CAIRO – International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned Sunday the Syrian war was worsening “by the day” as he announced a peace plan he believed could find support from world powers, including key Syria ally Russia. Brahimi's comments in Cairo after meeting Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi came as Syrian forces pressed a fierce offensive for control of the central city of Homs and as fighting raged around Damascus and on northern battlegrounds, which also killed 23 children in violence across the country. The situation in Syria “is very bad and getting worse by the day,” Brahimi told reporters, a day after warning in Moscow that Damascus faced a choice between “hell or the political process.” He said he had crafted a ceasefire plan “that could be adopted by the international community.” “I have discussed this plan with Russia and Syria... I think this proposal could be adopted by the international community,” the UN and Arab League envoy said, without giving details. “There is a proposal for a political solution based on the Geneva declaration foreseeing a ceasefire, forming a government with complete prerogatives and a plan for parliamentary and presidential elections,” he said, referring to a peace initiative that world powers agreed to in Geneva in June. That plan was rejected by Syria's opposition, which is adamant that President Bashar Al-Assad's departure is a given before any national dialogue such as that under the Geneva initiative can take place. The international action group on Syria comprises the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – and representatives of the Arab League, the UN and EU and Turkey. On the ground, regime forces fired rockets and shelled rebel-held districts Sunday after overrunning a key Homs neighborhood the previous day, in its first major advance in the central city in months, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A video released by the Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, showed the bodies of nine male victims from Deir Baalbeh lying on the ground, their faces bloody and mutilated. Near Damascus, loyalist troops carried out air raids on towns along the eastern outlying belt and on Daraya in the southwest, while fighting between rebels and the army erupted in the northeastern and southwestern suburbs, the Observatory said. The watchdog said 13 children were among the victims of bombardments in and around Damascus Saturday, while 10 children were killed in air strikes across Aleppo province, including on rebel-held Aazaz near the Turkish border. Meanwhile, a Russian warship carrying a marines unit has left its Black Sea port for Syria amid preparations for a possible evacuation of nationals living and working in the strife-torn country, news reports said Sunday. The Novocherkassk landing ship is the third such craft despatched since Friday to the Tartus port that Russia leases from its last Middle East ally, agencies cited an unnamed official in the general staff as saying. The reports said the Azov and Nikolai Filchenkov landing ships had also been sent to Syria from their Russian bases. The military source said the Novocherkassk would arrive at Tartus within the first 10 days of January. The Novocherkassk and another landing ship called Saratov both made a rare port call to Tartus in late November. The Tartus base is Russia's only remaining naval station outside the former Soviet Union and is seen as a major strategic asset for Moscow. – Agencies
