Syria: No talks with rebels until they're crushed

Syrians inspect the site of a car bomb that ripped through Jaramana, a mainly Christian and Druze suburb of Damascus, on September 3, 2012. / AFP/GettyImages

(AP) BEIRUT - The Syrian regime said Monday there will be no dialogue with the opposition before the army crushes the rebels, the latest sign that President Bashar Assad is determined to solve the crisis on the battlefield even if many more of his people have to pay with their lives.

The statement comes a day after activists reported that August was the bloodiest month since the uprising began in March 2011.

"There will be no dialogue with the opposition prior to the Syrian army's imposition of security and stability in all parts of the country," Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi told reporters at a news conference in Damascus.

The opposition has long rejected any talks with the regime until Assad is removed from power.

Muhieddine Lathkani, an opposition figure based in Britain, responded to the minister's comments by saying "the key to any dialogue will be the departure of Assad and dismantling of the regime's security agencies that committed all these crimes."

Lathkani told The Associated Press by telephone that after that happens, there could be a dialogue.

Earlier in the day, the new U.N. envoy to Syria acknowledged that brokering an end to the civil war will be a "very, very difficult" task.

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Activists on Sunday said some 5,000 people were killed in August, the highest toll in the 17-month-old uprising and more than three times the monthly average. At the same time, the U.N. children's fund, UNICEF, said 1,600 were killed last week alone, also the highest figure for the entire revolt.

The two major activists groups raised their total death toll for the entire revolt to at least 23,000 and as high as 26,000.

The civil war witnessed a major turning point in August when Assad's forces began widely using air power for the first time to try to put down the revolt. The fighting also reached Syria's largest city, Aleppo, which had been relatively quiet for most of the uprising.

Last week, Assad said in an interview that his armed forces will need time to defeat the rebels, an acknowledgement that his regime is struggling to defeat the tenacious rebels and another indication that the civil war will be even more drawn out and bloody.

In the latest violence on Monday, activists said more than 100 people were killed - many of them in two air raids that knocked out large parts of buildings in the northern province of Aleppo. Government warplanes bombed the town of Al-Bab killing at least 19 people and the Aleppo neighborhood of Myasar where 10 people, including four children, were killed.

(At left, CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward reports on the latest violence in Syria for CBS Evening News.)

The two main activist groups, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, said the airstrikes targeted a residential area in the northern town of al-Bab, about 20 miles from the Turkish border. The Observatory said 19 people were killed in the air raid; the LCC put the death toll at 25.

An amateur video posted online showed men frantically searching for bodies in the rubble of a white building smashed into a pile of debris. The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified.

An amateur video from Myasar showed men digging through the rubble and cutting metal to pick up the dead buried under the debris. A dead girl and a man were seen being removed in the video.

Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese army general who heads a Beirut-based think tank, said the government is using MiG warplanes to bomb targets on the ground with missiles ranging between 110 pounds and 440 pounds.

"Those bombs fall in a shape that looks like a barrel, then explode when they hit the ground," he said.

Syrian officials said a bomb attached to a taxi blew up in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, killing five people and wounding 23. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Activists, meanwhile, reported scattered violence in regions across the country, including the Damascus suburbs, the region of Deir el-Zour in the east, Daraa in the south and Idlib and Aleppo in the north.

The Observatory said 100 people were killed Monday while the LCC put the number at 205, many of them in Aleppo province.

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[Syrian77]

It is astonishing how ignorant Americans are of what is really going on in Syria, but then again what can you expect when the US media continues to propagate lies, distortions, and fabrications about the situation in Syria. I guess Americans would be fine if there were terrorists roaming around in the US trying to take over neighborhoods, attacking police and military targets, killing civilians who don't agree with their warped views, and planting explosives in different parts of the country to terrorize civilians. There has been video after video showing the utter criminality and barbarity of these so-called "rebels", most of who are Al Qaeda type Islamists whose goal is not to establish a democratic state (as democracy in their view of Islam is a heresy) but rather to establish an Islamist Caliphate. They have said it clearly time and again and their crimes have turned even opposition Syrians against them. So be sure that by these statements you are making, you are in fact taking a clear stand in support of fundamentalist terrorists.

[UForgotPoland]

" killing civilians who don't agree with their warped views:

..unfortunately the Syrian Government also does that as well, the people are rebelling against him for a reason.

[UForgotPoland]

I don't think Assad understands how to fight a civil war or insurgency. You must show that you are a more legitimate ruler than your opposition and show your people you can provide them with the basic needs of a social contract. Instead of this he just blows the crap out of everything, the more people you kill and the more homes you destroy loses you more support every time.

[john92021]

sure it is about control of the country but the cause is over population of a country that can not support that many people. Kill them, drive them out, doesn't matter, they don't want to share the limited resources available in that desert. Man was never meant to live in urban ghettos with no hope. You can see this in all the arid parts of the world and with climate change it is only going to get worse. The neighbors cannot absorb the refugees because they already have problems of over crowding.

[lloydbest1]

"Syria: No talks with rebels until they're crushed"

What kind of nonsense is this? If you're going to "crush" them anyway, why bother to talk to 'em?

[GeorgeKafantaris]

The mission of the new U.N. envoy to Syria is not only "impossible" but also naive. Perhaps the U.N. sees no harm in sending Lakhdar Brahimi to Syria, but it is utterly foolish for him to be there waiving a white flag in the mist of aerial bombings and intense ground fighting.
Indeed, even if peace was still plausible, it would mean loss of power for Assad and his henchmen -- or their answering for war crimes, as they had reached the point of no return to civilized governance long ago. Their only hope now is to fight the rebellion and carve out a chunk of Syria for their refuge.
The Iranian regime is absolutely determined to help Assad do this -- which is precisely why the path through Syria has become our gateway to Iran.
And let us not fool ourselves: That regime will have to be confronted militarily, sooner or later. The time to do so is now when we have other nations by our side going into Syria.
As for Russia and China, these two are reasonable opponents and will do what is best for them -- and the rabid Iranian regime is not much better for them as it is for the rest of us. And like us, Russia and China have given up all hope of taming it.
It is foreseeable then that Russia and China will again watch as we spend our blood and treasure to knock out another troublesome regime in the world.
A more pressing question is whether we have any stomach left for another war. Assad and the Iranian regime are betting that we don't.
But then so did Saddam and Gaddafi.

[talkin2u924]

Crack me up. A lunatic government. "Killem then talk to them.". Idiots and Savages!

[josephp5]

Can't the US do something about this? Why do we tiptoe around the Russians, afraid to hurt their feelings, when they are providing the material support to this evil dictator that is killing his own people? Where is the leadership from our President?

[ahrats]

Without RUSSIAN weapons or Backing Assad would be finished. The world just sits around and lets this MADMAN kill his own pepole. Let's say he wins the civil war, WHAT HAS HE GAINED? A large group of people who want their president dead and the RUSSIANS can not stop that. Assad you are living on borrowed time,at some point you will go too far and either the world may stop, I doubt that they are too weak, but the people you serve will stop you, which is a given, there is an assaian in every corner, you can not trust even the food you eat or what ever you drink, PARANOIA the destroyer. Good luck in your future endeviors, runing Syria will be your only outcome.

[fredm6900]

I'm not republican but Obama failed in many aspects: promised to end the wars, received even the Peace Nobel Price (undue in my view), but did nothing to end the wars. Promised to close Guantanamo but did not. Invade Pakistan to kill Bin Laden and continue to pouring our tax money into other countries, Pakistan, Afaganistan, Israel and so on, just to buy their cooperation. Most of that money goes to corruption. Did nothing on the Wall Street issues. The perpetrators bankers are still there and well. No one is responded to any of their crimes against the economy. Obama did not solve the economic problem and unemployment and now does nothing to help Syria. Sorry guys, I'm independent and if I could my vote would go to Ron Paul. Obama really became a hard choice to make.

[hughmahn]

and you think Robme is going to do BETTER?! 8 yrs of Bush is what destroyed us, yOU are delusional!

[carlloeber]

since President Obama will not act to help the Syrian people without the OK from the Kremlin .. at least he should have his own agents take anti aircraft missiles into Syria for the freedom fighters to use .. have the CIA men go in to Syria and train the fighters how to use them .. stay with the missiles all the way until the FSA uses them .. then go back for more ..