Syrian activists have recalled back a bloody message by famed Syrian actress which was addressed to Bashar al-Assad, asking the use of chemical weapons to eliminate the Islamists. Now her wish has been achieved, they said.
Raghda, 55, who grew up in Aleppo before settling in Cairo 30 years ago, is a well-known pro-Assad regime supporter. The massage which has been circulated via social media was a clear call for Assad to wipe off the rebel-held areas. ''It's time for chemical solution, it definitely full of anger too and wants to take part,'' Raghda said.
Assad's forces have massacred 1,300 people near Damascus after a horrific chemical arms strike on Wednesday.
Last March the controversial actress was attacked last march for explicitly supporting President Bashar al-Assad and reciting poetry criticizing Islamists in the region. She made her daring announcement while attending a cultural event at Cairo’s Opera House, local media reported.
In response, the opposition Syrian National Coalition called for an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting on the subject.
“I call on the Security Council to convene urgently,” National Coalition leader Ahmed al-Jarba added to Al-Arabiya news channel, condemning the Syrian army’s bombardment of the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus as a “massacre.”
Meanwhile, The Arab League called Wednesday on U.N. chemical weapons inspectors now inside Syria to immediately visit the site of the incident.
Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi urged the inspectors in a statement to “go immediately to Eastern Ghouta to see the reality of the situation and investigate the circumstances of this crime.”
A senior U.S. administration official said the United States had no official confirmation that chemical weapons were used in recent attacks in Syria.
“Regime forces ... stepped up military operations in the Eastern Ghouta and Western Ghouta zones of the Damascus region with aircraft and rocket launchers, causing several dozen dead and wounded,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP news agency.
The intensive bombing on the outskirts of the capital could be heard by residents of Damascus, where a grey cloud capped the sky.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a vast network of activists on the ground and medics, said the army operation was aimed at the recapture of Madhamiyat el-Sham, an area southwest of Damascus.
The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists reported hundreds of casualties in the “brutal use of toxic gas by the criminal regime in parts of Western Ghouta.”
In an interview with Al Arabiya, Syrian National Coalition chief Ahmad Jarba called on the U.N. investigators to travel to Ghouta, “the site of the massacre.”
Activists at the Local Coordinating Committees said Mouadamiya, southwest of the capital, came under the heaviest attack since the start of the two-year conflict.
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