Syria fighting rages as refugee numbers soar

August 18, 2012 02:49

Syrian forces pounded rebel hubs in the city of Aleppo and battled opposition fighters around Damascus today, activists said, as the UN reported a surge in refugees and named a new envoy to try to end the conflict.

The United Nations announced that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will take over as international envoy from Kofi Annan, who quit earlier this month. In his first tentative comments, Brahimi admitted he was not over-confident he would be able to end the 17-month-old conflict.

"I might very well fail but we sometimes are lucky and we can get a breakthrough," he told the BBC in an interview. But "these missions have to be undertaken. We have got to try. We have got to see that the Syrian people are not abandoned."

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