JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The war in Syria reached another grim milestone this week. The United Nations estimated that the death toll from the almost two-year-long conflict has reached more than 60,000.
Ray Suarez has our report.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): A pro-government TV station in Damascus played a patriotic dirge today over video from an early-morning car bombing in a mainly Sunni neighborhood. The blast killed at least 11 people, and wounded many more, as they stood in line at a gas station.
A similar explosion on Wednesday killed 30. The government blamed terrorists, its term for the rebels. The opposition claimed the Assad regime planted the bomb in a disputed neighborhood. Elsewhere in the capital, Syrian air force fighter-bombers streaked overhead. As day broke, one dropped its payload on the northeastern suburb of Duma.
It was all evidence of the escalating fight for Damascus. The rebels now hold suburbs on the southern and eastern outskirts of the city. And to the north, a rebel assault on a key government air base in Idlib Province continued today.
That attack is being led, in part, by Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-linked militant group the U.S. has declared a terrorist organization.
And amid the combat this week came a grim updating of the carnage.
MARTIN NESIRKY, United Nations: The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said that, as there has been no letup in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of this year, 2013. She said that the number of casualties is much higher than expected.
RAY SUAREZ: In a bid to keep the killing from crossing the Turkish border, American soldiers in street clothes arrived at Gaziantep in southern Turkey. They will help deploy NATO Patriot missile batteries.
"End Not Yet in Sight, Syria's Two-Year Conflict Reaches Grim Milestone" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 1/4/2013
Excerpt
SUMMARY: As Syria's civil war nears the two-year mark, the United Nations reports an rapid uptick in casualties: Of the 60,000 mostly-civilians who have been killed, 90 percent died in 2012. Ray Suarez talks to NPR's Deborah Amos about the conflict, the stalemate and its human toll.
AND THIS WEEKEND:
"Defiant Speech by Assad Is New Block to Peace in Syria" by ANNE BARNARD, New York Times 1/6/2012
Excerpt
Sounding defiant, confident and, to critics, out of touch with his people’s grievances, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria used his first public address in six months to justify his harsh crackdown, rally his supporters to fight against his opponents and inform on them — and leave in tatters recent efforts toward a political resolution to the country’s bloody civil war.
Mr. Assad offered what he called a peace plan, including a new cabinet, a new constitution to replace the one adopted just last year in a widely dismissed reform package, and talks with officially tolerated opposition groups. But he ruled out any negotiations with the armed Syrian opposition, and pointedly ignored its demands that he step down, making his proposal a nonstarter for most of his opponents.
He sounded much as he did at the start of the uprising 21 months ago, dictating which opposition groups were worthy and labeling the rest terrorists and traitors. He gave no acknowledgment that the rebels have come to control large parts of the north and east of the country, nor that many ordinary Syrians continue to demand change in the face of a crackdown that has laid waste to neighborhoods and killed tens of thousands, nor that even longtime allies like Russia have signaled that Mr. Assad may be unable to defeat the insurgency.
He even dismissed as foreign interference the mediation efforts of the United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the senior Algerian diplomat who visited Damascus on Dec. 24, warning of national disintegration if the two sides did not negotiate a solution.
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