Deadly raid on Syria TV, killing seven

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DEADLY ATTACK: Damage is seen at the site of an attack on the pro-government Al-Ikhbariya satellite television channel’s offices outside Damascus, which killed seven after President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was in a ‘state of war’. — AFP photo

DAMASCUS: An attack on a pro-government television channel’s offices near Damascus killed seven staff yesterday, state media said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was in a “state of war.”

A human rights watchdog said the past week had been the bloodiest since the uprising against Assad’s rule broke out in March last year and as the exiled opposition called for international action over a week-long bombardment of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is pressing for an international conference on the 15-month conflict to go ahead on Saturday despite wrangling between Moscow and Washington over the terms of reference and guest list, his deputy said.

The Syrian delegation stormed out of a UN Human Rights Council meeting after it heard a report that abuses were taking place on a regular basis in a conflict that was taking on an increasingly sectarian dimension.

Live footage broadcast by state television showed extensive damage to the studios of the Al-Ikhbariya satellite channel, with several small fires still burning, in what it described as an unprecedented attack on the pro-government media.

“The terrorist groups stormed the offices of Al-Ikhbariya, planted explosives in the studios and blew them up along with the equipment,” Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi told the television in a live interview.

“They carried out the worst massacre against the media, executing journalists and security staff,” Zohbi said.

State media said the dead comprised three journalists and four security guards.

“This didn’t come out of nowhere,” he added, pointing to European Union sanctions imposed on the pro-government media.

Al-Ikhbariya remained on the air despite yesterday’s assault.

With the uprising now in its 16th month, Assad told his cabinet on Tuesday that Syria was in a “real situation of war” and ordered ministers to crush the anti-regime revolt.

“When one is in a state of war, all our policies and capabilities must be used to secure victory,” he said, according to the official SANA news agency.

More than 15,800 people have now been killed in the uprising, of whom 4,681 lost their lives since the UN-backed ceasefire brokered by Annan was supposed to take effect on April 12, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“The last week was the bloodiest week of the Syrian Revolution,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by telephone, adding that 916 people were killed from June 20 through 26.

The latest report to the UN Human Rights Council from the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria found that the violence in Syria was increasingly taking on a sectarian basis amid mounting enmity between the Sunni Muslim and Assad’s minority Alawite community.

“Where previously victims were targeted on the basis of their being pro- or anti-government, the CoI has recorded a growing number of incidents where victims appear to have been targeted because of their religious affiliation,” it found.

The findings triggered a walkout by the Syrian delegation.

“We will not participate in this flagrantly political meeting,” said Syrian Ambassador Faisal Khabbaz Hamoui.

The opposition Syrian National Council called for urgent action by the international community to help civilians trapped by a regime bombardment of rebel neighbourhoods of Deir Ezzor.

“The Syrian regime has been brutally shelling the city of Deir Ezzor, and nearby villages and towns for the past week, using heavy artillery, tanks and helicopters,” the opposition bloc said.

It said the bombardment had left “hundreds killed or wounded and a large segment of the residential neighbourhoods destroyed, leaving thousands of citizens displaced.” — AFP