DAMASCUS, March 15, (Agencies): Syria’s devastating conflict entered its third year on Friday with no agreement among EU leaders on British and French calls for an easing of the bloc’s embargo to allow arms supplies to the rebels.

With several member states expressing strong opposition, EU leaders at a summit in Brussels put off further discussions on the future of the arms embargo until a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Dublin next week.

EU president Herman Van Rompuy said that leaders had discussed easing it and “agreed to task our foreign ministers to assess the situation as a matter of priority” at the Dublin talks.

Van Rompuy said the 27 heads of state and government “discussed the dramatic situation in Syria and reaffirmed the EU’s full engagement in international efforts to end the intolerable violence.”
“The question of the arms embargo was raised by some members,” he added.

Both London and Paris had warned they were ready to break ranks with their European partners to supply weapons to the rebels as their frustration mounts over the failure of diplomacy to end the conflict.
But there appeared little appetite from other Europeans for dropping the ban, many fearing that a flood of weapons into Syria will only escalate the bloodshed.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said his country was not prepared to lift the ban.

“We are against the end of the arms embargo. We think the delivery of arms does not contribute to a possible solution,” he told reporters.

A Spanish diplomatic source said there was widespread hesitation about supplying weapons to the rebels. “I think the member countries don’t want to follow the French position,” the source said.

Demonstrations were held in protest centres across Syria to mark the anniversary under the rallying cry:
“Two years of sacrifice towards victory”.

“Despite all the killing and destruction, I have hope for the country,” said Abu Ghazi, an activist in the flashpoint central city of Hama.

“There is a lot of violence, but two years into the revolution, we realise how far we have come.”
The conflict erupted on March 15, 2011 when protesters inspired by Arab world uprisings took to the streets of cities and towns across Syria for unprecedented demonstrations to demand democratic change.

Despite the demonstrators being unarmed, peaceful and made up of many women and children, forces of President Bashar al-Assad unleashed a brutal crackdown, opening fire on them and prompting an ever-growing number to take up arms.

Two years on, Syria is mired in a civil war that has killed at least 70,000 people and forced one million to flee abroad, with millions more missing or displaced, sparking an economic and humanitarian disaster.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “deplorable” people were getting used to the fact so many civilians were being killed each day, with a daily tally of between 100 and 200 dead.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said there was a real risk of a regional “explosion” if the conflict was allowed to drag on.

Rebels have seized large swathes of territory, but growing tensions between liberals and moderate Muslims on the one hand, and Islamists on the other, have raised fears of a collapse into a sectarian bloodbath.

The Damascus government suspects neighbouring Jordan of opening its borders this month to weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia in Croatia for the rebels, a Syrian security source told AFP.

“We deplore the change of attitude of Jordan, which in the past 10 days has opened its borders and is allowing to cross over jihadists and Croatian weapons bought by Saudi Arabia,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the chief of Syria’s main, Western-backed rebel group marked the second anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar Assad by pledging on Friday to continue fighting until the “criminal” regime is gone.

Gen Salim Idris, the head of the Supreme Military Council, called on Syrian soldiers to join the rebels in a “fight for freedom and democracy” and said that his Free Syrian Army fighters “will not give up.”

In Damascus, authorities beefed up security measures as rebel groups called for stepped-up attacks on government troops and state institutions on the anniversary.

The revolt against Assad’s authoritarian rule began in March 2011 with protests in the southern city of
Daraa, after troops arrested teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall. It has since morphed into a civil war with an estimated 70,000 people killed, according to the UN
“We want (a) Syria where every Syrian can live in peace and liberty. This is our dream, this is what we are fighting for,” Idris said in a video address obtained by The Associated Press form the Council’s media office.
He spoke in an undisclosed location in northern Syria that is under rebel control.
“I know our battle is not so easy. We have to fight against planes, tanks and huge missiles,” Idris said. “But our will is still very strong. We will not stop until this criminal regime has gone.”
Idris, 55, studied in Germany and taught electronics at a Syrian military college before defecting to the rebel side in July.
In the past year, the rebels have made significant advances on the battlefield, capturing large swathes of land outside of major cities and controlling some areas in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. They have also overrun major military bases, captured dams on the Euphrates River and came within a mile of the center of Damascus, the seat of Assad’s power.
However, they have long complained that their side is hampered by the failure of world powers to provide heavier arms to help them battle Assad’s better-equipped military and his airpower. The international community is reluctant to send weapons partly because of fears they may fall into the hands of extremists who have been gaining influence among the rebels.
Last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the Obama administration was giving an additional $60 million in assistance to Syria’s political opposition and would, for the first time, provide non-lethal aid directly to the rebels. None of the aid, which is to include an undetermined amount of food rations and medical supplies, has been sent yet.
On Friday, some anti-government groups called for stepped-up attacks to mark the uprising anniversary. The banned Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group urged supporters for a “week of action” on the occasion but didn’t specify what it would do.
A Damascus-based activist who identified himself as Abu Qais said regime troops increased patrols and security searches in the country’s capital. He spoke on condition his real name not be used for security concerns.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Lebanon, gunmen set fire to three fuel tankers with Syrian license plates to prevent them from crossing into Syria, the state-run National News Agency said.
The Lebanese agency said the incident occurred in the northern city of Tripoli, and that the tankers were carrying fuel when they were stopped by the protesters and later set on fire. No casualties were reported.
Protesters have in the past closed roads to keep tankers from crossing into Syria, where there are severe gasoline and diesel shortages. They claim diesel exported to Syria is being used by regime tanks.
Many among Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims have backed Syria’s mainly Sunni rebel forces, in which radical Islamists have become increasingly active. Lebanese Shiite Muslims, including the militant Hezbollah group, have leaned toward Assad, whose tiny Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Separately, the Syrian Foreign Ministry complained in a letter sent to the Lebanese government on Thursday that armed groups have tried to infiltrate Syria from Lebanon repeatedly in the past 36 hours, triggering clashes with border guards.
Damascus said Syrian troops have exercised “utmost self-restraint” until now but warned that “this would not continue endlessly.”
Also Friday, at least eight Syrians were killed and 29 were injured when the bus they were traveling in from Syria overturned in the mountains in central Lebanon, officials said. The bus was headed to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, when the accident occurred in the Kahhaleh region.
George Kettaneh, operations director for the Lebanese Red Cross, said the casualties included women and children. He said it’s unclear why the bus overturned.
It was not immediately known whether the Syrians where refugees fleeing the violence at home. The bus had Syrian license plates from the northeastern Hassakeh province, which recently witnessed heavy clashes.
More than 1 million Syrians have fled the country’s civil war to seek shelter in neighboring countries. In Lebanon alone, the UN has registered more than 360,000 Syrian refugees.
In other news, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) appealed to foreign powers on Friday to press combatants in Syria to halt attacks on civilians and aid workers, saying all sides were violating the Geneva Conventions.
“Many atrocities against civilians have been reported or witnessed over the past two years and we have also seen indiscriminate attacks against civilians and the targeting of health-care personnel and aid workers,” said Robert Mardini, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East.
States should “play a positive role by exerting stronger influence on those involved to secure greater respect for international humanitarian law”, Mardini said.
“These ongoing violations of international humanitarian law and of basic humanitarian principles by all sides must stop,” he declared, saying no end to civilian suffering was in sight.
The ICRC’s appeal on the second anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad was the first time the independent agency had asked outside powers to help create conditions in which aid could reach needy civilians promptly.
Mardini said that hundreds of people were dying every day in Syria and tens of thousands were missing or detained. He again appealed for access to government-held prisoners.
An ICRC programme to visit such detainees to monitor their conditions and prevent mistreatment, has stalled since May after just two visits to central prisons in Damascus and Aleppo.
The Geneva Conventions lay down the rules of armed conflict, including treatment of civilians and prisoners of war.
ICRC aid workers, working across the front-lines since the conflict erupted, have delivered aid to some of the hardest-hit areas controlled by both sides, the agency said.
The ICRC issued its message hours before France and Britain were expected to urge European Union governments to lift an embargo on supplying weapons to Syrian rebels.
Assad’s forces still control central Damascus and large parts of the cities of Homs, Hama and Aleppo to the north. But they have lost swathes of territory in the rural north and most of the eastern towns and cities along the Euphrates River.
United Nations investigators said on Monday that the Syrian government has stepped up indiscriminate, heavy bombardments of cities while rebels are executing prisoners condemned in their own makeshift courts without due process.
Some 4 million people in Syria need assistance, including an estimated 2.5 million displaced from their homes and staying mainly in squalid public shelters, the United Nations says.
The World Food Programme said on Friday it faced “severe challenges” in expanding its emergency operation, which distributed rations to 1.7 million people in Syria in February.
The UN agency aims to reach 2.5 million in Syria by April as well as one million refugees in neighbouring countries.