'No winner' in Syrian conflict, says VP

Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian vice-president, has said that neither the government nor the rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad can win the country's 21-month conflict.

Sharaa has rarely been seen since the Syrian revolt erupted in March 2011 and is not part of the president's inner circle directing the fight against the rebels.

He is, however, the most prominent figure to say in public that Assad will not be able to win the conflict.

Sharaa was speaking to the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper, in an interview published on Monday.

Assad's forces have used jets and artillery to try to dislodge the fighters from around Damascus but the violence has crept into the heart of the capital and rebels announced on Sunday a new offensive in the central province of Hama.

Sharaa said the situation in Syria, where more than 40,000 people have been killed, according to the opposition, was deteriorating and a "historic settlement" was needed to end the conflict, involving regional powers and the UN Security Council, and the formation of a national unity government "with broad powers".

"With every passing day the political and military solutions are becoming more distant. We should be in a position defending the existence of Syria. We are not in a battle for an individual or a regime," Sharaa was quoted as saying.

"The opposition cannot decisively settle the battle and what the security forces and army units are doing will not achieve a decisive settlement," he told the paper, adding that the rebels fighting to topple Syria's leadership could plunge it into "anarchy and an unending spiral of violence".

Yarmouk air raid

In Damascus, anti-government activists said fighter jets had bombed the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Sunday, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque.

After the air raid, clashes flared between Palestinians from the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) and rebels, including other Palestinian fighters.

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

The centre of the city, largely insulated from the violence, is now full of army and vigilante checkpoints and shakes to the sound of regular shelling, residents say.

In a veiled criticism of the crackdown, Sharaa said there was a difference between the state's duty to provide security to its citizens, and "pursuing a security solution to the crisis".

The vice-president said that he "realise[d] that change is inevitable", but that neither side was in a position to, on its own, say that it was representative of the Syrian people.

Hama operation

On the ground, rebels said they were launching an operation to seize the central province of Hama to try to link northern rural areas of Syria under their control to the centre.

Qassem Saadeddine, a member of the newly established rebel military command, said fighters had been ordered to surround and attack checkpoints across the province.

He said forces loyal to Assad had been given 48 hours to surrender or be killed.

"When we liberate the countryside of Hama province ... then we will have the area between Aleppo and Hama liberated and open for us," he told Reuters.

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