Syria: Shots Fired Across Two Borders; Cameraman Killed

Even on the day before the April 10 deadline for a cease fire, opposition groups reported 75 dead in Syria, and shooting across the Turkish and Lebanese borders. At least five were wounded in a Turkish refugee camp, and one Lebanese cameraman, Ali Shaaban, was killed. Human Rights Watch released a report titled “In Cold Blood” in which it documents over a dozen execution incidents that involved at least 101 civilian victims. Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, “[Security forces] are doing it in broad daylight and in front of witnesses, evidently not concerned about any accountability for their crimes.”

Nasser Al-Sarami writes in Al Arabiya that Bashar al-Assad is not serious about Kofi Annan‘s deadline, and says, “After April 10, the world might find out when it’s too late that nothing will work with Assad’s regime except fierce confrontation, for this is the only language it understands.” Fareed Zakaria concurs, hypothesizing that losing financial funding may be a way to entice Assad’s close circles to begin defecting. Another piece in Wall Street Journal  labels Annan’s plan a “farce” and argues that the U.S. “ought to give Syrians the confidence and security they need to persevere in a struggle that increasingly seems hopeless.” Doyle McManus argues in the Los Angeles Times that U.S. military intervention is a matter of “when,” not “if.” However, Fred Hiatt says that due to several different factors, Barack Obama‘s support freedom around the world has lacked passion. Part of his argument is, “Obama was tugged by the French and British into a military rescue of Libya’s revolutionaries, but offered little help to their Syrian counterparts, despite far greater human devastation.”