Almost daily Jawad Mella receives calls from the dusty steppes of Syrian Kurdistan. The callers, who never give their names for fear the lines are tapped, ask him when Babi Azad is coming.

"Babi Azad means 'the father of freedom' in Kurdish," explains Dr. Mella, the president of the Government of West Kurdistan in exile. "They're talking about George Bush."

But while only a few Syrians are openly calling for US military intervention against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, many opposition leaders are hoping for greater international support as the United Nations Security Council piles pressure on Syria and opens the way for possible sanctions.

Monday, the Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Syria cooperate "unconditionally" with the ongoing UN investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A UN report released last month implicated Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the murder.

The resolution also calls for Syria to detain and make available to UN investigators those implicated in the murder.

Although not as toughly worded as the United States, France, and Britain had hoped, the resolution, which passed unanimously, leaves open the possibility of economic sanctions if Mr. Assad's regime does not comply.

John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN, said that despite the changes the resolution, which originally included the threat of sanctions, will deliver an "unmistakably ... clear message."

Far from Damascus, Syria's exiled opposition groups anxiously awaited the Security Council's decision Monday, the culmination of a storm of international criticism that has dogged Damascus since the February assassination of Mr. Hariri.

"The regime is not supported by the people," says Ali Sadreddin al-Bayanouni, leader of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. "It is protected by the security organizations, the Army, and the international community.

"We think that if this international cover or protection is removed, and if the people are allowed to protest and demonstrate, as in Lebanon, the regime won't survive," says Mr. Bayanouni, who has led the group since 1996.

In recent weeks Bayanouni's underground Islamic movement has recently formed a loose, but unprecedented alliance with secular opposition parties against the Syrian government. "The message is that they are united and all have a shared vision," says Obeida Nahas, who runs the antiregime Website, thisissyria.net. "It was a way of showing that the secular and religious of Syria can unite."

The opposition's increasingly unified appearance aims to refute Assad's assertions that without him, the country would descend into Iraq-style anarchy and ethnic conflict. "The only threat [for Assad] left to play on is the fear of the unknown if the regime collapses - civil war, Iraqi-style chaos," says Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House in London.

Although the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood can only be estimated, it probably has more power and influence than all the other opposition groups combined and it is perceived as the greatest military and ideological threat to the regime.

But although Syria's Law 49 of 1980 still condemns any member of the Muslim Brotherhood to death, "they still have a lot of presence inside Syria," says Walid Suffour, president of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, who estimates that there are 4,000 Muslim Brotherhood members in prison and thousands more who have been released.

"Officially the Muslim Brotherhood do not exist in Syria but they are still the largest political [opposition] organization," explains Nahas, adding that they have benefited politically from the increase in grass-roots religiosity in Syrian society.

"And after four decades of dictatorship," says Nahas, "the Muslim Brotherhood realize that there can never be another period of one-party rule."

Bayanouni, a precise, silver-haired man living in exile in North London, emphasizes his organization's increasingly moderate interpretation of Islam. He also says that he is willing to work with the US against the Assad regime to reestablish democracy and political freedom in Syria.

Page: 1 | 2