BEIRUT: Russia Thursday circulated a surprise new draft U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at reducing the violence in Syria, amid escalating violence Thursday that saw 27 soldiers in the south of the country killed in some of the deadliest attacks on forces loyal to President Bashar Assad since the start of an uprising nine months ago.
Several council members welcomed the new initiative, but said it didn’t go far enough.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday the U.S. hopes it can work with Russia on the draft.

Though Clinton said Washington had differences with Moscow on the draft, she said it was the “first time” that Russia has recognized the violence in Syria needs to be taken up the Security Council.
“We are going to study the draft carefully. It will have to be shared with the Arab League, which has taken the lead on the response to what’s going on in Syria,” said Clinton.

“We are going to study the draft carefully ... Hopefully we can work with the Russians,” Clinton told reporters.
Labelling the move “an extraordinary event,” French envoy to the United Nations Gerard Araud said the move showed Russia “has decided to move on the resolution project,” adding that he believed “Russia had felt the pressure of the international community.”

As a key ally of President Bashar Assad, Russia has tried to head off Security Council intervention in the Syria crisis. With China, it vetoed a council resolution proposed by European nations in October condemning Assad’s crackdown on protests.

Russia called emergency talks of the 15 nation body on Syria to propose the new resolution, which strongly condemns the violence by “all parties, including disproportionate use of force by Syrian authorities,” according to a copy obtained by AFP.
The draft also raises concern over “the illegal supply of weapons to the armed groups in Syria.”
Western diplomats said while the resolution was “not acceptable,” its contents could be negotiated.

“At the moment, from our point of view, it is unbalanced. We have no firm evidence of any arms trafficking,” one Western diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The move came as army deserters killed 27 soldiers in southern Syria Thursday, an activist group said, fueling fears of increasingly coordinated strikes by the army rebels who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, raising the specter of slippage towards civil war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes flared in Deraa, where protests against Assad first erupted in March, and at a checkpoint east of the city where all 15 personnel manning it were killed.
It did not say how they broke out.

The United Nations says 5,000 people have been killed in Assad’s crackdown. Assad has denied any orders were issued to kill demonstrators and says gunmen have killed 1,100 of his forces.

But a report published by Human Rights Watch Thursday, based on interviews with dozens of defectors, said army commanders have ordered troops to use “all means necessary” to halt protests, often giving explicit instructions to open fire.

HRW identified 74 commanders who had ordered, authorized or condoned killings, torture and unlawful arrests during the anti-government protests. “These abuses constitute crimes against humanity,” it said, calling on the United Nations Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

The United States and France, which also blame Assad’s forces for the violence, have urged the U.N. Security Council to respond to the rising death toll, but Syria’s foreign backers Russia and China have so far blocked Western efforts to secure Council condemnation of Damascus.

Recent bloodshed prompted Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the main Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Council to call on the so-called rebel Free Syrian Army to limit operations to defensive operations. But the increasing number of apparently offensive operations claimed by the group have worried some who say the moral legitimacy of a peaceful revolution will be compromised.

In a statement posted on Facebook Thursday in response to a video circulated widely of a man in Homs posing as a street sweeper, before firing an RPG at a stationary tank, SNC member Rami Nakhla warned such tactics would incur greater bloodshed.

“This operation is not called self defense ... you didn’t in this case defend civilians, on the contrary you harmed them,” Nakhle said.

“Maybe in place of this tank, they [the soldiers] opened fire against 10 civilians and killed them in revenge. You think you appear as great heroes when you blow up a tank and take photos of yourself and put it on YouTube.”
The deteriorating security situation prompted Canada Thursday to call for an evacuation of all its citizens in Syria.

“Our best advice is to leave Syria immediately, by any available means and while options exist,” its Foreign Ministry said in a statement, citing concerns that new Arab League sanctions against Syria targeting airline flights may make it difficult to leave the country quickly.
The Arab League will meet in Cairo Saturday to consider Syrian-requested amendments to a plan to allow observers in Syria to stave off regional sanctions.

In the meantime, Iraq, which abstained from a vote to suspend Syria from the Arab League and another to impose sanctions on Syria, announced it will send a peace delegation to Syria to try to convince Damascus to implement an Iraqi initiative aimed at opening a dialogue between the opposition and the Syrian government.