QAA, Lebanon — Syrian refugees fleeing to neighboring Lebanon on Monday said they feared they would be slaughtered in their homes as government forces hunted down opponents in a brutal offensive against the opposition stronghold of Homs.
With world pressure at a peak in the boiling crisis, U.S. Sen. John McCain called for airstrikes against Syria. He said the United States has a moral and strategic obligation to force out President Bashar Assad and his loyalists.
“The only realistic way to do so is with foreign air power,” McCain said from the Senate floor. “The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces.”
McCain’s proposal will probably divide American lawmakers, many of whom opposed a similar operation in Libya last year. Even if it were championed by the Obama administration and its NATO allies, the plan would divide other countries hostile to the Assad regime but unwilling to support another Western military intervention in the Muslim world. And it would be anathema to Russia, which sees Syria as its primary ally in the Middle East.
The U.N. refugee agency said Monday that as many as 2,000 Syrians crossed into Lebanon over the past two days to flee the violence in their country. In the Lebanese border village of Qaa, families with small children came carrying only plastic bags filled with a few belongings.
“We fled the shelling and the strikes,” said Hassana Abu Firas. She came with two families who had fled government shelling of their town of al-Qusair, about 14 miles away, on the Syrian side.
The town is in Homs province, where the government has been waging a brutal offensive for the past month.
“What are we supposed to do? People are sitting in their homes and they are hitting us with tanks,” Firas said. “Those who can flee, do. Those who can’t will die sitting down.”
Lebanese security officials say more than 10,000 Syrians are thought to be in the country. One official said as many as 3,000 are thought to have crossed in recent days because of violence in Homs, although it is unclear how many have returned to Syria. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under government protocol.
As international condemnation mounts, the Syrian regime agreed to allow in two prominent international emissaries it had previously rebuffed — former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the new special envoy to Syria, and U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos.
Annan will go to Damascus on Saturday, and Amos said she will arrive in the capital Wednesday and leave Friday. Amos said the aim of the visit is “to urge all sides to allow unhindered access for humanitarian relief workers so they can evacuate the wounded and deliver essential supplies.”
