UN Human Rights Council condemns Syrian crackdown

Rebel commanders said access to Homs was now completely blocked The UK has decided to withdraw all diplomatic staff from Syria and suspend services at its embassy in Damascus in response to worsening security in the country. UK Foreign Secretary

William Hague announced the decision  to parliament in London, saying: "We now judge that the deterioration of the security situation in Damascus puts our Embassy staff and premises at risk, and have taken the decision to withdraw staff accordingly."
Hague said that staff had left Damascus on February 29, and the UK still planned to pressure the regime by working with the EU, UN and Syrian opposition.
The UN Human Rights Council also on Thursday condemned the crimes in Syria, with 37 in favour, and 3 against. Russia, China and Cuba were the countries that voted against.
The Geneva-based council's vote carries no legal weight but diplomats consider it a strong moral signal that may encourage a similar resolution in the powerful UN Security Council.
Burhan Ghalioun, president of the Syrian National Council (SNC), has said his organisation would “supervise” the Free Syrian Army and assess what resources it required to “defend the Syrian people” in a bid to organise armed factions in the opposition.
Ghalioun nominated Aqil Hashem, a retired general and SNC member, to run the council’s new “military bureau”.
“The key task is to unify the military struggle inside the country so we don’ t have the chaotic situation where there is no proper chain of command or order in the country now and after the collapse of the Syrian regime,” he said. “We don’t want to allow any militias or radical groups to form or work independently.”
Syrian troops meanwhile launched a ground assault on a rebel-held district of Homs after shelling it for 26 days, said activists, as pressure grew for humanitarian access to besieged protest cities.
Hague said he was "appalled" by the reports of the attack and warned the regime against escalating the violence.
“I call on those Syrians who are being ordered to attack their fellow citizens to make a choice and to lay down their arms. Those who do not do so will be held to account for their actions," said Hague.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the new international mediator for Syria, said he hoped to be in Damascus "fairly soon" with a "clear" message -- that the deadly violence must end and aid agencies must be allowed to work.
A top UN official, political chief B Lynn Pascoe, has said "well over 7,500" people have been killed since President Bashar Al-Assad's forces began cracking down on anti-regime protests that erupted in March last year.
A security source told AFP in Damascus on Wednesday that Baba Amr was "under control," after activists said the elite Fourth Armoured Division had taken up positions around the holdout district of Homs, Syria's third-largest city.
"The army has started combing the area building by building and house by house. Now the troops are searching every basement and tunnel for arms and terrorists," the security source said, noting a "few pockets" of resistance.
But a human rights watchdog and activists in the central city denied that troops had moved into Baba Amr, insisting that clashes were taking place only on its outskirts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights insisted that rebel forces "were preventing an attempt to storm Baba Amr."
Homs-based activist Hadi Abdullah reported clashes and heavy shelling of Baba Amr but insisted that ground troops had not entered the neighbourhood.
But the arrival of the Fourth Armoured Division, which is under the command of Assad's brother Maher, has signalled a final assault, he told AFP by telephone.
Rebel commanders said access to Homs was now completely blocked after regular troops blew up an underground aqueduct that had been the last viable route for smuggling of desperately needed supplies.
Annan, speaking to reporters after a meeting with current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, asked the divided international community to unite behind his mission as a special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and Arab League.
"I think the message is clear: that the killing and violence must stop, humanitarian agencies must be given access to do their work," he said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meanwhile lambasted Russia for its failure to produce an aid plan for Syria, despite Moscow's great influence with Assad.
"It is a very troubling and frustrating situation because the Russians continue to say, oh, they're for humanitarian aid, but then they don't produce any plan that Assad will sign off on," she said.
Gulf foreign ministers will meet their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Saudi capital next week to discuss the crisis, Al-Arabiya reported. Kuwait's foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah said the ministers will "express their disappointment with the Russian stance," on the crisis in Syria.
Wounded journalists trapped in Syria have brought even more attention to the worsening situation in the country Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa, who had been trapped in Homs, has arrived in Lebanon from Syria, his employer , the El Mundo newspaper, said, adding he was "in perfect health."
AFP report ed on Thursday that an SNC official told them that French journalist Edith Bouvier was in a "protected place".
Efforts to bring out Le Figaro journalist Bouvier, who is trapped inside Baba Amr with multiple fractures, were intensified after her British colleague Paul Conroy was successfully smuggled out to Lebanon on Monday night.
Thirteen Syrian activists were killed trying to help Bouvier and Conroy and to bring in aid to Baba Amr, international activist group Avaaz said.
Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said Wednesday that his government had tried "in vain" to help evacuate the journalists, insisting that Damascus was committed to its "humanitarian obligations" and accusing rebels and journalists of not cooperating.
At the United Nations, diplomats said Washington had begun work on a new draft UN Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian access to besieged cities, such as Homs.
But UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Syria did not respond to her request for a visa to assess the growing crisis.
The Syrian foreign ministry said on Thursday it was willing to discuss a date for a visit by Amos, saying the timing she had originally requested was "not suitable".
Western nations hope that focusing on the humanitarian crisis will persuade Russia and China not to use their veto powers as they did against previous Western-drafted resolutions last October and again in early February.
According to BBC's UN correspondent Barbara Plett, Russia is encouraging Syria to allow the UN's Under Secretary to visit the country.