Peace envoy in Syria as violence rages

Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Syria on Thursday on his first official trip aimed at ending nearly 18 months of violence as rebels advanced in Aleppo where at least 11 people were killed. "During his visit to Syria, Mr Brahimi will hold talks with the government and with representatives of the Syrian opposition and civil society," said a statement from his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi, who had previously announced the veteran diplomat would meet President Bashar al-Assad. Brahimi, who replaced former United Nations chief Kofi Annan who quit in August over Security Council divisions on Syria, was due to meet Foreign Minister Walid Muallem at 18:30 pm (1530 GMT), an official Syrian source said. During his three-day visit he will also meet members of the Syrian opposition tolerated by the regime on Friday, the source said. The diplomat arrived in Syria accompanied by Mokhtar Lamani, who will remain in Damascus to assume his new functions as head of office for the Joint Special Representative for Syria in Damascus, Fawzi said.Faisal Muqdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, said: "We trust that Brahimi has a general understanding of the developments and of the way to solve problems despite the complexities. We are optimistic and we wish Brahimi success." The envoy highlighted to Arab League envoys in Cairo this week that he knows he faces an uphill struggle, with no sign of a lull in the violence. He told envoys to the Cairo-based League that "he was approaching the crisis in Syria with his eyes open and the full knowledge that it was an extremely difficult task," a UN spokeswoman told reporters. In Brussels on Thursday, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi reiterated that Assad must step down because "a president that kills his own people is not acceptable." And British Foreign Secretary William Hague, visiting Baghdad, said the Damascus regime is doomed. "We believe that the Assad regime is doomed, that it is not possible for it to survive, and so many crimes (have been) committed that it should not survive," Hague said at a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. On the ground on Thursday, rebels advanced into the contested central Midan district of Syria's commercial capital Aleppo, witnesses and military sources said, as combat rocked several city neighbourhoods. Aleppo has seen nearly two months of fierce clashes between regime forces and rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and Midan is strategic, as it opens the way to the main square. Elsewhere, several rebel-held districts of the northern city were bombarded, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. At least 11 people died when a helicopter gunship targeted a crossroads in Tariq al-Bab, the Britain-based Observatory said. It did not say whether the victims were rebels or civilians, but distributed video footage showing several bodies, some bloodied and others badly burned, in pick-up trucks and on pavements. In the south of the city, Bustan al-Qasr was bombarded and fighting was reported at Kalasseh, residents said, while a military source reported clashes in the western neighbourhood of Saif al-Dawla. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organise anti-regime protests on the ground, said the military used artillery against the Fardoss district of the city, in a heavy barrage. The Observatory earlier reported bombing in the Karam al-Jabal region of Aleppo province that killed four people overnight, while troops and rebels battled in the capital Damascus. It also said a former MP, Ahmad al-Turk, was shot dead by security forces who raided his house in Harasta in Damascus province at dawn and arrested his son. The Observatory said a car bomb exploded in the Rokn Eddin neighbourhood of the capital, without causing casualties, while there was also shelling in Tadamun in its southern suburbs. LCC activists reported heavy fighting overnight in the Qaboon district of Damascus. Violence nationwide in Syria on Wednesday claimed the lives of 129 people -- 70 civilians, 42 soldiers and 17 rebels -- according to Observatory figures. In neighbouring Lebanon, Maronite Christian Patriarch Bishara Rai said Pope Benedict XVI will call on the world to stop arming belligerents in the crisis when he visits Syria's neighbour this weekend. "The pope will definitely call for an end to the spiral of violence and to hatred, which are pointless, and for those who finance and arm both sides in the conflict to stop doing so," Rai told journalists. He was speaking a day before the pontiff arrives in Lebanon for a three-day visit in which he is expected to reiterate his many calls for reconciliation in the Middle East. In Syria's northern neighbour Turkey, Hollywood star and UN special envoy Angelina Jolie visited the largest camp for Syrian refugees near the border, media reported. Accompanied by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonia Guterres, Jolie met some of the 12,000 refugees at Oncupinar camp in the southeastern city of Kilis. Ankara has called for safe zones to protect people on Syrian soil, but the proposal fell on deaf ears at the UN Security Council last month. On Wednesday, Jordan's King Abdullah II told AFP in an exclusive interview that he is "extremely worried about the risk of a fragmentation of Syria." "Over the past few months we have witnessed an increase in sectarian violence," he said. "This not only endangers the unity of Syria, but it could also be a prelude to a spillover of the conflict into neighbouring countries with similar sectarian composition. We have already seen signals that this risk is looming closer."