Terrorism & Security
A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Turkish soldiers speak with Syrian refugees trying to cross the border fence from the northern Syrian town of Ras al-Ain into Turkey during an airstrike on Ras al-Ain, as seen from the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, Nov. 13. A Syrian warplane struck homes in Ras al-Ain on Tuesday within sight of the Turkish border, pursuing an aerial bombardment to force out rebels, a Reuters witness and refugees said. (Osman Orsal/Reuters)
Fighting grows along Syria's borders, threatening to spread war
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Just days after Syria’s splintered opposition groups announced a unity bloc, violence escalated on the borders with Turkey and Israel, further raising concerns that Syria's civil war could spread outside its borders and destabilize the region.
Syrian warplanes struck the small Syrian city of Ras al-Ain, which shares a border with Turkey, for the second day today in an attempt to force out rebels who took control of the town last week, reports Reuters:
The second day of jet strikes sent Syrians scurrying through the flimsy barbed-wire fence that divides Ras al-Ain from the Turkish settlement of Ceylanpinar, thick plumes of smoke rising above the town.… Turkey is reluctant to be drawn into a regional conflict but the proximity of the bombing raids to the border is testing its pledge to defend itself from any violation of its territory or any spillover of violence from Syria.
Meanwhile, in response to Syrian fire into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli forces said they retaliated with “direct fire” on Syrian artillery, according to a second Reuters report.
"We will not allow our borders to be breached or our citizens to be fired at," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. Although the two countries have not fought over the territory since 1973, they are still officially at war.
The unity pact reached by Syrian opposition groups to create the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was immediately praised by those in support of toppling President Bashar al-Assad (see The Christian Science Monitor’s coverage of world reactions to the new organization here). And 10 countries including France, Jordan, the United States, and Egypt have expressed support for the coalition, according to Joshua Landis, an expert on Syria and the Middle East who blogs at Syria Comment.
It’s a big day for the Syrian opposition. Defying naysayers and skeptics, the opposition came together.... Opposition members the world over are electrified by the outcome and moving speeches given by the opposition’s new leadership. Assad regime must be worried, as it has survived for 42 years thanks to Syria’s fragmentation.
But some argue that even with a unified opposition, without aid in the form of weapons and firepower, the regime will continue to maintain power.
"Syria has more than enough weapons for fighting the rebels," Igor Korotchenko, a retired colonel of Russia's military general staff who is now editor of National Defense magazine, told The Associated Press. "As long as Bashar Assad has the money to pay his military, it will keep fighting."
The US has thus far discouraged sending weapons to Syria’s rebels; however, according to AP, “some opposition figures believe Washington could give its tacit support to others funneling weapons if the new broad-based rebel coalition holds together and gains international legitimacy, such as winning recognition from the Arab League and other groups.”
The New York Times notes that in light of the conflict’s recent overflow into neighboring Turkey and Israel, some question whether Assad could be intentionally trying to broaden Syria’s civil war.
There has been speculation that Mr. Assad, feeling increasingly threatened, may deliberately seek to widen the conflict that has consumed much of his country for the last 20 months, leaving roughly 40,000 people dead and over 400,000 refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Although there was no indication that Mr. Assad was trying to lure Israel into the fight, any Israeli involvement could rally his failing support and frustrate the efforts of his Arab adversaries.
But "Assad is fighting for his survival. The enemy at this stage is not Israel. He has much bigger problems," former Israeli diplomat Alon Liel told The Wall Street Journal. And Israel has reasons – like an impending election – to avoid getting entangled in Syria’s war.
“High-ranking Israeli military officials say their real fear is that a power vacuum in Syria near the Golan Heights border could be exploited by militants or Iran in the same way that armed groups have exploited a breakdown in security in the Sinai Desert,” the Journal reports.
Despite the dire situation in Syria, and the pressure put on neighboring countries as a result of a growing refugee crisis, novelist Dima Wannous writes in The Washington Post that the revolution has made important gains.
Despite the death and destruction in Syria, and President Bashar al-Assad’s steadfast devotion to staying in power, the revolution there has gained a lot more than it has lost in the past year and a half. The rebels have torn down the overwhelming sense of fear — a force far more menacing than any dictator — that ruled the country for at least four decades.
Before the revolution began in March of last year, Syria could be summarized as the ruling elite and its beneficiaries vs. everyone else. There were no independent political parties, no real and effective opposition, no forums for political debate, no freedom of the press and no unions. Now the opposition is trying to create this type of civil society.
Syrian opposition figure and prominent Syrian human rights activist Haytham al-Maleh, (l.), congratulates Islamic preacher Maath al-Khatib after he was elected president of the newly formed Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, in Doha, Qatar on Sunday. (Osama Faisal/AP)
What is The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces? (+video)
Western leaders welcomed the Syrian opposition's unification into a new organization, which they hope will provide a means to bolster rebels on the ground in Syria in their fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
BBC News reports that the West hopes the new opposition body, currently called The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, will provide a conduit that will allow funding – and possibly military aid – to be funneled to the Syrian rebels on the ground who are doing the actual fighting.
"We look forward to supporting the National Coalition as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future that all the people of Syria deserve," US state department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the move was an "important milestone in forming a broad and representative opposition that reflects the full diversity of the Syrian people."
France's Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, said it would "work with its partners to secure international recognition of this new entity as the representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people".
The West had attempted to use the previous leading opposition group, the Syrian National Council, to a similar end, but the SNC proved too fragmented and detached from rebel forces to be successful, leading the US to publicly call for a new approach two weeks ago. The SNC will hold 22 of the new body's 60 seats.
The BBC adds that Qatar, host of the opposition talks and a key backer of the rebels, also welcomed the unification. Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani said that he plans to travel Monday to "seek a full recognition of this new body" at the Arab League, which suspended Syria's membership due to the government's attacks on civilians.
Former SNC head Burhan Ghalioun told The New York Times that he hoped the world would act quickly to embrace the new group. “I think the difference will start to show right away on the ground as the people will feel that there is a political power that represents them, and one body that unites its opposition,” he said. “We expect international recognition in regional and international forums.”
Russia's response to the new opposition body was cooler, according to Agence France-Presse. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement cautioning the new body against being manipulated by foreign powers. "The main criteria for us is that members of such alliances must act based on a platform of peaceful regulation of the conflict by Syrians themselves, without interference from outside and through dialogue and negotiation," the statement read. Russia has stood by the regime of President Assad, a regional ally, since the uprising began, and has blocked several Western attempts to act on the conflict through the UN Security Council.
The Associated Press reports that China – which has also vetoed UN Security Council measures against Assad's government – was similarly reticent to support the new body. The AP writes that Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei sidestepped a question about China's support for the new body, and whether the West holds too much sway over it, saying China hopes that Syrians will end the fighting and begin a political solution "led by the Syrian people as soon as possible."
The new opposition group is headed by Syrian cleric Sheikh Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, reports Al Arabiya. Mr. Khatib, widely seen as a moderate and independent without links to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamic groups, was an imam in Damascus and was arrested in 2011 and 2012 by the Assad regime for his vocal support of the uprising.
Khatib will be supported by three vice-presidents: Riad Seif, a prominent dissident who had once been tapped to lead the new body; Suhair al-Atassi, a leading female opposition figure; and a yet-to-be-named Kurd. The new group is also backed by the SNC's new leader, George Sabra, a Christian.
Residents flee their homes after a shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at Binsh near Idlib, Syria, Thursday, November 8. (Courtesy of Muhammad Najdat Qadour/Shaam News Network/Reuters)
Refugee flow soars as Syrians flee intense fighting between rebels, Assad forces
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As the ongoing violence in Syria nears its 21st month, the United Nations warns that by early 2013 some 4 million people in Syria will be in need of humanitarian aid. But as international organizations, world leaders, and Syria’s opposition groups point urgently to the bloodshed and rising death toll in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is ignoring calls for him to step down.
In an interview with Russia’s RT TV, Mr. Assad said Syria isn’t facing a civil war, but “terrorism by proxy.”
“It is not about reconciling with the people and it is not about reconciliation between the Syrians and the Syrians; we do not have a civil war. It is about terrorism and the support coming from abroad to terrorists to destabilize Syria. This is our war,” Assad said in the interview, which aired in full today.
There have been reports of Al Qaeda affiliates joining in to fight the regime in Syria, reports The Christian Science Monitor, something that has raised concerns about offering arms to those battling Assad.
The Syrian conflict has claimed an estimated 36,000 lives, according to activists, and displaced some 1.2 million people, according to the UN. A failure to end the fighting there could mean 700,000 Syrian refugees fleeing into neighboring countries by early 2013, reports the Associated Press. As many as 9,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey overnight to flee the violence in their country, a United Nations official told the AP, citing officials in Turkey where footage showed refugees climbing through the barbed-wire fence separating the two countries. More than 11,000 fled overall, flowing into Jordan and Lebanon as well as Turkey.
International intervention, Assad warned in his RT TV interview, however, would lead to global catastrophe.
“I think the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be more than the whole world can afford,” Assad said. The Assad family has ruled in Syria for the past 40 years, and Assad has often cited the fragility of the region and the role of Syria in balancing disparate religious minorities as key factors in maintaining regional stability, reports the Los Angeles Times.
“[W]e are the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence, let’s say. It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and you know the implication on the rest of the world,” Assad told RT TV.
He said he didn’t believe the West would invade Syria, a sentiment reflected in editorials across the US, such as one entitled “The sensible course on Syria” published in the Los Angeles Times.
There is no appetite among the American people … for U.S. military intervention in Syria. That reluctance is sensible. Painful as it is to observe the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians in the war between President Bashar Assad and insurgents inspired by the Arab Spring, the deployment of U.S. troops or a campaign of airstrikes under the rubric of a no-fly zone would enmesh the United States in an unpredictable conflict with a heavily armed ally of Iran on behalf of a fractious and fragmented rebel army. Even providing weapons to the rebels at this point would entail unacceptable risks that they would flow to Islamic extremists.
However, in his interview, Assad noted that if the West did militarily intervene, “nobody can tell what is next.”
Many are looking to Syrian opposition groups to take on a more unified role in the face of Syria’s devastating violence, and help to play an active role in resolving the conflict.
Opposition leaders have been meeting in Qatar this week to bring together Syria’s internal and exiled opposition. The Syrian National Council (SNC) has been the most prominent opposition group, but has come under fire because of both its fractured state and the fact that most of its leaders are located outside of the violence-torn country.
The SNC is expected to elect new leadership today, before taking into consideration a role in the proposed Syrian National Initiative, in which it would have a minority role, reports the BBC.
"We hope we can reach an agreement [on Friday] after the Syrian National Council has succeeded in selecting a new leadership," opposition figure Haytham al-Maleh told Agence France-Presse.
According to participants, all the delegates agreed on a plan for the way forward except the SNC, which insisted on a day's delay in order to complete its leadership changes.
The mooted plan foresees the formation of a unified opposition structure that would allow coordinated military action against the regime, as well as humanitarian aid and the administration of zones under their control, they said.
Ahmed Ben Helli, deputy head of the Arab League which is brokering the meeting with Qatar, told reporters that delegates had been urged to overcome the sharp divides that have dogged their efforts to unseat Assad.
"The opposition is urged to agree on a leading body which would have credibility among the Syrian people and the international community," he said.
Earlier this week the US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Washington wants "an opposition that represents more of the groups, more of the geographic representation, more of those who have been involved on the ground with local coordinating councils, with revolution councils," reports The Christian Science Monitor.
Despite the fractured opposition, some say it is in fact Washington that is unprepared for what could come from a post-Assad Syria, the Monitor reports.
"Deep inside, I think it's like the US wishes Assad to stay," says Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at the Chatham House think tank in London. "The challenge is not with the opposition unifying. The challenge is that they're knocking at a door that won't open, which is American support."
Today marks the fifth Syria Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, where close to 400 international organizations, governments, and aid organizations will convene to discuss the humanitarian situation in Syria.
“People need to be aware of just how desperate the situation is inside Syria for the people there, how unbearable it is, and how they are suffering and falling into ever deeper despair and humanitarian need,” said the operations director for the UN humanitarian office, John Ging, according to the Associated Press.
“It’s just getting a lot worse very rapidly for the ordinary people.”
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced the organization is struggling to cope with the needs in Syria, according to the Times.
"The humanitarian situation is getting worse despite the scope of the operation increasing," Peter Maurer, president of the ICRC told reporters. "We can't cope with the worsening of the situation."
In this Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012 photo, a Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon while running for cover in the Bab al-Nasr district of Aleppo, Syria. (Mustafa Karali/AP)
Syria conflict: Here come the weapons?
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The Syrian conflict could be set for an influx of arms in the coming months, as Britain is reviewing its legal options for supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels despite an EU arms embargo on the conflict, and Turkey is in discussions with NATO to deploy Patriot missile interceptors along its southern border.
The Guardian reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron, recently returned from a trip to the Middle East that included a stop at a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, has told government lawyers to investigate the legality of sending weapons to Syria's rebels. Soon after the uprising began, the European Union enacted an arms embargo, forbidding shipments of lethal arms to either side of the conflict. But British officials say the embargo may include exceptions in the case of humanitarian disaster.
The text of the EU embargo, agreed two months after the conflict began, says: "By way of derogation … the competent authorities in the member states … may authorise the sale, supply, transfer or export of equipment which might be used for internal repression, under such conditions as they deem appropriate, if they determine that such equipment is intended solely for humanitarian or protective use."
Cameron made clear he believes that stage may have been reached after he visited the refugee camp, where 110,000 Syrians are sheltering. "I think what I have seen and heard today is truly appalling," said. "I think [with] a re-elected president [Obama] with a new mandate … it's really important to discuss what more we can do to help resolve the situation."
The Guardian notes that President Bashar al-Assad's regime is reportedly being supplied with weapons by Russia and Iran, while the West has been bound to only supply non-lethal aid to the rebels under the embargo.
And as Britain debates arming the rebels, reports indicate that Turkey is talking with NATO about deploying Patriot missiles along Turkey's border with Syria. Agence France-Presse reports that Turkish President Abdullah Gul confirmed that discussions about the interceptors were taking place, and said that "It is only natural for us to take any measure for defense reasons."
Although the deployment of Patriots to Turkey could "add a new dimension" to the Syrian crisis, according to Today's Zaman, the US-built system could not be used offensively, according to the US State Department. During a daily press conference Wednesday, a reporter asked State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland whether the Patriots could be the start of a no-fly zone in Syria, but she denied that they could be used toward that end. "It’s not a missile. It’s an interceptor for missiles," she said.
On the no-fly zone itself, you know that we’ve been saying for quite a while we continue to study whether that makes sense, how it might work. With regard to the question of Patriot missiles in Turkey, we’ve talked about this before. Patriot is a defensive system. It’s responsible for knocking down incoming missiles, so its purpose would be to defend the territory of Turkey.
"...Unless there is something being shot in your direction, it has no purpose. It doesn’t have a warhead on it," she added.
Ankara's contemplation of a further buildup along its border comes as fighting in Syria again spilled over into Turkey. Reuters reports that two Turkish civilians were injured by stray gunfire in the border town of Celyanpinar. The bullets reportedly were fired during a battle between rebels and Assad troops in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain.
Similarly, along the Israeli-Syrian border, The Jerusalem Post reports that three Syrian mortar shells landed in Israeli territory Thursday, though they caused no injuries, according to Israeli radio. The shells were misfires from fighting between rebel and regime factions, officials said.
IN PICTURES - Battle for the heart of Syria: inside Aleppo
Residents flee their homes after what activists say was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at Houla, near Homs yesterday. (Misra Al-Misri/Shaam News Network/Handout/Reuters)
Rebel hopes rise that reelected Obama will act on Syria as blasts hit Damascus
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Syrian rebels reportedly fired at the presidential palace in Damascus today, stepping up their campaign of targeting those close to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime even as many push the now safely reelected US President Barack Obama to move more urgently in Syria.
Residents told Reuters that shelling aimed at the presidential palace hit a neighboring community today, while two high-profile attacks on Assad allies took place this week. The brother of the parliamentary speaker was gunned down in Damascus on Tuesday and today the Associated Press reports that, according to Syrian state media, a judge was killed in a car bomb in the capital.
Three large blasts in Damascus this morning, including the failed attempt on the presidential palace, could signal the start of a new phase of the rebel campaign, Susan Ahmad, spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Council in Damascus, told the Guardian via Skype. Reminiscent of the July bombing that killed four of Assad's lieutenants, Ms. Ahmad said the second and third blasts were attributed to rebels targeting a military airport in Mezzeh and a nearby security department.
US and Western leaders have been frustrated with the fractured state of Syria’s opposition. But within hours of Obama’s reelection victory, Britain said it would deal directly with militarized rebel leaders, according to AP. Previously US and British contact was largely with rebel groups in exile, like the Syrian National Council (SNC), or political opposition members in Syria.
Opposition leadership has been largely based outside of Syria, making them less effective, reports The Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Peterson.
The main Syrian opposition group, the SNC, is in Qatar this week discussing plans for greater unity and representation in Syria, and today will elect a new leader and executive committee. The SNC “voted to broaden its appeal by including more than 200 additional members of other anti-regime groups,” the Monitor reports.
"In order to have revolutionary-scale change, you need an opposition movement that is strongly disciplined, that is organized hierarchically," Murhaf Jouejati, a Syrian analyst at the National Defense University in Washington, told the Monitor. Mr. Jouejati resigned from the SNC recently because of how its growth could intensify Syria's existing challenges, he says. "But the nature of this is that the SNC – or any opposition coalition – is going to [have] different people, different views, and different ideologies."
Many hope that a more organized and inclusive opposition, combined with yesterday’s reelection of Obama in the United States, will result in a stronger stance in Syria.
“We hope that Barack Obama can help us just finish this situation and stop [the] killing and losing more lives and more civilians,” Ahmad, from the Revolutionary Council in Damascus, told the Guardian.
Other regional steps on Syria were made soon after Obama’s reelection. The AP reports that Turkey spoke up to say, along with its allies, it was considering setting up a protected safe zone inside Syrian borders.
The [Turkish] foreign ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of ministry prohibitions on contacts with the news media, said planning for the safe zone had been put on hold pending the U.S. election. He said any missile deployment might happen under a "NATO umbrella," though NATO has insisted it will not intervene without a clear United Nations mandate.
The British Prime Minister David Cameron was in Jordan when Obama’s victory was announced. Soon after congratulating the president, Mr. Cameron said:
Right here in Jordan I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria so one of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis.
"With the reelection of Obama, what you have is a strong confidence on the British side that the U.S. administration will be engaged more on Syria from the get-go," Shashank Joshi, an analyst at London's Royal United Services Institute, a military and security think tank, told the AP.
Many in the US, too, are waiting to see how the election will impact US decisions on Syria, where it’s estimated that more than 36,000 people have died in the protracted 21-month-long conflict. The Boston Herald noted in an editorial that even as Americans paused to concentrate on the national election yesterday, the bloodshed in Syria continued.
We need look no further than Syria to know that life there has not stood still, not waited for this president and this administration to lead. There people continue to die in the streets.
…
Nowhere is the absence of American leadership felt more keenly than in Syria today. It cries out for post-election attention.
Bahrain blasts underscore tensions over lack of political reform (+video)
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Less than a week after Bahrain's government banned protests, five bombs detonated across the capital Monday, intensifying concern about an escalation in violence amid frustrations over the pace of political reform.
Protests have been an ongoing feature of life in Bahrain over the past 21 months. But the bombings, which killed two people and seriously injured a third, represented a rare attack on civilians, and spurred finger-pointing between activists and the Sunni government.
Protesters, who are predominately Shiite, have been calling for more jobs, political representation, educational opportunities, and better housing. While the nation is governed by Sunnis, the population is 70 percent Shiite, and “Shiite youth activists in Bahrain – many demanding the downfall of the monarchy – have grown more radical in the past year, and some have used homemade weapons, including bombs, to attack police,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
No one has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s violence in Manama. The interior minister said yesterday that the bombs were homemade, describing the coordinated blasts as terrorist attacks. "It's [bombings] been a pattern, but five in one day – we haven't seen that in 20 months," said the spokesman for the Information Affairs Authority, Fahad al Binali.
The state newspaper, Al-Ayam, described the attacks as “a desperate attempt” to destabilize the kingdom, and “stirring fright and panic in citizens and residents in order to adversely impact the wheel of development and productivity.” The newspaper goes on to say that “evil minds” planted the bombs in order to instill fear and panic in the streets.
One victim reportedly kicked a bomb in front of a movie theater yesterday, setting it off, and both victims are reported to be “Asian street cleaners,” according to Reuters.
The New York Times reports that “[t]he government has frequently invoked terrorism when describing its opponents, or has cast them as accomplices in a foreign plot. It has cited the use of incendiary devices like Molotov cocktails by some protesters as a reason for the forceful response by the riot police.”
Opponents of the government, on the other hand, claim that the government coordinated the violence in an effort to justify its recent crackdown on protests, according to a separate Reuters article. Bahrain, when it temporarily banned all public demonstrations last week, threatened legal action against any group that backs rallies or protests, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
"This incident is strange – why would anyone target workers?" an opposition politician, Matar Matar, told Reuters. "I'm worried that police and military are losing control of their units or it is [preparation] before declaring martial law,” Mr. Matar of the Shiite party Wefaq said, suggesting the police or military might be responsible for the attack.
Analysts say the lack of political change could be creating an environment of extremism. "People are increasingly desperate and it's a race to make a big statement," Justin Gengler, a Bahrain researcher based in Doha, told The Wall Street Journal. "If the only way to draw international attention is to kill and blow something up, then that's the way it's going to go."
Human rights groups and some in the international community have spoken out against Bahrain’s move to clamp down on public protests. But Bahrain is an important US ally. It hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and the US has been reluctant to take a strong stance against its ally's actions in the past, according to a second Monitor article.
Bahrain is accused of using widespread torture and violence against protesters earlier during the uprisings, and received a set of guidelines from a team of international lawyers and human rights specialists that the government is meant to implement. According to the Journal, “[o]ver the past few months the government has widened its pursuit of leading members of the opposition, imprisoning and detaining several high-profile Shiite activists as it seeks to stamp out a rebellion that is hurting its international reputation and its economy.”
Just last week, a local human rights activist who monitored protests in Bahrain, Said Youseif al-Muhafdah, was arrested. Mr. Muhafdah was charged with gathering illegally and could be imprisoned for two years, his lawyer told The New York Times.
Aside from targeting protesters themselves, Bahrain’s leadership has blamed Iran for radicalizing its Shiite citizens as well, according to Lisa Beyer, a member of the Bloomberg View editorial board, though she notes that a government inquiry failed to find proof of that in the February 2011 unrest.
Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility of subsequent Iranian mischief-making. Still, blaming outsiders lets the monarchy off too easily. Instead, Bahrain's rulers should seriously address the complaints of the Shiite community. Grievances include the job demotions of thousands of Shiites after the 2011 protests and gerrymandering that dilutes Shiite representation in the elected chamber of the National Assembly.
At a Nov. 7 meeting in Bahrain, foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council are expected to discuss how to cope with the tensions in Bahrain and Kuwait, where protests recently broke out. A GCC military force led by Saudi Arabia crushed the February 2011 unrest in Bahrain, leading to today's more radicalized rebellion. The convening foreign ministers would do well to consider how to open up their political systems to prevent further conflict rather than how to bottle it up.
Damaged buildings are seen after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fired missiles at al-Mazareeb near Deraa Nov, 3, 2012. (Al-Mutsem Be-Allah/Shaam News Network/REUTERS)
Syria's opposition groups convene in Qatar – can they build a unified front?
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Sharp divides among Syrian rebel leaders are already apparent after the first day of an opposition conference in Qatar, casting doubt on US hopes that the meeting will result in a unified opposition to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition's primary political group that many, including US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, have called dysfunctional and unrepresentative of rebels on the ground in Syria, began a four-day conference in Qatar on Sunday aimed at overhauling its structure and representation, reports BBC News. The group is under intense international pressure to reform itself, writes the BBC's Jim Muir.
The Syrian opposition is well aware that it is widely regarded as fragmented and ineffective, and that this is becoming more and more an issue as events on the ground gather pace.
The coming days will see the most concerted effort so far to pull the bulk of the opposition together and to create effective and credible structures that the outside world can work with in trying to bring about a transition in Syria.
Secretary Clinton said last week that "the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition. But that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard."
The Associated Press adds that at the top of the agenda is a US-supported proposal by prominent dissident Riad Seif to set up a new leadership council with some 50 seats, 15 of which would go to current SNC leaders with the remainder being held by Syrian local leaders and rebel commanders who currently have no political say in the SNC but are actively involved in opposition on the ground. SNC chief Abdelbaset Sieda told AP that he believes the SNC should hold 40 percent of the council seats.
Joshua Landis writes on his blog Syria Comment that the political situation is "nearly identical" to that of 1950s Syria, when the US and Britain tried to rally a Syrian opposition against Syria's Baathists, allied with the Soviet Union and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, but with no success.
[President] Eisenhower and [British Prime Minister] Anthony Eden did everything they could in 1956 to force Syria’s urban elites to cooperate in a pro-Western coup, but to no avail. The two largest parties in parliament – the People’s Party of Aleppo and the National Party of Damascus [–] refused to cooperate among themselves in order to avoid revolution. Pro-Western Syrian politicians insulted and fought amongst themselves with such ferocity, that Western diplomats pulled their hair with despair as they sought to keep Syria from going “commie.”
When the coup failed, many of Syria’s leading pro-Western notables were accused of treason and fled the country. In 1957, the US sought to carry out another putsch, this time on its own. The “American coup”, as it was named, was no more successful. Some of the CIA operatives in charge of handling the Syrians are still alive. Additional Syrian politicians sympathetic to the West were forced to flee the country. Destabilized by Washington’s failed coup making, Syria announced the creation of the United Arab Republic [a political union of Syria and Egypt] only months later. Nasser become president and carried out wide-ranging land reform in order to destroyed the economic underpinnings of the urban notables that had allied with the West.
Mr. Landis adds that today "the line up of states helping the US in its 'struggle for Syria' has hardly changed. Other aspects that have not changed are the infighting among Syria’s elites and the general resentment and distrust that Syrians share toward the US. It is hard to be optimistic."
Meanwhile, United Nations envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi called on Sunday for the UN Security Council to formally back the "Geneva Declaration," a transitional-government plan developed by then UN envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, reports Al Arabiya. The proposal calls for rebels and the Assad regime to form a transitional government, and leaves unmentioned the role of Mr. Assad in the proposed government.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was meeting with Mr. Brahimi on Sunday in Cairo, also backed the proposal, and criticized the West for not considering talks with Assad.
“Unfortunately, some countries which participated in Geneva don’t speak with the government but only with the opposition and encourage them to fight till victory and this has very negative implications,” Mr. Lavrov said. Russia has consistently backed the Assad regime, and has vetoed several Security Council resolutions on the conflict.
But former Syrian Prime Minister Riyad Hijab, who defected in August, told The Daily Telegraph that Assad has no interest in talks and feels that he can win the Syrian conflict through force.
"We told Bashar he needed to find a political solution to the crisis," he said. "We said, 'These are our people that we are killing.'
"We suggested that we work with Friends of Syria group, but he categorically refused to stop the operations or to negotiate." ...
"Bashar used to be scared of the international community – he was really worried that they would impose a no-fly zone over Syria," he said. "But then he tested the waters, and pushed and pushed and nothing happened. Now he can run air strikes and drop cluster bombs on his own population."
Mr. Hijab said that after the defense minister and the president's brother-in-law were killed in a July bombing, Assad hardened against the opposition.
"My brief was to lead a national reconciliation government," Mr Hijab said. "But in our first meeting Bashar made it clear that this was a cover. He called us his 'War Cabinet'."
"The new minister of defence sent out a communiqué telling all heads in the military that they should do 'whatever is necessary' to win," he said. "He gave them a carte blanche for the use of force."
IN PICTURES - Battle for the heart of Syria: inside Aleppo
Residents and members of the Free Syrian Army protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Saraqeb near Idlib in this October 15 file photo. (Courtesy of Shaam News Network/Reuters/File)
War-crime accusations emerge as Syrian rebels take strategic town
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have left a key town between Damascus and the battleground city of Aleppo, hindering the regime's ability to supply its troops. But the rebels' takeover of the town of Saraqeb also appears to have involved war crimes, which were recorded and published online.
Reuters reports that, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Saraqeb and its surroundings are now "completely outside the control of regime forces" after the regime pulled its troops from their last base in the region. The town, located at the crossroads of two major highways (see a map here), is a key strategic point between Aleppo, where rebels and government forces have been fighting since July, and Mr. Assad's stronghold of Damascus. The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said that, as a result of losing Saraqeb, the military would be forced to send its supplies to Aleppo via smaller rural roads or via a dangerous road from the east.
But while the military's withdrawal from Saraqeb may be a strategic victory for the rebels, the fighting in the region also appears to have entailed war crimes committed by the opposition. A newly posted video on YouTube shows disturbing footage of what seems to be several rebel soldiers executing unarmed and wounded regime captives. Reuters reports that the executed men were soldiers captured during rebel attacks on three checkpoints around Saraqeb before the withdrawal.
The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.
One of the captured men says: "I swear I didn't shoot anyone" to which a rebel responds: "Shut up you animal ... Gather them for me." Then the men are shot dead.
Reuters could not independently verify the footage.
Mr. Abdelrahman said the attacks resulted in 28 soldiers killed, including those executed in the video. He also said the killers in the video were members of the Al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group.
Ann Harrison of Amnesty International told The New York Times that the footage "depicts a potential war crime in progress, and demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by the armed group in question." A United Nations Human Rights Council spokesman made similar comments when shown the video, reports Reuters.
Whether or not the executioners in the video were members of Jabhat al-Nusra, jihadists are a growing presence in Syria and are proving attractive to aspiring revolutionaries in the country. The Monitor's Scott Peterson reported yesterday that while the US and other Western nations offer words of encouragement and small arms and communications equipment to Syrians fighting Assad, the jihadis offer weapons and manpower.
"We hoped the American government would help us in our revolution, because it fights for the democratic flag in the world – and toppled Saddam Hussein in the name of democracy," says a Syrian judge who runs a temporary court in a rebel-controlled district of Aleppo. He gave his name as Abu Ibrahim.
"But Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did nothing. America failed us," says the secular Syrian, whose tailored suit and pressed shirt contrasted sharply with the motley collection of rebels who man the frontline a few streets away. "This whole thing about jihadists is an excuse not to support us."
"The jihadists in Aleppo are so few, and we take them as a burden. We don't need them, we need their weapons, their fighters," Abu Ibrahim says. "We are ashamed to tell them to get out. They came to fight with us and we must appreciate that. We can't stop them because the West has not come to help."
But the Guardian's Martin Chulov, reporting on foreign jihadist fighters working with native rebels, writes that some rebels think that the jihadists and the Syrian rebels' cooperative relationship may prove to be short-lived.
Bound by social customs that offer wayfarers shelter and hospitality, this rebel unit seemed to sense that trouble is brewing between them and the growing band of global jihadis. Many rebel groups the Guardian spoke to this week said a showdown was looming with the new arrivals.
"I give it six months," said one rebel officer at a checkpoint in the old market place in the central Aleppo suburb of Midan on Thursday. "Maybe a year," said another. "I was in Iraq fighting the Americans and I saw how they changed once they sensed they had power."
"It's so mixed up," said a third young rebel, a defector from Damascus. "And this is just how Bashar wants it."
Members of various Syrian opposition groups seen during a press conference after three-day meetings outside Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012. About 150 members of the Syrian opposition met in Turkey for three days to plan for a post-Assad future, constitutional and legal reform, laws on elections and political parties and how to build a modern national army. (AP)
US backs new Syrian opposition council in bid to unite rebels
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday that a key opposition group could "no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition," as Washington attempts to reorganize Syria's various opposition groups into a more representative, more effective structure.
Voice of America reports that Ms. Clinton said that Syria needs a united opposition movement that includes all of the country's ethnic groups and better represents the rebel fighters on the ground opposing President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian National Council, which established its headquarters in Istanbul and is made up largely by exiles and expatriates, is no longer capable of providing the necessary leadership, she said while on an unrelated trip to the Balkans.
"We've made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition," she said. "They can be part of a larger opposition. But that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard." ...
"This can not be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but have, in many instances, not been in Syria for 20, 30, 40 years," said Clinton. "There has to be a representation of those who are on the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom."
Foreign Policy's blog The Cable reported Tuesday that such a reshuffle of the opposition by the US has been in the works for months, as both the SNC and the US have grown increasingly frustrated with the other – the former at the dearth of support offered by Washington, the latter at the SNC's inability to attract broader support from Syrians, including Alawite and Kurdish minorities. The US hopes that a new council will coalesce at a meeting of dozens of Syrian leaders next week in Doha, Qatar.
"We call it a proto-parliament. One could also think of it as a continental congress," a senior administration official told The Cable. ...
"We have to get [the internal opposition] to bless the new political leadership structure they're setting up and not only do we have to get them to bless the structure, but they have to get the names on it," the official said, noting that the exact structure of the council will be determined in Qatar, not before.
"We need to be clear: This is what the Americans support, and if you want to work with us you are going to work with this plan and you're going to do this now," the official said. "We aren't going to waste any more time. The situation is worsening. We need to do this now."
The Washington Post reports that Syrian experts say the plan seems to be aimed at creation of an opposition government, though a US official said that “we’re still quite a ways from that.”
The call by Clinton to reorganize the Syrian opposition came the same day that China announced its proposal for ending the Syrian conflict through political means. Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday that Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, during a visit from United Nations envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, detailed the four-point plan, which calls for creation of a transitional government of "broad representation." It also entails a cease-fire and international humanitarian aid.
But a US official told US News & World Reports that the Chinese plan does not signal any sort of shift in Beijing's support for peace negotiations. The official noted that the plan does not give Mr. Brahimi or any other parties the leverage needed to end the violence in Syria. China has already vetoed several UN Security Council resolutions that would pressure Mr. Assad's regime to end hostilities.
Masked Bahraini antigovernment protesters holding petrol bombs sit on a telephone pole being used as a roadblock ahead of a march in Malkiya, Bahrain, on Sunday, Oct. 28, where marchers were calling for freedom for political prisoners and honoring those killed in the uprising from Bahrain's western villages. (Hasan Jamali/AP)
Bahrain bans public demonstrations as protest movement rises again
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
While leaders across the Middle East were toppled or forced to make concessions amid mass protests in 2011, calls for democratic reform in Bahrain, a tiny island off the coast of Saudi Arabia, were quashed.
But the protests resumed earlier this year. Today, in the midst of heightening clashes between pro-democracy groups and the government, Bahrain temporarily banned all public demonstrations and rallies, the most extreme step taken since imposing martial law during the initial uprisings nearly a year and a half ago.
The move, which threatens legal action against any group seen backing rallies or demonstrations, places heightened pressure on Shiite Muslim groups leading the protests in the Sunni-Muslim-governed nation and could potentially bring about complications with the United States and other Western allies.
Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and the US has been reluctant to take a strong stance against its ally's actions in the past, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
Between 50 and 60 people have been killed since the first demonstrations in February 2011. The New York Times reports that as protesters continue to clash with the government with few results, the “standoff has deteriorated into ever more violent, sometimes deadly confrontations.”
In the last two months, two teenagers have been killed by the security services, and a 19-year-old police officer was killed in what the authorities said was an attack on one of their patrols. Last week, another police officer died of injuries he sustained in April in what the government called a “domestic terrorist attack,” a term frequently used for protests.
Dr. Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the foreign affairs chairman, said the government had little choice but to impose the ban. "Rallies that call for the downfall of the regime and attack the leadership are unconstitutional," Mr. Khalifa said, according to the Gulf Daily News.
"Enough is enough. Misuse of freedom of expression has been going on for a very long time and people are tired," another government official, Abdulrahman Bumajeed, told the newspaper.
However, human rights groups disagree, and Amnesty International called for an immediate lifting of the ban.
“Even in the event of sporadic or isolated violence, once an assembly is under way, the authorities cannot simply declare a blanket prohibition on all protests,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director, told The New York Times.
Shiites, who make up nearly 70 percent of the Bahraini population, claim they face systemic discrimination from the government, led by members of the Sunni minority.
“The Sunni monarchy has made a series of concessions – including giving more powers to the elected parliament – but opposition groups say the reforms do little to loosen the ruling family's grip on power,” The Associated Press reports.
The government’s decision to ban demonstrations appears to target the most visible opposition and Shiite political group, Al Wefaq. The group has a rally planned for Friday, AP reports.
The interior minister, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, said rallies are “a major threat to the safety of the public” associated with “violence, rioting, and attacks on public and private property,” according to the Financial Times. Al Wefaq was specifically cited as a repeat violator.
Some say the country has faced little notable pressure to change because the Bahraini government has powerful allies like the US and Saudi Arabia.
Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow at Chatham House in London, told the Monitor last month that “It's hard to see any real willingness to compromise [on the part of the government], and I think if they're really just expecting the opposition to compromise, it's not likely to be successful. I don't see any real strategy for dealing with the root causes of the unrest.”
“The opposition says the government is not interested in any meaningful reform, resorting instead to continuing repression via police and judicial action, including the jailing of leading rights activists. Attempts to launch a dialogue between the government and opposition have failed,” reports the Financial Times.
Earlier this month the United Nations Human Rights Council recommended Bahrain work to improve its record on freedom of expression. However, Brian Dooley writes in Foreign Policy that the government has taken its own approach to interpreting such guidance.
The Bahraini government seems to understand freedom of expression a bit like Lance Armstrong understands clean cycling. Like Lance, it prefers to play by its own rules and attack critics rather than accept normal standards. The Kingdom has invented a curious definition of free expression where criticizing members of the ruling family on Twitter can land you in court. The Bahraini regime's credibility is as damaged as that of world cycling – the government needs to implement drastic measures that go beyond public relations to restore international trust.
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