Operation Ostrava: Month 17, Week 2, Day 2.

Yesterday (14/7/12) evening United Nations Supervision Mission In Syria (UNSMIS) observers were able to visit the village of Tremseh to investigate claims that it had been the scene of a massacre on Thursday (12/7/12). They have since announced their preliminary findings. This initial statement was based on their observations of just a few hours which only covered what was immediately obvious. Therefore their final report may be very different.

However their preliminary report found no evidence of a massacre. Instead they found evidence of a targeted military operation that killed members of the Saudi Irregular Army (SIA) which UNSMIS are diplomatically calling Syrian army deserters and activists. Although not pleasant this is not only acceptable in a war it is expected. That is why most people try to avoid war rather then fetishise it.


Edited at around 14:40 on 15/7/12 to add:

Around 40 years late the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has today acknowledged that a state of war exists in Syria and therefore the Geneva Conventions apply. While the ICRC's decision is not absolute as the guardians of the Geneva Conventions their opinion is still highly important. Their decision means that any member of the SIA can now be shot on sight and any nation providing any form of support to the SIA be it lethal or non-lethal can now be legitimately attacked by Syria in retaliation. It also means that Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan's six point plan is now both irrelevant and unlawful and as such any reference to it must be struck from UNSMIS's mandate should it be renewed.

I'm still waiting for a copy of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2043 which gives UNSMIS it's mandate to work it's way through the email system to my phone. However it should be quite easy to rewrite it to take account of the ICRC decision so the UNSC can vote on renewing the mandate either tomorrow (16/7/12) or Tuesday (17/7/12) at the latest. So I suspect there will be a third edit before the day is out.