000 people have been killed in the year-long uprising, while tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.

45 people have been killed in a series of co-ordinated attacks across Iraq

Two car bombs in the predominantly Shia city of Kerbala killed at least 13 people.
Another car bomb near police headquarters in the northern city of Kirkuk killed another 13 people, most of them officers, police said.
The attacks come ahead of next week’s Arab League summit to be held in the capital, Baghdad.
Security forces in Iraq have been placed on high alert in the run-up.

The attacks also coincide with the ninth anniversary of the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The summit is seen as the country’s return to the regional stage following the withdrawal of US troops in December.
The BBC’s correspondent in Iraq, Rami Ruhayem, says such coordinated campaigns have become a recurring nightmare in the country, and show that the security forces remain fatally flawed.
‘Brutal’
Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi said the “brutal, criminal” attacks were part of efforts by al-Qaeda to “derail the Arab summit, and keep Iraq feeling the effects of violence and destruction”.

An MP for the Shia Dawa party, Haider al-Abadi, said the perpetrators wanted to “show that democracy in Iraq doesn’t work”.

The UN secretary-general’s special envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, described the attacks as “atrocious”, and called for those responsible to be identified and brought to justice.
In Baghdad, two separate car bomb attacks – one of them opposite the foreign ministry building – killed seven people.
Earlier in the day, three people died in an attack on a Baghdad church, AFP reports.
Numerous attacks were reported elsewhere around the country, including Hillah, Mahmudiya and Latifiya to the south of Baghdad, as well as in Ramadi, Baiji, Daquq, al-Dhuluiya and Samarra, in the mainly Sunni area to the west and north of the capital.

Analysis

Rami RuhayemBBC Arabic, Irbil, Iraq

Such co-ordinated bombing campaigns have become a recurring nightmare in Iraq, and despite all the talk about training, equipping and rebuilding them, the security forces remain deeply flawed.
The government has a quick answer to who stands behind the attacks – al-Qaeda. But there has been little explanation why all the security measures seem to fail so often, and so spectacularly.
Almost every province in the country, except the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north, was affected by the wave of bombings.
Security forces say they did manage to discover and defuse two car bombs in Baghdad, but in a day like this, such limited success is likely to go unnoticed.