Syria welcomes new U.N. peace envoy

BEIRUT - The Syrian government on Saturday welcomed the naming of a former Algerian diplomat as the U.N.'s new point man in efforts to halt the country's escalating civil war. Activists reported more shelling by regime troops, including an air attack on a northern border town where scores died last week.

In a statement, the office of Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa not only expressed support for Lakhdar Brahimi, it also denied reports circulating in Arab media that Sharaa had defected to the opposition.

Sharaa "did not think, at any moment, of leaving the country," the statement said.

The vice president's cousin Yaroub, a colonel in the military defected to the opposition this month, appearing on the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has suffered a string of prominent defections in recent months, though his inner circle and military have largely kept their cohesive stance behind him.

The new U.N. envoy, Brahimi, takes over from former Secretary-General Kofi Annan who is stepping down on Aug. 31 after his attempts to broker a cease-fire failed. His appointment comes as U.N. observers have begun leaving Syria, with their mission officially over at the end of Sunday. Their deployment this year had been one of the only concrete achievements in Annan's peace attempts. The observers had been intended to watch over a cease-fire, but no truce ever took hold.

Sharaa's office said the vice president "supports Brahimi's demand to get united support from the Security Council to carry out his mission without obstacles."

In new violence Saturday, regime air strikes and shelling hit rebel areas across the country, including the southern province of Daraa, the northern region of Aleppo, Deir el-Zour to the east, and the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, activists said. Activists said at least 15 people were killed in the Deir el-Zour area.

One air raid hit the northern town of Azaz, near the Turkish border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Azaz, which is home to about 35,000 people, is also the town where rebels have been holding 11 Lebanese Shiites captured in May.

Also Saturday, 40 bodies were found piled on a street in the Damascus suburb of al-Tal, according to the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees. The suburb saw days of heavy fighting until regime forces largely took over the area last week.

The 40 had all been killed by bullet wounds, but their identities were not known, nor was it known who had killed them, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the Observatory.

In Damascus, a U.N. spokeswoman said the last of the organization's observers still in Syria have started to leave the country ahead of the official end of their mission at midnight Sunday. There are about 100 observers left in Syria - a third of the number at the peak of the mission earlier this year.

Most will leave within hours, though some could be delayed by logistics, Juliette Touma told the Associated Press.

The Security Council agreed to end the U.N. mission and back a small new liaison office that will support any future peace efforts.

Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye, head of U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, said that who stays and leaves is not important, but "what is important is that the United Nations will stay."