will pass to the United Nations a list of names of 1100 people that it said were killed by terrorists who received arms from neighboring countries.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Moqdad stated in Geneva before representatives of 47 member countries in the Human Rights Council at the United Nations that Syria has been facing terrorist threats, and indicated that “in the coming few days we will hand in a list of 1100 martyrs who were employees and police officers, and were killed by terrorists.”
Al-Moqdad further clarified that members of the Syrian security forces have been martyred by terrorists who received weapons from Syria’s neighboring countries.
The Foreign Minister went on explaining that “throughout the last seven months my country has confronted various wars, including a media war as well as media deception and lies, and all sorts of threats.”
He recalled the reforms that President Bashar Al-Assad had announced about, and assured that Syria needed more time for implementing them as “reforms cannot be done while Syrians are being killed on daily basis by extremist terrorist groups.”
“We have received humanitarian activists and the international committee of the Red Cross, and this indicates that we have nothing to hide,” he added.
On the other hand, Iran, Russia, Cuba, and China praised the reforms that President Al-Assad had pledged to implement including lifting the state of emergency and carrying out local elections, while Britain, France, the United States called Syria to end its “criminal acts against civilians”.
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Nine officers killed by armed groups in central Syria
DAMASCUS, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) — Nine army officers were killed and 11 others injured Saturday during clashes with armed groups in Syria’s Hama city, a hotbed of the recent unrest, the private Sham FM radio station reported.
Many of the gunmen were killed in the confrontation in Jisr al- Mazareb area of the city, the report said, adding that large amounts of weapons and ammunition were seized in that area.
In a related development Saturday, seven army men, who had been killed in separate clashes with armed gangs over the past few days, were laid to rest, according to official SANA news agency.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad told a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva that Syria is subject to various forms of war threats.
Around 1,100 security agents and law-enforcement members were killed by armed groups during the past seven months, he said.
A recent UN tally put the number of civilians who were allegedly killed by security forces at 2,900.
In another development, Syrian Foreign Ministry summoned the Austrian charge d’affaires in Damascus Saturday to convey the Syrian government’s strong objection to recent attacks against its embassy in Austria.
SANA quoted Ahmed Arnous, the assistant foreign minister, as saying that the Syrian government condemns the attack as a ” criminal act” and holds the Austrian authorities responsible for any dereliction in protecting the Syrian embassy in Vienna, which was attacked on Friday by a number of people who stormed the embassy and vandalized its contents.
