You're reading: International Syria envoy warns of surge in deaths

BEIRUT — The international envoy to Syria warned Sunday that as many as 100,000 could die in the next year if a way cannot be found quickly to end the country's civil war.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy
for the Syrian crisis, told reporters in Cairo that if the crisis
continues Syria will not be divided into states “like what happened in
Yugoslavia” but will face “Somalization, which means warlords, and the
Syrian people will be persecuted by those who control their fate.”

Syrian
rebels are fighting a 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar
Assad’s regime. Activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed
in the crisis, which began with pro-democracy protests but has morphed
into a civil war.

Since starting his job in September, Brahimi has
sought to advance an international plan, reached in Geneva six months
ago, that calls for an open-ended cease-fire between rebels and
government troops and the formation of a transitional government to run
the country until elections can be held.

Over the past week
Brahimi went to Damascus where he met Assad then flew to Moscow, one of
Syria’s closest international allies, where he discussed ways of ending
the country’s crisis.

“The situation in Syria is bad. Very, very
bad,” Brahimi said after meeting Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby. “It is
getting worse and therefore if nearly 50,000 were killed in nearly two
years if, God forbids, this crisis continues for another year, it will
not only kill 25,000. It will kill 100,000. The situation is
deteriorating.”

The monthly death toll in Syria rose over the past
months, as both sides have used heavier weapons and as the Syrian army
started using its warplanes to attack rebel-held areas around the
country.

Brahimi said that peace and security in the world will be
threatened directly from Syria if there is no solution within the next
few months. “I warn of what will come. The choice is between a political
solution or of full collapse of the Syrian state.”

Asked if there
is any willingness by Assad and the opposition to go into a political
process, Brahimi said, “No, there isn’t. This is the problem.” He added
that the two sides don’t talk to each other and there is need for help
from outside.

Brahimi hinted that that the Geneva plan might be
adopted by the U.N. Security Council, saying, “We have a suggestion and I
think that this suggestion will be adopted by the international
community.”

The Geneva plan was reached in international
conferences this summer and has the backing of Russia and China, which
have shielded Damascus, as well as the West.

But neither side
within Syria appears interested. The rebels reject any efforts that do
not call for the ouster of Assad, and Assad’s government is unlikely to
give up power voluntarily. It is unclear if Security Council backing
would significantly up the pressure on either side to support it.

In
Syria, activists reported violence from area ranging from the northern
provinces of Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa to the capital Damascus and its
suburbs, to the central regions of Hama and Homs, to Daraa in the south.

Activists
said Syrian rebels captured an oil pumping station in the north of the
country after days of fighting. The Local Coordination Committees and
the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels
captured the station in Raqqa on Sunday.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who
heads the Observatory, said the station receives crude oil from the
nearby province of Hassakha then pumps it to Homs, home to one of
Syria’s two oil refineries.

Rebels have captured in the past
months several oil fields in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that
borders Iraq. The Observatory said the rebels also captured a military
post that used to protect the station.

The Observatory also
reported that rebels fought battles with Syrian troops near the border
with Jordan and around a major military industrial area in the town of
al-Safira in Aleppo. It added that rebels shot down a helicopter in
Idlib, in the northwest.