GENEVA, Sept 20, (Agencies): The State of Kuwait, in an address before the UN Human Rights Council, urged Syria on Tuesday to cooperate with the international inquiry committee and all bodies and functions of the council to help reach a satisfactory solution for current crises and put an end to escalation and state of affair which are “painful for all parties.”
Kuwaiti permanent representative to the UN in Geneva Ambassador Dharar Abdul-Razzak Razzooqi stressed that wrong decisions would have grave repercussions and could lead to disastrous results.
Kuwait, he added, still fully stresses the importance of respect of Syria’s unity and territorial integrity.
The ambassador pleaded with the Syrian authorities to put an immediate and complete stop to shooting and bloodshed to spare the Syrian people more violence.
He pointed out Kuwait is gravely concerned over the continued troubled state of affairs in the fellow Arab country which is leaving many dead and injured among the civilian population, and urged wisdom and rational approach to the root causes of the unrest.
This approach involves immediate reforms and meeting the expectations of the people, he said.
The ambassador also called upon the Syrian authorities to start comprehensive national dialogue that involves all opposition and other parties to reach the required change and reform.
“Stability of Syria is crucial for the stability of the region as a whole,” he remarked.
Al-Razzooqi expressed his condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the confrontations, stressing Kuwait’s commitment to the Human Rights Council’s statement following the extraordinary session on Human Rights in Syria held last August.

Raids
Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces killed three villagers on Tuesday in raids on rural regions across the country, activists said, and two members of the security personnel were reported shot dead in separate attacks.
Security forces also defused a bomb planted under a crude oil pipeline near the city of Homs, state news agency SANA said.
The villagers were killed in al-Kiswa region 8 miles south of the capital, where hundreds of police raided houses looking for protesters, Deir Baalbeh near the city of Homs and in Jabal al-Zawiya region near the border with Turkey, where army defectors have been taking refuge, activists and residents said.
In recent weeks those areas have seen major demonstrations demanding Assad’s overthrow. The 46-year-old president has responded to six months of unrest with a military crackdown in which the United Nations says 2,700 people have died.
Tens of thousands of people have also been arrested, activists say, and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Monday Syrian leaders would have to answer for crimes against humanity that he said were being committed in Syria.
Assad, who succeeded his father 11 years ago, has said he is resisting a foreign conspiracy to divide Syria and the use of force has been limited.
Despite their resilience in the face of Assad’s crackdown, Syria’s opposition movement has struggled to close ranks and create a unified platform for protesters.
But last week opposition figures meeting in Istanbul took a major step towards bridging their differences when they announced the formation of a Syrian National Council.
That body won the important backing on Tuesday of the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots activist group at the centre of the protest movement. “We support the SNC out of our commitment to unify the opposition and to eliminate the opposition’s fragmentation,” the LCC said.
Residents of Kiswa, mostly inhabited by refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said in a posting on Facebook that security police fired rifles from rooftops to scare people, pickup trucks armed with machineguns patrolled streets, firing randomly, while houses were raided.
“Around 300 men were arrested since the morning,” one of the residents said.
In the northern Jabal al-Zawiya region a policeman was shot dead by unidentified gunmen, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. SANA said a member of the security forces was shot dead by an “armed terrorist group” in Homs. It said three others were wounded.
Activists and diplomats say protests in Syria have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but there have been increasing reports of attacks on security forces by gunmen and clashes with army deserters. Authorities say 700 soldiers and police have been killed, and the same number of civilians.
SANA said army engineering units dismantled a bomb containing 25 kg of explosive which had been placed under a pipeline delivering crude oil to Homs refinery.
In late July Syria said saboteurs blew up an oil export pipeline linking Syria’s oilfields to the Mediterranean.
A resident of Homs, who gave his name as Fares, said more barricades and checkpoints manned by troops and gunmen loyal to Assad had been set up in densely populated central districts on the outskirts of the city in the last 24 hours.
That followed large demonstrations on Monday and fighting between army defectors and much larger Assad loyalists in the countryside, during which two deserters were killed.
In New York, US and Russia are disagreeing on how to respond to the situation in Syria, where the Obama administration wants a strong UN condemnation of Bashar Assad’s regime and the Kremlin is seeking continued dialogue.
US officials said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the US case in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday in New York. They said she told Lavrov that the UN Security Council must speak out against the Assad regime’s “inexcusable violence.”
But the officials said Lavrov presented a counterview, calling for dialogue between Assad and the opposition.
The Obama administration already has given up on Assad’s pledges of reform and has called for the Syrian leader to step aside.
The officials spoke about the private meeting on condition of anonymity.

Yemen
Raging battles between heavily armed loyalists and foes of Yemen’s president killed 10 people in the capital on Tuesday as a crisis over a violent state crackdown on popular unrest drifted towards civil war.
Gunfire appeared to have stopped in the afternoon but both the opposition and the government vowed to defend themselves against any perceived aggression in a city they have divided between themselves into areas of control.
At least 66 people have been killed since Sunday when frustration boiled over at President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s refusal to accept a mediated power transfer plan after suffering serious wounds in a June assassination attempt.
That has turned the violence prevalent in an eight-month-old street revolt against Saleh from shooting at protest crowds increasingly into a military showdown between forces loyal to him and troops and tribes who have defected to the opposition.
World powers fear that spreading chaos in Yemen, home to al Qaeda’s most powerful regional branch and flanking No. 1 oil exporter Saudi Arabia, could imperil international oil shipping and raise the risk of militant strikes on Western targets.
Opposition and government sources said they were in talks on a political solution to the crisis. A Western diplomat told Reuters mediators were trying to hang on to the positive direction negotiations had been heading only a few days earlier.
“All the evidence is that we are continuing with Yemeni politics and conflict as usual. They will sit down and talk, but without a deal, it will kick off again in the future,” the diplomat said.
Heavy shelling and machinegun fire rocked Sanaa before dawn on Tuesday and snipers lurked in the upper stories of buildings near the site now called “Change Square” where protesters have camped out to demand an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule.
Four defector soldiers were killed in street fighting with pro-Saleh forces and two civilians died when three rockets crashed into a protest camp just after morning prayers at around 5 am (0200 GMT), witnesses said.
“We were walking back from prayers. All of a sudden a rocket hit close by from out of nowhere, and some people fell down. And then a second one came and that’s when we saw the two martyred,” Manea al-Matari, a protest organiser, told Reuters by telephone.
Government officials and opposition groups have traded accusations over who was responsible for the violence of the past two days of which activists at Change Square, who number in the thousands, were the main victims.
But a consensus was emerging among sources on all sides that government forces clashed with those of defected General Ali Mohsen, who has pledged to defend the activists, after his men took control of territory previously under government control.
The opposition said Mohsen’s troops took the area to fend off security forces they believed would enter the protest camp.
A witness close to the protest camp said Yemen’s Republican Guard forces had fired from an army site on a mountain on Tuesday and shelled Mohsen’s First Armoured Division compound. The protesters may have been hit by stray projectiles, he said.
A source at Mohsen’s office said his forces were holding off at the request of Saleh’s Vice President Abd al-Hadi Mansour but warned that protesters would be harder to control. “I don’t think the youth protesters can be reined in until this regime leaves power,” the source said.
Some 400 protesters have been killed since protests began in January.
Street fighting later spread to the wealthier Sanaa neighbourhood of Hadda that is home to both senior government officials and leading members of the powerful al-Ahmar tribe that is aligned with the protesters.

Pool
Crowds flocked to the sites of the blasts that killed the two protesters. Stones were laid around a dark pool of blood near a metal storefront that was ripped open. Around the corner, tattered shoes lay scattered next to a patch of blood.
At the field hospital in Change Square, the wounded were carried in on blood-streaked stretchers while doctors sought to make room for more casualties.
“The clinic is starting to calm down and the fighting appeared to have calmed,” said a field doctor, adding hospitals were at full capacity.
Protesters thronging the streets initially headed towards the “Kentucky Roundabout”, an area where they have been trying to extend their reach, but were forced to turn back by fierce fighting between government and Mohsen forces.
An organiser of the street protesters said the retreat was a tactical one and they would try again soon. “We’re not afraid. We’re just waiting for the right moment and it will come as a surprise,” he told Reuters.
Government forces on Monday responded to escalating street marches with heavy fire, while snipers shot at protesters from rooftops, according to Reuters witnesses.
Mohsen’s forces clashed with pro-Saleh troops on Monday, though it was unclear who started the fighting.
Mohsen, a top Yemeni general, dealt a major blow to Saleh when he and his troops defected after a March attack on demonstrators by security forces that killed 52 people.
Government officials denied on Monday that soldiers were targeting protesters and blamed the bloodshed on the opposition.
A high-ranking ruling party official dismissed claims talks were under way with the opposition to broker a ceasefire, saying government forces had acted in self-defence.
“There are spoilers on both sides who are not looking for a compromise or maybe aren’t getting what they want from a compromise,” said April Longley Alley, senior analyst Arabian Peninsula at the International Crisis Group in Abu Dhabi. “Maybe they feel they could achieve more by escalating right now.”

Bahrain
Bahrain established a special fund Tuesday to pay compensation to civilians and others harmed “physically or morally” by public officials or security forces, in a decree aimed at easing tensions before a highly charged parliamentary election this week.
The decision by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa also comes about six weeks before a report by an independent commission probing allegations of abuse since the Sunni-led Gulf kingdom’s majority Shiites began protests for greater rights in February.
The new fund, announced on the official Bahrain News Agency, would apparently cover all Bahrainis - including security officials and public officials - who would be considered victimized during the unrest.
It also said money would be set aside for those injured while helping people hurt in the demonstrations - a gesture to medical teams and emergency crews. More than two dozen doctors and nurses have faced trials on charges that range from anti-state subversion to lesser allegations of backing the protests.
More than 30 people have died in the violence, including two police officers. Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but claim they face deep discrimination from the ruling Sunni dynasty.
The report on the new compensation fund said it would follow U.N. guidelines on reparations, and cases would be determined by a “specialized court,” but gave no further details on the process or the possible payout amounts.
Security forces are on high alert before a fresh of protests head of Saturday’s election. It was called to fill 18 seats in the 40-member parliament after Shiite lawmakers staged mass resignations to protest the harsh crackdowns.
The main Shiite political blocs have called for a boycott of the voting. Other protest factions have urged for a bold escalation in the anti-government actions, including creating massive traffic jams to disrupt voting and trying to reclaim a central square that was a former protest hub.
The area is now ringed by a steel fence and watched around the clock by riot police.
Bahraini authorities have promised a harsh response to any attempts to derail the election. The Ministry of Interior on Monday said protesters could lose their driver’s licenses for up to a year if they carry out threats to create traffic tie-ups.
Bahraini authorities are warning anti-government protesters they could lose their driver’s licenses for up to a year if they carry out threats to create massive traffic jams to disrupt this week’s parliamentary elections.
The notice by the Gulf kingdom’s Interior Ministry is among several statements circulating Tuesday promising a hard-line response to any unrest during the voting.
Bahrain plans elections Saturday for 18 seats in the 40-member parliament. The posts were abandoned by Shiite lawmakers protesting harsh crackdowns on pro-reform demonstrations.
Bahrain’s majority Shiites have led a seven-month uprising calling for greater rights from Sunni rulers. Shiite groups have appealed for an election boycott.