Annan woos Russia on Syria

Government security forces and rebels clashed across Syria on Saturday, as UN special envoy Kofi Annan travelled to Moscow in a bid to convince the Russian government to support a plan to end the Syrian bloodshed.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Syrian tanks had entered the northeastern town of Saraqeb amid heavy shelling. The Observatory said that two rebel fighters and nine government troops had been killed in clashes.

"Large numbers of residents are fleeing the town," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, which has a network of activists inside Syria. "People have been leaving the town for some time but after today's attack the process intensified."

Government troops reportedly shelled the central city and opposition hotbed of Homs as well as the nearby town of al-Qusair. The Observatory said that 10 people had been killed in Homs province, while the Local Coordination Committees put the death toll at 22. Both groups estimated that at least 38 people were killed nationwide on Saturday.

Casualty figures cannot be independently confirmed, as foreign journalists have limited access to Syria.

Army defectors seek unity

Syrian army defectors announced on Saturday that they had formed a joint command, according to the news agency AFP. The Free Syria Army said that it was joining forces with the High Military Council, led by General Mustafa al-Sheikh, the most senior officer to defect from the Syrian military so far. 

Riad al-Assad, chief of the Free Syrian Army, told AFP that the new joint rebel command "is a step towards guaranteeing the unity of troops and (opposition) armed forces on Syrian territory." The announcement comes ahead of a two-day meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, scheduled for Monday, where Syrian opposition groups are hoping to smooth over their internal differences and hammer out common objectives. 

Meanwhile, Special Envoy Annan is travelling to Moscow as part of a push by western and Arab nations to try and gauge how much pressure Russia is willing to put on its close ally in Damascus.

Annan is scheduled to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday. After long staying as neutral in the bloody Syria conflict as possible, Russia on Wednesday supported a non-binding resolution in the UN Security Council calling on Syrian forces to withdraw from protest cities and begin a "political transition" to a more democratic state.

slk/tm (AP, AFP, dpa)