UN rights body mulls ordering probe into Qusayr killings

The UN’s top human rights body was considering Wednesday whether to open a probe into the assault on the besieged Syrian town of Qusayr by the regime and its allies, including foreign fighters.

A draft resolution condemning “the intervention of foreign combatants fighting on behalf of the Syrian regime in Al-Qusayr” was beefed up Wednesday at the UN’s Human Rights Council to add a call for a UN probe into the killings there.

Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah sent almost 1,700 fighters to Qusayr more than a week ago to support the regime’s assault on the rebel stronghold.

Control of Qusayr is essential for the rebels as it is their principal transit point for weapons and fighters from Lebanon.

Opening the debate in Geneva, UN rights chief Navi Pillay decried the situation in the town, saying “the increasing number of foreign fighters crossing Syria’s borders to support one side or the other” was “further fuelling the sectarian violence.”

“The situation is beginning to show worrying signs of destabilising the region as a whole,” she warned, amid rising concerns about Hezbollah’s role in Syria.

If adopted, the draft resolution put forward by the United States, Turkey and Qatar would order an existing team of investigators to “urgently conduct a comprehensive, independent and unfettered special inquiry” into the alleged massacre of hundreds of people in Qusayr.

But a UN commission of inquiry on Syria tasked since 2011 with probing rights abuses across the country would likely not be able to visit the site as it has so far been barred by the regime from entering the country.

Based on interviews with more than 1,500 refugees and exiles, the commission has determined however that forces fighting for both the government and opposition have committed war crimes in Syria, where more than 94,000 people have been killed since the violence exploded in March 2011.

The resolution, first presented Tuesday, was revised to condemn all violence “irrespective of where it comes from” following criticism that it was unbalanced, since it only took issue with abuses committed by the regime’s camp.

Syria’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Bashar Jaafari, nonetheless called the text “shameful”, “biased” and “politically motivated”.

He insisted “the town of Qusayr has seen no massacres,” and blamed opposition jihadists backed by Qatar and Turkey for any abuses there.

Russian ambassador Alexey Borodavkin also called the resolution as well as the urgent debate on Syria “untimely and counterproductive”.

He insisted a probe could not be independent, since all the blame for the Qusayr killings had already been laid on Damascus, and urged the council to “deny support to this dangerous and hypocritical resolution.”

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the resolution was hampering international efforts to organise a Syria peace conference in Geneva next month.

US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe rejected that.

“We don’t see this as… undermining in any way,” she said in Geneva, insisting “the need for establishing a record on the human rights dimensions and ensuring accountability is part of a lasting peace for the future.”

She said the US was deeply “concerned about the dramatic increase in the role of Hezbollah inside Syria.”

“Not only is this not helpful in terms of destabilising Syria, but it also has this very serious risk of destabilising Lebanon and destabilising the region as a whole,” Donahoe said.