New envoy prepares for role

Brahimi, a former foreign minister of Algeria, replaces Kofi Annan as special envoy on September 1. He already faces criticism from some opposition groups for not having called on President Bashar Assad to step down. Brahimi, who helped broker an end to Lebanon's civil war as an Arab League envoy in 1989, has said he will try tactics different from those used so far by the UN in the Syria conflict.

"When you called me, I told you that I was honored, flattered, humbled and scared," Brahimi told Ban before the two met at UN headquarters in New York. "I am still in that frame of mind."

Ban pleaded for the UN Security Council to get beyond its divisions and unite behind Brahimi. Annan, who preceded Ban as secretary-general, ended his six-month term as special envoy frustrated by an absence of unified international support to make Assad implement the agreed peace plan. Russia and China have blocked three resolutions for sanctions against Assad and accused other Security Council members of trying to force regime change.

"The longer this fighting goes on, the more people will be killed, the more people will suffer," Ban told Brahimi. "It is crucially important that the Security Council, the whole United Nations System, is supporting your work."

In other developments, France announced that it would take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone if one were created and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that more than 200,000 Syrians had now fled the country. At least 21 people were killed on Friday, the third day of the Syrian military's campaign to regain control of outlying areas of the capital, Damascus. According to opposition activist reports, the army used rocket launchers to pound the Daraya suburb.

The United Nations estimates that more than 18,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

mkg/pfd (AFP, Reuters, dpa)