Russia denies chopper delivery

Responding to claims earlier this week by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Russia was delivering attack helicopters to Syria, Russia's foreign ministry said in an online statement Friday that no new deliveries were taking place.

"There are no new deliveries of Russian military helicopters to Syria. All arms industry cooperation with Syria is limited to a transfer of defensive arms," the ministry said on its website. "Regarding helicopters, there were previously planned repairs of military equipment delivered to Syria many years ago."

Clinton's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said on Thursday that refurbished helicopters were being sent back to Syria after undergoing repairs in Russia and that they would be used to kill civilians.

Russia said that the only military supplies being sent to Syria were for defense purposes and were not "things used to fight peaceful civilians."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also told reporters on Friday that there had been no talks between his country and the West on a political transformation of Syria should President Bashar al-Assad depart.

"We are not involved in regime change through either the UN Security Council or through involvement in any political conspiracies," Lavrov said.

Nuland as well French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had indicated that talks between their countries and Russia about a post-Assad Syria had taken place.

Fabius also alluded to the possibility that major world powers could hold a summit on the Syrian crisis at the end of the month in Geneva in an interview with French radio.

Claims of sexual violence

Meanwhile, the uprising in Syria has entered its sixteenth month and incidents of violence continue to make the possibility of any kind of peace in the near future unlikely.

Activists in Syria reported that 84 people were killed on Thursday in clashes between Syrian rebels and government forces. Syria has placed restrictions on journalists working in the country, making it difficult to verify reports like these.

The activist organization Human Rights Watch has also released a report that claims the Syrian government has used sexual violence to torture men, women and boys detained during the conflict. The report stems from interviews with 10 former detainees.

"Sexual violence in detention is one of many horrific weapons in the Syrian government's torture arsenal and Syrian security forces regularly use it to humiliate and degrade detainees with complete impunity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The assaults are not limited to detention facilities – government forces and pro-government … militia members have also sexually assaulted women and girls during home raids and residential sweeps."

The report said the female victims in some of the home raids were as young as 12.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights places the death toll in Syria at 14,000 since the conflict began in March of last year.

mz/tj (Reuters, AFP)