Kuwait to host Syria crisis meeting, envoy meets Assad
Mon, Dec 24 13:18 PM EST
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By Erika Solomon
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kuwait will host an international conference next month to tackle Syria's humanitarian crisis, the ruling emir said on Monday, as foes of President Bashar al-Assad voiced frustration with international efforts to end the civil war.
In Damascus, special international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Assad but the Syrian opposition vented its anger at what it called a "silence" over the unabated killing of civilians by government forces, most recently in the central town of Halfaya.
Assad is under growing pressure from rebel forces in the 21-month-old war that activists say has killed more than 44,000 people. However, diesel from his main international ally, Russia, has arrived in Syria, providing the first significant amounts of the fuel in months to power industry and the military, generate electricity and heat homes during the winter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said he did not believe Assad's government would use chemical weapons, in remarks broadcast shortly after activists released reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs.
Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Sabah, said the conference for Syrian donors would be held in late January in response to an invitation by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The Syrian wound is still bleeding, and the killing machine still continues, killing dozens of our brothers in Syria each day," the emir told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.
Last week, the United Nations appealed for $1.5 billion to help save the lives of millions of Syrians suffering a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The appeals are to help 4 million people within Syria and up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five other countries until next July.
Underlining how rebels are taking the battle close to Assad's doorstep, U.N. and Arab League envoy Brahimi had to drive overland to Damascus from Lebanon on the eve of his meeting with the president because fighting around the international airport has made it impossible to fly in.
Brahimi said his talks with Assad had dealt with possible solutions to a crisis. "I told him what I was seeing abroad and about the meetings I had with different officials in the region and abroad," he told reporters. "The situation in Syria still is a reason for worry. We hope that all the sides work toward the solution, as the Syrian people want."
OPPOSITION ANGER
Syria's opposition fumed at what it called silence over the unrelated killing of civilians by Assad's forces. On Sunday, dozens were killed in Halfaya and many more wounded. Activists blamed an air strike on a bakery where a crowd was queuing in the town, which was seized by insurgents last week.
"Silence over the massacres committed against the Syrian people is blackmail and a means to pressure the people, their revolution, and their leaders," said Moaz Alkhatib, who heads the opposition National Coalition.
However, Alkhatib did not accuse anybody directly for remaining mum over what would be one of the deadliest air strikes of the civil war.
Activists also said rebels in central Hama province shot down a government fighter jet on Monday during clashes outside a village loyal to Assad. Rebels have captured a string of military compounds around the country. Damascus is now being dragged into the conflict, with fighting in its southern districts and the suburbs on its eastern outskirts.
Brahimi's plan for an end to the Syrian crisis centers on a transitional government, but has left vague Assad's role. The opposition rejects anything but Assad's overthrow and says the government crackdown has been too fierce to accept dialogue.
POISON GAS REPORTS
With rebel gains growing, the army has been increasingly relying on its superior weaponry. It has used air strikes and even long range, Scud-type missiles, according to U.S. and NATO reports.
Western powers have warned Assad that using chemical weapons would be a "red line", which they implied would draw international involvement in the conflict. Syria repeated on Sunday that it would never use chemical weapons against its people.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Russia Today (RT) television channel that recent signs that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal were being moved - a development that alarmed Western governments - was an effort by the government to make the weapons more secure.
"Our information is ... that the latest reports about some movement of the chemical weapons was related to steps undertaken by the government to concentrate the chemical stuff ... at two sites, to make sure it is absolutely protected," he said.
This correlated with information the Americans had, he said.
The activists' reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in Homs could not be confirmed, as the government restricts media access in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts of the incident, which said that six rebel fighters were killed after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground.
The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across the country, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a medical team to the area to determine what had happened.
DIESEL LIFELINE
An Italian shipowner said two cargoes of Russian diesel had reached the Syrian port of Banias this month. It was unclear who was behind the shipments and there was no evidence they violated international sanctions against Syria.
"(Our vessels) loaded two cargoes of gasoil in Russia at the beginning of December for delivery to the East Mediterranean. The charterer then asked us to deliver the volumes to Banias," said Paolo Cagnoni, who heads Mediterranea di Navigazione S.p.A., the family-run Italian tanker firm.
He declined to disclose the names of the vessel charterers and the recipient of the deliveries, which amount to around 42,000 metric tonnes of gasoil worth close to $40 million at current market prices.
(additional reporting by Asma Alsharif and Mahmoud Habboush in the Gulf, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Jessica Donati in London; writing by David Stamp; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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First time opposition has taken control of an oilfield, says watchdog
AFP
Published: 19:01 November 4, 2012
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Beirut: Syrian rebels seized one of the country’s major oilfields in the eastern province of Deir Al Zor on Sunday, a first for the opposition, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
“Rebels in the Jaafar Tayyar Brigade took control of Al Ward oilfield, east of the town of Mayadin, after a siege that lasted several days,” the Britain-based watchdog said.
“This is the first time the rebels have taken control of an oilfield,” Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP by phone.
The fighting on Sunday began at dawn and lasted several hours, Abdul Rahman said, adding that 40 soldiers guarding the infrastructure had either been killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
Article continues below
The rebels, who face the superior firepower of regime forces, also seized a tank, armoured vehicles and ammunition.
Oil infrastructure
Several attacks have targeted the country’s oil infrastructure since the uprising against the regime of President Bashar Al Assad broke out in March 2011.
Deir Al Zor province, which borders Iraq, contains the largest energy reserves in the country, and Al Ward field is one of the most important in the province.
Syria produced some 4,000 barrels of oil a day before the United States and the European Union banned in August and September 2011 the import of Syrian petroleum and petroleum products to put pressure on the Al Assad regime.
Oil exports fell from 13,500 tonnes in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 7,500 tonnes in the first quarter of 2012.
Europe had previously bought 95 per cent of Syrian oil, generating a third of the country’s revenue.
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Bombings rock Damascus, brother of parliament speaker killed
Tue, Nov 06 18:35 PM EST
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By Mohammed Abbas and Khaled Yacoub Oweis
JEDDAH/AMMAN (Reuters) - Bombs exploded in three districts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday, killing and wounding dozens, and gunmen shot dead the brother of the parliament speaker in the latest rebel attack on a figure associated with the ruling elite.
The opposition said at least 100 more people were killed elsewhere in the civil war, and Britain suggested offering President Bashar al-Assad immunity from prosecution as a way of persuading him to leave power.
"Anything, anything, to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria," British Prime Minister David Cameron told Al Arabiya news network in Abu Dhabi before flying on to Saudi Arabia.
Syrian state media said at least 10 people were killed and 30 wounded by an explosion in the Hai al-Wuroud district in the northwest of the capital.
The hilltop neighborhood is situated near a barracks and housing for elite army units, and is home to members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Syria's rebellion in is drawn mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority.
Opposition activists said three explosions were heard in Hai al-Wuroud and at least 15 people killed. A car bomb also detonated near a shopping mall in the mixed neighborhood of Ibn al-Nafis, killing and injuring several people, they said.
On Tuesday evening, activists reported another car bombing, this time near a mosque in the Sunni working-class district of al-Qadam in south Damascus, causing dozens more casualties. Buildings were damaged and bodies buried under debris that clogged the streets, the activists told Reuters.
"Lots of people were hit inside their apartments. Rescue efforts are hampered because electricity was cut off right after the explosion," said Abu Hamza al-Shami.
"There is a state hospital nearby but we are afraid to take the wounded there because they could be liquidated."
Bomb attacks along sectarian lines have escalated in the 19-month-old anti-Assad uprising. Last month several bombs went off during the Muslim Eid holiday near mosques in Sunni districts and the Damascus suburbs, killing and injuring dozens.
ATTACKS ON TOP OFFICIALS INCREASE
Officials and their families are increasingly being targeted by assassins as violence spreads in the capital. Victims have included parliamentarians, ruling Baath party officials, and even actors and doctors seen as Assad supporters.
State television said gunmen had assassinated Mohammed Osama al-Laham, brother of the speaker of parliament, in Damascus's Midan district. No group claimed immediate responsibility.
Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned that Syria, where some 32,000 people have died in the upheaval, could end up a collapsed state like Somalia, prey to warlords and militias.
Opposition factions were meeting in Qatar in an effort to forge a common front. The opposition has remained divided between Islamists and secularists, civilians and armed fighters, and between exiles and those working inside the country.
More than 100 people were killed across the country on Tuesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition body based in Britain that compiles activist reports.
Air strikes killed 17 people, including women and children, in the Damascus suburb of Kfar Batna, it said. Video footage of the raid's aftermath posted on the Internet, which could not be verified, showed a toddler with a severed head and the torso of a young man, his head and limbs gathered near him by rescuers.
Insurgents killed 12 soldiers and wounded 20 in an attack on a convoy of off-road vehicles in the northern province of Idlib.
Air strikes and artillery barrages unleashed by the Syrian military in the last few weeks have wrecked whole districts of the capital, as well as parts of towns and cities elsewhere.
Yet, for all their firepower, Assad's forces seem no closer to crushing their lightly armed opponents, who in turn have so far proved unable to topple the Syrian leader.
EXIT PLAN
"Of course I would favor him facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done," Cameron said of Assad. "I am certainly not offering him an exit plan to Britain. But if he wants to leave he could leave; that could be arranged."
It was unclear if Cameron had spoken to other U.N. Security Council members about the idea - which could involve offering Assad immunity from prosecution if he accepted asylum in a third country. Nor was it clear what country would take him.
The U.N. human rights office has said Syrian officials suspected of committing or ordering crimes against humanity should face prosecution at the International Criminal Court. U.N. investigators have been gathering evidence of atrocities committed by rebels as well as by Assad loyalists.
The United Nations has put Syria's government on a "list of shame" of countries that abuse children, saying Assad loyalists have killed, maimed, tortured and detained children as young as nine. Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told Reuters on Tuesday the body was also investigating the opposition.
"We have received information that the opposition also violates children by using them in bombings, and by bombing areas where there are children," she said.
Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper he did not expect ethnic or sectarian partition there. "What I am afraid of is worse ... the collapse of the state and that Syria turns into a new Somalia."
Russia and China have blocked three Western-backed U.N. Security Council draft resolutions against Assad. At the United Nations, diplomats quoted a senior U.N. official as telling the Security Council that Brahimi had urged Russia to be "more pro-active" in resolving the Syrian crisis.
U.N. political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman also told the closed-door meeting of the council that he had credible reports of government forces using cluster bombs, the envoys said.
Human rights groups have reported in the past that Syria used cluster munitions. Such weapons, which spread bomblets that explode over an area, are banned by most countries. But Syria - like the United States, Russia and China - has not signed up to the treaty outlawing them. Human rights groups view their use in areas populated by civilians to be a war crime.
OPPOSITION DISUNITY
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the Syrian opposition to enter talks with the authorities to end the crisis and abandon a precondition that Assad step down.
"The most important thing is stopping the violence immediately. If it is more important to the other side to change the Assad regime, then they want to continue the bloodbath in Syria," Lavrov said in Amman after meeting former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab, who defected to Jordan in August.
Hijab said Assad's removal was "the only way out".
Assad's foes have failed to unite, making it harder for the outside world to support or arm them.
Prominent dissident Riad Seif has proposed a new 50-member unity council. But the head of the widely criticized Syrian National Council (SNC), which is based abroad, said it should retain a "central role" in any opposition configuration.
A Doha-based diplomat said SNC members feared their group risked losing influence in the new civilian body, which would later choose an interim government and coordinate with armed rebel groups. Seif's initiative is to be debated on Thursday at the opposition meeting in Qatar.
(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Rania el-Gamal and Regan Doherty in Qatar, Emad Omar in Cairo and Louis Charbonneau in New York; Writing by Peter Graff and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Assad says will live and die in Syria
Thu, Nov 08 17:28 PM EST
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By Rania El Gamal and Andrew Hammond
DOHA (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad said he would "live and die" in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.
Assad's defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria's fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria, amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.
The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.
"I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country," he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. "I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria."
Russia Today's web site, which published a transcript of the interview conducted in English, showed footage of Assad speaking to journalists and walking down stairs outside a white villa. It was not clear when he had made his comments.
The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.
The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.
"I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford ... It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific," the 47-year-old president said.
"I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next."
QATAR, TURKEY CHIDE OPPOSITION
Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar's central role in the effort to end Assad's rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged the Syrian opposition to set its personal disputes aside and unite, according to a source inside the closed-door session.
"Come on, get a move on in order to win recognition from the international community," the source quoted him as saying.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu delivered a similar message, saying, according to the source:
"We want one spokesman not many. We need efficient counterparts, it is time to unite."
An official text of a speech by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah showed he told the gathering: "The Syrian people awaits unity from you, not divisions ... Your agreement today will prove to the international community that there is a unity ... and this will reflect positively in the international community's stance towards your fair cause."
Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In Turkey's Hatay border province, two civilians, a woman and a young man, were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.
Syria poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.
International rivalries have complicated mediation efforts. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.
Syria's conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces dominated by Assad's Alawite minority, whose origins lie in Shi'ite Islam, has fuelled sectarian tensions across the Middle East. Sunni Arab countries and Turkey favor the rebels, while Shi'ite Iran backs Assad, its main Arab ally.
"VICIOUS CIRCLE"
The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
British Foreign Minister William Hague said London would now talk to rebel groups inside Syria, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week criticized the SNC and called for a new opposition body to include those "fighting and dying".
But the plan for a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing ran into trouble almost as soon as it was proposed by SNC member Riyad Seif.
The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups - which include Islamists, leftists and secularists - will have in a proposed assembly. Seif said he hoped for agreement on that on Thursday night, although the talks may continue into Friday.
Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the participants were moving towards consensus: "The atmosphere was positive. We all agree that we don't want to walk away from this meeting in failure," he told reporters.
Seif's proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the devastating conflict.
The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats - along the lines of Libya's Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.
Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute in Washington told a forum in Doha it would not work for Syria. "It's not a ridiculous idea, but it's not going to succeed," he said.
A diplomat on the sidelines of the talks said international divisions in the U.N. Security council did not help.
"It's a vicious circle. They are asking the opposition to unite when they admit they are not themselves united," he said.
(Writing by Tom Perry and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)
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