Oil giant
Royal Dutch Shell has decided to stop all its operations in Syria. The company
wants to support a new round of sanctions imposed on the country, a spokeperson
announced on Friday.
Photo: ANP
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“The
personal safety of our employees is our most important priority. We hope the
situation improves quickly for all Syrians,” he added.
Western and
Arab countries have been intensifying punitive sanctions to press President
Bashar al-Assad to halt bloodshed by withdrawing forces from the streets, start
transition talks with the opposition and admit Arab League observers.
Blacklist
Today, the
EU extended sanctions to three Syrian oil concerns, including the state-owned
General Petroleum Corporation (GPC) and Syria Trading Oil (Sytrol), to crank up
the financial pressure on the Assad government.
The three
oil concerns were among 11 entities and 12 Syrian leadership figures added to
an EU blacklist now aimed in part at bringing the Syrian ventures of oil giants
to a halt. Royal Dutch Shell was the first to bow out, deepening the
international isolation of al-Assad..
Civil war
spectre
In the
latest bloodshed, Syrian army defectors killed eight Air Force intelligence
personnel in an attack on their base in the north of the country, according to
an opposition group.
The
incident suggested that armed deserters are turning increasingly from defending
civilian protesters against violent repression by Assad's security forces to an
offensive of ambushes and roadside bombs, raising the spectre of civil war.
More than
4,000 people have been killed, including 307 children, in the military
crackdown on unrest since March and more than 14,000 people are believed to be
held in detention, claims UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
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