BEIRUT — It may be time for the world to acknowledge that a cease-fire is not holding in Syria, and that it is time to try another approach to stop the violence, the White House said Thursday.
“If the regime’s intransigence continues, the international community is going to have to admit defeat,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said.
It was the clearest statement yet that the Obama administration sees little chance for the cease-fire and peace plan.
On Thursday, Syrian forces stormed student dormitories during an anti-government protest at Aleppo University, firing tear gas and bullets in an hours-long siege that killed at least four students and forced the closure of the state-run school, activists said.
U.N. truce observers toured other restive parts of the country, and residents told them of being too terrified to walk on the streets after dark as the 14-month-old uprising rages on. The U.N. estimates 9,000 people have been killed since the revolt began, and a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan nearly a month ago has done little to stem the bloodshed.
It was not clear how long the university would remain closed following the siege, which began late Wednesday when about 1,500 students held a protest against President Bashar Assad’s regime. Pro-regime students attacked the crowd with knives before security forces swept in, firing tear gas and then live ammunition, activists said.
“Some students ran to their rooms to take cover, but they were followed to their rooms, beaten up and arrested,” student activist Thaer al-Ahmed said. “Others suffered cuts and broken bones as they tried to flee.”
Raids and intermittent gunfire continued for about five hours through early Thursday, he said, adding that dozens of people were wounded, some critically, and 200 students were arrested.
It was an unusually violent incident in Aleppo, a major economic hub that has remained largely loyal to Assad and has been spared the kind of daily bloodshed that has plagued other Syrian cities over the course of the uprising.
There has been a string of bombings near government security buildings in Aleppo and the capital, Damascus, adding a mysterious element to the anti-government revolt. U.S. officials suggested al-Qaeda militants may be joining the fray.
In other violence, state-run news agency SANA said that gunmen assassinated Ismail Haidar, the son of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s leader, on Wednesday. Haidar was shot dead by “terrorists” on the highway from Homs to Misyaf, it said.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that Bassel Raya, a former basketball player who played on the Syrian national team, died Thursday from wounds suffered last week when he was shot by gunmen in a Damascus suburb.
