Britain backs Assad 'safe exit' as Syria violence rages

Bombings, clashes and air strikes shook Syria on Tuesday as British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would back safe passage for President Bashar al-Assad if it meant ending the bloodshed. A day after nearly 250 people were killed in the country's deadliest violence in weeks, Cameron told Al-Arabiya television that he wanted the Syrian leader to be held to account for his crimes but that his departure could be arranged. Asked what he would say if Assad asked for a safe exit, Cameron told the Saudi-owned channel: "Done. Anything, anything to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria. "Of course, I would favour him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done," said Cameron, who is on a tour of the Middle East. "I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain but if wants to leave, he could leave. That could be arranged." Cameron's remarks came as renewed clashes, bombings and regime air raids claimed more lives on the ground. Rebel forces killed at least 12 troops in an ambush in Idlib province in the northwest, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Two car bombs struck near Damascus -- in the city of Mudamiya and in the suburb of Sayyida Zeinab -- but there no reports of any deaths, the Britain-based Observatory said. Analysts say Assad's government is reconciled to losing territory and is focussing its efforts on retaining control of the capital and the heartland of his Alawite minority in the mountains along the Mediterranean coast. "The regime's goal is to survive for the longest time possible.... It is no longer a matter of a putting in place a strategy, but of salvaging what can be salvaged for as long as possible," said Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist at the University of Edinburgh. The Observatory said 247 people were killed on Monday, including 93 soldiers and pro-government militiamen, in the deadliest day in Syria since an attempt to impose a ceasefire for the October 26-29 Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday collapsed. In one of the most devastating attacks on Assad's forces since the start of the uprising, a rebel car bomb killed 50 pro-regime fighters at a military post in the central province of Hama. The watchdog gave an initial toll of 62 people killed nationwide on Tuesday, as fighting raged again around the capital, in second city Aleppo and near the Wadi Daif military base in the northwest. The Observatory says more than 36,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad's rule broke out in March 2011, first as a protest movement inspired by the Arab Spring and then as an armed rebellion. The Anatolia news agency reported that seven more Syrian generals had defected to Turkey, where much of the rebel leadership is based. The exiled opposition Syrian National Council, which backs the rebels, met in Qatar under intense US pressure to reform. Its leader, Abdel Basset Sayda, insisted the bloc must remain the "cornerstone" of the Syrian opposition, rejecting US accusations it is unrepresentative. Opposition figures were to discuss an initiative by leading dissident Riad Seif -- and reportedly backed by the United States -- to broaden the opposition beyond the SNC and form a government-in-exile. International efforts to halt the violence have been frustrated by disagreements, with Russia and China blocking attempts by Western and Arab governments to put more pressure on Assad. Moscow has accused Western governments of conniving in the delivery of weapons to the rebels by Gulf Arab states and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the rebels had acquired 50 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles. Speaking after talks in neighbouring Jordan, Lavrov said the missiles were in no way "intended for defence" and could be used to target regime aircraft or civilian planes. UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said he feared the "Somalia-isation" of Syria. "Some are talking of the danger of seeing Syria divided... I think the real risk is not partition but 'Somalia-isation', with the collapse of the state and the emergence of militia and armed factions," Brahimi said in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper.