Syrian FM warns against involving Palestinians in crisis

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Moallem accused on Monday armed militias affiliated with al-Qaida terror network of infiltrating and bombing the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the capital Damascus. Syria's official news agency SANA said Moallem's remarks were made during a phone call with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday, during which both sides talked about the situation in Syria in general, the mission of UN Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, and particularly the situation in the Yarmouk Camp. According to SANA, al-Moallem affirmed to Ban that the UN and the international community are responsible for the state of frustration experienced by Palestinians because of failure to implement UN resolutions on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. He stressed that what Syria has been providing to Palestinians for decades hasn't been provided by any other host country, and that Syria has repeatedly warned against the danger of involving Palestinians in the Syrian crisis and deviating them from their rights, primarily their right to return. Al-Moallem made it clear that armed terrorist groups affiliated with Jabhet al-Nusra have entered the Yarmouk camp four days ago and shelled some neighborhoods in it with cannon fire, hitting a mosque and a hospital. He noted that despite locals' pleas for intervention, the Syrian army didn't enter the camp, and that the clashes that have been raging over the past few days are between local committees from the camp and terrorist groups "which are funded and armed by neighboring countries." Al-Moallem stressed the need for the Palestinians to refrain from supporting or harboring these armed groups, which are intruders to the camp and help to get rid of them. He affirmed that the despite the current crisis, the Palestinian cause, the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, and the liberation of occupied lands will remain among the priorities that Syria is struggling to achieve. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) in al-Yarmouk camp called upon all Palestinian resistance factions to join forces to expel Al Qaida-linked terrorists from the area and put an end to the attempts to draw the Palestinians into the internal crisis in Syria. Spokesman for the PFLP-GC Anwar Raja said in a statement issued Monday that the statements which have been circulated by some media outlets do not represent the group's opinion or stance. On Sunday morning, more than 300 fighters from the radical al- Nusra Front infiltrated the Yarmouk camp and clashed with local committees there, causing human losses, great chaos and huge displacement movement, local media said. Al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, has been beefing up presence in the surrounding areas of the camp over the past days in a bid to storm it, the local Ajel news network said, adding that intense clashes are currently going on in the camp. The local committees in the camp are controlled by the PFLP-GC led by Ahmad Jibril, who is a staunch supporter of the Syrian administration of President Bashar al-Assad. Witnesses and sources said that tens of civilians and members of popular committees have been killed and wounded at the Yarmouk camp during the clashes Sunday, adding that most of the al-Nusra fighters came from the Damascus' suburbs of Daraya, Eastern Ghouta, al-Hajar al-Aswad and Yeldah. Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London- based activists' group, said a Syrian MIG aircraft bombed parts of the camp on Sunday, adding that eight people were killed in the process. However, the PFLP-GC denied the airstrike reports. Thrusting the Palestinians in the deadly Syrian crisis adds another complication to the political landscape in Syria which hosts more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees.