BEIRUT: The United States closed its embassy in Syria on Monday and withdrew its staff in the face of escalating mayhem that U.S. officials blamed on the Syrian government’s unbridled repression of an 11-month-old uprising.
The move marked another dramatic moment in a week full of them, as the confrontation in Syria turned even more violent and more unpredictable. Diplomatic efforts have largely collapsed, save for a Russian delegation visiting the capital Damascus today, and both the Syrian government and its opposition have signaled that each believes the grinding conflict will be resolved only through force of arms.
For weeks, Western embassies have reduced their staffs, and Monday, Britain also recalled its ambassador for consultations. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, described the mounting violence as yet more evidence that President Bashar Assad must surrender power.
“This is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime,” he told the House of Commons. “There is no way it can recover its credibility internationally.”
Though the government has pressed forward with a crackdown in the suburbs of Damascus and a rugged northern region around the town of Idlib, the city of Homs has witnessed the most pronounced violence. Opposition groups said government forces again shelled the city, despite international condemnation of a similar attack Friday and Saturday that they said killed more than 200 people.
Another grim toll was reported Monday in Homs, Syria’s third largest. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that seeks to document the violence, said government forces killed 47 people in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, especially Baba Amr and Khalidya. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number at 43. There was no way to confirm either number.
“The situation is so miserable,” said a 40-year-old computer shop owner who gave his name as Ahmed. “Gunfire is falling like rain, and all the stores are closed. We keep hearing unbelievably loud explosions that shake the windows every half-hour.”
The U.S. State Department said that the United States had “suspended operations of our embassy in Damascus,” and that Ambassador Robert S. Ford and all U.S. personnel there had left the country.
It said the closing reflected “serious concerns that our embassy is not protected from armed attack.”
“The deteriorating security situation that led to the suspension of our diplomatic operations makes clear once more the dangerous path Assad has chosen and the regime’s inability to fully control Syria,” said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
U.S. officials said the embassy staff had moved temporarily to neighboring Jordan.
The announcement said Ford would “continue his work and engagement with the Syrian people as head of our Syria team in Washington.”
It stopped short of a formal break in U.S. diplomatic relations with Syria but was considered a strong signal that Obama administration officials believe there is nothing left to talk about with Assad.
Though more isolated than any other time in the four decades since his family took power, Assad’s government was emboldened by the vetoes of Russia and China on Saturday of a United Nations Security Council resolution backed by Western and Arab states supporting a plan to end the bloodshed. The vetoes appeared to stop, for the moment, any concerted diplomatic efforts.
Instead, countries traded barbs. Hague called the vetoes “a betrayal of the Syrian people.”
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, called the criticism “perhaps on the verge of hysterical.” In China, a commentary in the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily argued that the chaos that followed toppled governments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya proved that forced leadership changes only made matters worse.
“Simply backing one side and beating down the other, seemingly helpful, will in fact only sow seeds of future disasters,” said the article, which was signed Zhong Sheng, an often-used pseudonym that can be read to mean “China’s voice.”
While peaceful protests continue, the sense of a gathering armed confrontation is growing, even in citadels of the regime’s support, like Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city. As with the capital’s suburbs, fighting has mounted in Aleppo, near the Turkish border.
“All the young guys are getting armed, even university students,” said Ammar, a 21-year-old university student there. “I told them don’t, but they said, ‘There is no free army to protect us, so we need to protect ourselves on our own.’ ”
Government forces have kept up a campaign to retake Damascus’ suburbs and the northern region around Idlib. The state-run news agency said gunmen had killed three officers and captured others at a checkpoint in Jabal al- Zawiyah, near Idlib, which is a rugged region also near the border with Turkey. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported on the clash, saying that insurgents had killed three officers and 19 soldiers.
