Syria rebel base falls as borders peppered with mines

The three-day operation to capture Idlib gives the regime some momentum as it tries to crush the armed resistance.

But it also fed international condemnation. The Arab League chief said the regime’s killing of civilians amounts to crimes against humanity and he called for an international inquiry.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said troops have planted land mines near its borders with Turkey and Lebanon along routes used by people fleeing the violence and trying to reach safety in neighbouring countries. HRW said its report was based on accounts from witnesses and Syrian mine clearers and that land mines have already caused civilian casualties.

“Any use of anti-personnel land mines is unconscionable,” said a Human Rights Watch spokesman. “There is absolutely no justification for the use of these indiscriminate weapons by any country, anywhere, for any purpose.”

The Al-Watan daily and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops were in control of Idlib yesterday. The Observatory said the army still faced resistance pockets in three Idlib areas.

Idlib, a predominantly Sunni city of some 150,000 people located about 100 miles north of Homs, was among the first to fall into the hands of army defectors last summer. Rebels were in control of a large parts of the city in the past months with troops in some areas – but there was no official confirmation of its capture.

Witnesses said this week that army defectors there were running out of ammunition. Many feared the offensive in Idlib could end up like the regime’s campaign against the rebel-held neighbourhood in the city of Homs. Troops besieged and shelled one area for almost a month before capturing it on March 1, after hundreds of civilians were killed.

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said it would not be ethical or moral to allow those behind the killings in the cities of Homs and Idlib to get away with their crimes. He added: “There must be an impartial international inquiry into what is happening to uncover those responsible for these crimes to face justice.”

The UN refugee agency said 230,000 Syrians have fled their homes since the uprising against Assad’s regime began last year. The UN says more than 7,500 people have been killed in the past 12 months.

Panos Moumtzis, the UNHCR’s coordinator for Syria said 30,000 people had already fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and “on a daily basis hundreds of people are still crossing into neighbouring countries”.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said it had fresh evidence of widespread abuses of civilians detained by security forces in the year-long crackdown on anti-government protests. In a report that identified 31 torture methods described by witnesses, Amnesty said the situation resembled the “nightmare” of Syria in the 1970s and 1980s.

At that time, the country was ruled by the father of current president Bashar Assad.

The report was released as the United Nations announced that it would shortly deploy human rights monitors to neighbouring states to collect evidence of atrocities in Syria.

Access to the country itself is almost impossible for observers.

Amnesty based its conclusion on testimony gathered from Syrians in Jordan – including 25 who said they had been tortured.

“The testimony presented in this report, taken in the context of other human rights violations committed against civilians in Syria, is yet further evidence that torture and other ill-treatment in Syria form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population – carried out in an organised manner and as part of state policy and therefore amount to crimes against humanity,” its report concluded.

At least 276 people had so far died in custody, it said, with security forces effectively given impunity to torture despite it being outlawed by a new constitution.