The new United Nations special envoy to Syria began his first visit to Damascus today, seeking to end the deadly three-year conflict as exchanges of mortar and shelling between government forces and rebels killed more than a dozen people in the heaviest fighting around the capital in weeks.
Steffan de Mistura, a Swedish-Italian diplomat, is stepping into a mission that has frustrated two previous high-profile predecessors: Finding a resolution to a conflict that has killed more than 190,000 people and has driven a third of Syria's population some 9 million people from their homes.
De Mistura and his Egyptian deputy, Ramzy Ezzedine Ramzy, who were named to their posts in July, crossed by land from neighboring Lebanon and upon arrival in Damascus met with Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad. It was not immediately clear if de Mistura will meet President Bashar Assad during his visit.
Syria's conflict began as large demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar Assad bit quickly collapsed into a civil war with sectarian undertones. The rebels are overwhelmingly from the country's Sunni Muslim majority, while many in Syria's minority groups have backed Assad or remained neutral, fearing for their fates should the rebels come to power.
The conflict has taken a new turn with the rising power this year of the Islamic State militant group, which holds large parts of the north and east and has also taken over large parts of neighboring Iraq, imposing strict rule and sparking a flight of minority groups.
As the envoy arrived, fighting intensified between government forces and rebels who control suburbs around the capital. Rebels fired mortars into Damascus and the eastern district of Jaramaneh, killing five people, according to the state news agency SANA.
A government warplane shelled the nearby town of Douma, killing at least nine people, according to a rebel who uses the name Abu Yazan, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The exchange was the deadliest in the capital since August 3, when 11 people were killed in Damascus.
