Damascus air strike kills children, many still trapped in rubble

Death toll hit 100 nationwide on Sunday, including 14 children An air strike on a building in the rebel-held town of Moadamiyat al-Sham southwest of Damascus has killed at least six children on Monday. The Britain-based watchdog, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the identities of six child victims, all members of the same clan, and added that the toll may rise as more people, including several women, were believed trapped in the rubble.
Shelling targeting the town of Hazzeh east of Damascus killed at least nine people on Sunday, including a number of children, a watchdog said, as the Syrian regime pressed its offensive against rebels.
Warplanes also pounded rebel zones on the outskirts of Damascus and in the northern province of Aleppo, rising the death toll to 100 nationwide for Sunday, including 14 children.
Amateur video posted on the Internet by Hazzeh-based activists showed a young man carrying the bloodied body of a young boy away.
The grisly footage, which could not be verified, also showed other victims lying in the mud. At least two of the bodies shown were those of children.
The Observatory says more than 3,500 children have been killed in Syria since a peaceful uprising that broke out in March 2011 turned into an armed rebellion after a crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad's government.
Fighting also raged near the base of any army brigade tasked with protecting Aleppo airport.
Further north in Aazaz, near the Turkish border, 10 civilians were killed in an air strike, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers inside Syria, also reported fierce clashes between rebels and the army in Daraya and in the Barzeh district of north Damascus.
In Jaramana, a suburb of the capital and home mostly to minority Druze and Christians, a man was killed by a shell, while fierce clashes broke out around a security building in nearby Mleha.
Violence around the capital has mounted since the army launched an offensive against rebels who moved into several neighbourhoods last July.
Meanwhile, at least 55 countries will demand the UN Security Council to refer the Syria conflict to the International Criminal Court for a war crimes investigation.
The demand will be made in a letter organised by Switzerland, which has spent seven months collecting signatories. The 15-member Security Council is the only body that can refer the case to the ICC.
Swiss UN mission spokesman Adrian Sollberger has said the letter will be handed over Monday.
Other diplomatic sources said 55 countries have signed and others could still join even though the initiative has little immediate chance of success.
The Security Council is in a crippling deadlock over the 22-month old Syria conflict. Permanent members Russia and China have vetoed three resolutions which would have threatened sanctions against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
As neither are members of The Hague-based court, both countries would almost certainly reject any new resolution proposing war crimes charges. Syria is also not a member.
"In the face of spiralling carnage, Russia and China have shamefully paralysed the Security Council for far too long," said Richard Dicker, an international justice expert for Human Rights Watch.
He said the Swiss petition "an unprecedented act of 'justice diplomacy'."
"A court investigation would strip all sides to the conflict of their sense of impunity, signalling that abuses could land them in a cell in The Hague," Dicker said.
European countries have provided the majority of the signatories, according to diplomatic sources.
The United States has not signed the letter because it is not an ICC member, but does support the initiative, diplomats said.
"Our proposal is supported throughout Europe and also in most other regions of the world," Switzerland's Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter told SRF Swiss broadcaster on Friday. "We can get this operation moving now," he added.
"There are horrific war crimes happening in Syria," Burkhalter said. "People must realise that these crimes will not go unpunished."
Russia has been the main opponent of international action on the conflict, which the UN estimates has now left more than 60,000 dead.
The Russian government reaffirmed Sunday that it opposes any move to force Assad from power as part of any deal to get talks started on a political settlement.
Assad's ouster will be "impossible to implement," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian media.
"This is a precondition that is not contained in the Geneva communiqué (agreed by world powers in June) and which is impossible to implement because it does not depend on anyone," news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Lavrov conceded that a defiant speech Assad delivered on January 6 calling for peace in Syria on his own terms probably did not go far enough and would not appease the armed opposition. But he also urged Assad's enemies to come out with a counterproposal that could get serious peace talks started between the two sides for the first time.