15/09/12

By Asma Alsharif and Amena Bakr
JEDDAH/DUBAI

(Reuters) - Loath to foster a new generation of militant Islamists, Saudi Arabia is trying to stop its citizens from joining what some of them see as a holy war against the Syrian government.

The Saudi public has grown incensed at the bloody images continuously broadcast of Syria’s violence alongside reports of government forces massacring civilians, and $140 million was raised for Syrian refugees in the first two weeks of a government-organized campaign in August.

Riyadh has backed the rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad, publicly calling on the international community to “enable” Syrians to protect themselves, while sources in the Gulf, Syria and Turkey have said it is secretly funneling money and arms to the Free Syrian Army.

But mindful of the blowback it previously suffered after Saudi nationals returned home from foreign conflicts politically fired up and ready to wage war on their own government, Riyadh has moved to prevent volunteers from going to fight in Syria.

Islamists in Saudi Arabia, who follow a puritanical version of Sunni Islam, denounce Assad and his regime as infidels because of their roots in the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

But in June, Ali al-Hakimi, a member of the Senior Judicial Council, a government-appointed religious body, said in response to calls for jihad on online forums that this was forbidden unless permitted by the authorities. He added, “Some individual actions can place the state in an awkward position”.

Another cleric, Siraj al-Zahrani, was quoted in Okaz daily last week expressing regrets he had participated in jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s and warning “families must watch over sons who can be lured into the hot spots in this world”.

“It’s illegal to go abroad and get involved in any … military actions or fighting. This is known to all Saudis and many people have been prosecuted,” said Mansour Turki, the Interior Ministry security spokesman.

“If we have evidence that somebody is leaving Saudi Arabia for the purpose of joining militants he will be stopped and investigated for that,” he said, adding that the authorities had no evidence that Saudis had traveled to Syria so far.

“If you allow these things to go on, you are effectively militarizing society. And if you allow your people to get involved in these things and the so-called jihad, other people use it against you,” said Saudi analyst Khalid al-Dakhil.

Some Saudis already appear to be fighting in Syria alongside anti-government rebels, but in seemingly much smaller numbers than during Iraq’s civil war last decade, analysts say.

In an online film called “A message from a Saudi fighter with his Syrian brothers”, a young Saudi hunched against a wall clutching a rifle alongside rebels wearing bulletproof vests and carrying bazookas.

“I ask God to unite us in heaven and say to my brothers in the Arabian peninsula to fight in the name of God as your brothers in the Levant need fighters of strong faith and chivalry,” he said in a Saudi accent.

The video, posted on August 16, has been watched more than 121,000 times, according to YouTube, hinting at the allure of jihad in a war constantly broadcast on both private and state-run Arabic satellite channels.

BLOWBACK

A Gulf source familiar with military movements in the region said thousands of Saudis had sought to head to Syria to join the uprising against Assad, although there is little evidence that many of them have succeeded.

“Saudi fighters went into Syria to fight with the rebels … These fighters are from the people and not official fighters,” the source said, adding they were entering Syria via Turkey and Jordan and that some had been captured.

Those who have gone, caught up in the spirit of adventure and religious zeal, are following a well-trodden path.

Saudi Arabia is Islam’s birthplace and the ultra-conservative clerics who controlled the education system in the 1980s and 1990s preached a message of intolerance towards other religious groups and what they saw as heretical Muslim sects, a message they have since reformed.

Saudi-born Osama bin Laden led a battalion of Arab volunteers fighting as mujahidin against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, while others joined local Muslim forces in civil wars in the 1990s in Bosnia and Chechnya.

“If you’re Saudi it’s less logistically difficult than for other Arabs. You can buy a ticket to Beirut or Istanbul and make your way. And there is a feeling in Saudi Islamist circles you have to go and fight for Islamic causes,” said Stephane Lacroix, the author of Awakening Islam, a book about Saudi Islamism.

At first, bin Laden and the other fighters were lionized in the Saudi press, welcomed effusively by top royals and praised by the kingdom’s powerful clergy.

But even before he dispatched 15 young Saudis and four other Arabs to carry out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, bin Laden had turned against the ruling al-Saud family, mainly because of its cozy relationship with the West.

“They don’t want to repeat the same mistake they made in Afghanistan. Young men went there and learned to fight with many groups of jihadists. Some of those groups accused Islamic countries of being infidels and the young people were influenced by that and went back to their countries and caused problems,” a Saudi who fought in Afghanistan said.

The effect of September 11 and a series of attacks by al Qaeda inside Saudi Arabia from 2003 to 2006 heightened the government’s alarm just as a new generation crossed the permeable border with Iraq to fight against Shi’ite Muslim militias and occupying Western forces.

The result was a crackdown on militants that included those who had fought in Iraq, and a fatwa from the Grand Mufti against travelling abroad to wage jihad.

In the years since, some of the thousands of suspected militants arrested by the Interior Ministry who have been tried in a special criminal court were accused of travelling to Iraq to fight alongside al Qaeda.

JIHAD

While state-affiliated clerics have spoken out against fighting abroad, they have also used strong language to denounce the Assad government and urge support for Syrians.

Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Senior Council of Ulama, said that those in charge of carrying out the fighting and jihad in Syria are the Free Syrian Army, “who must be supported”.

The talk in Saudi Internet chatrooms does not focus on such distinctions.

“Abdullah, call for jihad against this Syrian tyrant and his aides and you will find, God willing, strong men who have faith in God to lift the banner of Islam. Enough weakness,” one user said on a forum on news site al-Weeam, without giving his name.

A Saudi who fought in Afghanistan said Saudis were going to Syria but under the radar of the state. “The youth of jihad don’t listen to the Council of Senior Clerics,” he said.

The approbation of society at large was a different matter, however.

“For me personally, if it were not for my family and current circumstances, I would have gone. The banner is clear for jihad. These are Alawites, hostile toward the Sunnis and Islam,” he added. “The numbers (of Saudi jihadists) will be a lot less than the past. In the past the fighter goes and his family is proud of him, now instead they worry about the issue.”

(Additional reporting and writing by Andrew Hammond and Angus McDowall; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Syrian rebels have started receiving large shipments of sophisticated weapons financed by Gulf States and coordinated by the US, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The US daily cited unnamed sources as saying that “Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks,” including anti-tank weapons.

Although Washington was not supplying or funding the weapon shipments, the US has been expanding “contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure,” the paper cited US sources as saying.

The Washington Post added that the Barack Obama administration has begun shifting its stance on the Syria crisis, with officials now believing “an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.”

US administration officials have also “held talks in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria” to discuss the possibility “of opening a second front against Assad’s forces that would compel him to move resources from the west.”

According to the Washington Post, the shipments were being stockpiled in Damascus, Edleb and Zabadani.

One opposition source told the daily that “large shipments have got through,” adding that “some areas are loaded with weapons.”

US officials have in the past rejected the idea of arming Syrian rebels. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that arms shipments could help Al-Qaeda, while US Joints Chief of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey said that arming rebels would be “premature.”

Summary: (Interview made before AL suspended mission) #Syria

1- Arwa: you issued a statement that the violent actions have been escalating in the region especially the agitated ones like Homs, Idlib, and Hama. We also heard of awful massacres committed in Homs. How much do these things have an influence on having a solution between the protestors and the government?
Dabbi: the opposition believes that the regime’s ruling has come to an end and that is why the opposition is escalating their efforts and the government believes that the protocol gives it the right to stop the violence wherever it is.

2- Arwa: the AL monitor’s number have decreased by 50 monitors especially after the gulf countries withdrew their monitors from Syria. Are you going to ask for more monitors?
Dabbi: the increase of the monitors won’t accomplish anything. We can get the truth and facts to the world by having 10 monitors only. The government can protect the AL delegation to a certain extent.

3- Arwa: What is the biggest challenge faced by the AL delegation? And do you have the ability to reach both parties equally?
Dabbi: we have a problem in not being able to communicate with the opposition. We have limited connections with some of them but not with the entire opposition spectrum.

4- Arwa: we have seen reports about the increase of violence in Homs and its regions. We can also see that there is escalation between both parties. How much are you concerned about a civil or a sectarian war?
Dabbi: What I fear the most is that these clashes between the parties will take the form of ethnic clashes between the ethnic tribes and groups.

The Arab League says it is suspending its controversial monitoring mission in Syria because of an upsurge in violence.

Activists say the mission is simply buying time for President Assad

The league said the observers would remain in the country, but temporarily stop their work.

The mission was set up in December to monitor Damascus’ compliance with the league’s plan to end bloodshed. But several countries withdrew monitors.

The mission has been criticised as toothless by Syria’s opposition.

‘Not big surprise’

“It has been decided to immediately stop the work of the Arab League’s mission to Syria pending presentation of the issue (violence) to the league’s council,” Secretary General Nabil el-Arabi said in a statement.

The league extended the 165-member mission after its first month, but Gulf Arab states later withdrew their monitors.

BBC Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher says it is not a big surprise that the mission has been halted, as activists and human rights groups have accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of using it to buy time.

The diplomatic focus now seems to be switching to the UN Security Council, with speculation that it may vote on a draft resolution on Syria in the coming days - although Russia still opposes the move.

Activists in Syria and say that 135 people have been killed across Syria in the past two days.

The UN says more than 5,000 people have died since protests against the government of President Assad erupted last March.

Syrian officials say about 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed in the unrest, which has become increasingly violent as defectors from the army join the opposition.

These claims have not been independently verified.

With the Gulf countries’ recent step, the noose is tightening around the neck of Assad

In a firm move, Gulf states announced that they would withdraw their monitors from Syria thus sending a clear message that the Assad regime has failed to comply with the Arab League’s plan to put an end to the bloody crackdown on protesters. Evidently, the common stand taken by the Gulf countries cannot be more striking. Withdrawing their monitors from Syria is tantamount to saying that the Gulf countries are not going to be part of Assad’s game of buying time while Syrian people are subject to unremitting killing.

It seems that Assad is not in touch with reality. While he has no chance to stay in power as all of his allies in the region are under attack, he still behaves as if he is invincible! He fools nobody but himself when he keeps talking about an external conspiracy that targets his regime.

In a last-ditch attempt to avoid internationalization of the Syrian crisis, the Arab League proposed a road map that states that Assad transfer power to his deputy and a new national government is formed within two months. Presidential and parliamentary elections would be held after that. To the Arabs, this is the best way of curbing violence and averting international intervention. Yet the Syrian regime dismissed it as a “flagrant” violation of Syrian sovereignty.

Against this backdrop, the Gulf states decided to act swiftly by withdrawing all of their monitors (55 of the 165 monitors sent to Syria). Interestingly, Damascus is still employing the same boring false pretexts. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem assailed the road plan was a “plot” against his country abetted by the Arabs. He added that his country would continue targeting “armed terrorist gangs.” If anything, this last statement indicates clearly that the Syrian regimes has reached the no-return point and that it has no real intention to end the long ten-month bloody crackdown on people.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Syrian crisis is on its way to get internationalized. The Gulf states urged the Security Council to take what it takes to force Assad to relinquish power. But Syria is still relying on two allies in the Security Council - China and Russia - to block any effort to that effect. In his dismissive response to the call for taking the file to the Security Council, Walid Moallem said that Arabs could take the whole file to “New York or to the moon, as long as we don’t have to pay for their ticket…Russia will not agree on the foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and this is a red line.”

With the Gulf countries’ recent step, the noose is tightening around the neck of Assad. They offered him a safe exist from Syria but it seems that he is not the one who calls the shots in Damascus. The security circle around him is looking for a showdown with all. Yet, the Syrian regime does not understand that Russia is open to a new initiative that can force Assad to leave. Russia is against military intervention and the West has affirmed its intentions not to interfere. But Russia cannot protect the isolated regime forever.  Equally important, China has recently signed an oil deal with Saudi Arabia thus getting closer to the Gulf countries’ position while moving away from Iran. In the Arab League’s deliberation on the new road map, Iraq took a positive step by agreeing to the road map. This might be coordinated with Tehran and thus reflecting a new Iranian approach. For sure, this was bad news for the Syrian regime.

All in all, the Arabs have given the regime in Syria every possible chance to put a cap on violence and embark upon genuine reform. Yet, the regime kept the same line dismissing all efforts to end the crisis. Clearly, Assad and his cronies have failed miserably in reading the new changes that have swept the region. Their miscalculation could not be more striking. While stronger regimes fell under the pressure of people, Assad kept thinking that his regime was different and that his allies from within and from without would stand up to a “Western-Zionist” conspiracy. Finally, the Gulf states are fed up and thus they refuse to play the role of a fake witness to the daily killing of Syrians. In brief, the countdown of change in Syria started once Saudi Arabia announced its intention not to take part in the Arab League mission in Syria. Now it remains to be seen how the rest of the Arab countries are going to behave. Can they continue with a plan without an active Gulf participation? I doubt!

The head of the Arab League Nabil al-Arabi and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani are to head to the UN on Saturday to seek support for an Arab plan on Syria.

CAIRO Jan 26 (Reuters) - Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby urged Damascus on Thursday to immediately end military operations against “defenceless civilians” saying the continued violence was claiming innocent victims. 

Arab League observers in Syria, depleted by a pullout of their Gulf Arab colleagues, resumed work on Thursday for the first time in a week during which a bloody struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents has raged on.

Security forces deployed across the Damascus suburb of Douma, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Douma, a protest hotbed that has recently seen a rise in rebel activity, was rocked by blasts overnight, according to local activists.

In an unusually strong statement, Elaraby said he was “concerned over the continued killing and violence in Syria that has claimed more innocent victims”.

“(Elaraby) called for an immediate end to all forms of violence and on the Syrian government to … stop military and security escalation against defenceless civilians,” the statement issued by his office said.

The Arab League, while extending the monitoring mission for another month, called on Assad to step down after 10 months of bloodshed as part of a transition plan for which it is seeking U.N. support.

Elaraby praised the monitors for working “professionally and seriously” despite what described as very difficult circumstances.

Gulf Arab countries have pulled their monitors out of the mission, complaining that Syria had failed to comply with a previous Arab peace plan, but they continue to support the observers financially and logistically. (Created by Lin Noueihed)

Security forces deployed across the Damascus suburb of Douma on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Douma, a protest hotbed that has recently seen a rise in rebel activity, was rocked by loud explosions overnight, according to activists living there.

The British-based Observatory said army operations under way in parts of the countryside around the capital had led to fighting on Wednesday night but said there were no signs of clashes in Douma on Thursday since security forces deployed.

The Arab League, while extending the monitoring mission for another month, called on Sunday for Assad to step down as part of a transition plan for which it is seeking U.N. support.

France and Britain have joined efforts at the United Nations to end Assad’s 11-year rule, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country remained opposed to sanctions on Syria and reiterated its opposition to military intervention.

“The U.N. Security Council must support the Arab League’s courageous decisions which are trying to end the repression and violence in Syria and find a solution to the political crisis,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

The Security Council could vote as early as next week on a Western-Arab draft resolution, council diplomats said.

A group of Arab monitors planned to visit the troubled Damascus suburb of Irbin, one of them said. It would be their first outing since Friday. The mission had put its activities on hold until Arab foreign ministers met to decide its future.

Gulf Arab states have since withdrawn their 55 observers from the 165-strong team, saying they were sure “the bloodshed and killing of innocents would continue.” Arab League officials said they would be replaced and work would go on.

An Algerian observer in the team heading to Irbin said he was nervous because some opposition groups had said they would not cooperate with the mission. “We don’t know what to expect,” he told Reuters, declining to be named.

Another monitor said he was confused about the purpose of prolonging the mission for another four weeks. “The report has been written and the (Arab League) decisions have been taken, so another month to do what? We are not sure,” he said.

RED CRESCENT OFFICIAL KILLED

Syrian opposition groups have accused the observer mission, which deployed on December 26, of giving Assad diplomatic cover to pursue a crackdown on protesters and rebels in which more than 5,000 people have been killed since March, by a U.N. tally.

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the northern town of Idlib was shot dead on Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said, in an attack which Damascus blamed on “terrorists.”

State news agency SANA also said a priest was killed by “terrorists” while helping a wounded person in the city of Hama.

The opposition Local Coordinating Committees activist group said a total of 27 people had been killed, including six fighters in the rebel Free Syrian Army.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at 13 civilians and six army deserters.

The state news agency SANA said 14 members of the security forces were buried on Wednesday, describing them as martyrs killed by “armed terrorist groups” across the country. It also said five security men had been killed when a police station was attacked in the town of Apamea in the central province of Hama.

Syrian authorities say insurgents have killed 2,000 soldiers and police since the anti-Assad revolt erupted in March.

Despite the mounting death toll, an ICRC official said the Syria unrest did not meet the group’s definition of civil war.

“The threshold has not yet been passed to speak of an armed conflict,” Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East, told Reuters in Geneva.

The ICRC’s legal criteria for civil war include an opposition that clearly controls territory and has a military structure with a clear chain of command.

The revolt in Syria was inspired by other uprisings that have toppled three autocratic Arab leaders over the past year and the bloodshed has battered Assad’s standing in the world.

The Arab League has suspended Syria and called for Assad to hand over to his deputy, pending the formation of an unity government, constitutional and security reform, and elections.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Damascus, Erika Solomon in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Jan 25 (Reuters) - The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the northern town of Idlib was shot dead on Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“We just learned a few minutes ago of the death of Mr. Abdulrazak Jbero, head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent branch in Idlib. Mr. Jbero was on his way by car from Damascus to Idlib. He was shot. Circumstances are still unclear,” Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Near and Middle East, told Reuters in Geneva.

“Regardless of the circumstances, the ICRC condemns this very severely,” she said. “The lack of respect for medical services is still a great issue in Syria.”

Jbero, a Syrian national, was also vice president of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, having previously served as its first president, ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said.

Syrian state television blamed “terrorists” for the killing saying that Jbero had been “assassinated” in Khan Sheikhoun district.

A volunteer of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent was killed last September in the flashpoint central town of Homs when an ambulance came under fire, injuring three other volunteers, according to the ICRC, the only international agency deploying aid workers in Syria.

Gulf Arab monitors headed out of Syria on Wednesday after their governments said they were “certain the bloodshed and killing of innocents would continue”, and the Arab League pursued U.N. support for a plan to end President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

More than 5,000 people have been killed during the 10-month-old uprising against Assad, the United Nations said last month.

Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) - Government forces clashed with army defectors and stormed rebellious districts in central Syria on Wednesday, firing mortars and deploying snipers in violence that killed at least seven people, including a mother and her 5-year-old child, activists said.

Pressure on Syria to end 10 months of bloodshed has so far produced few results. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia have pulled out of the Arab League’s observers mission, asking the U.N. Security Council to intervene. Decisive action from the U.N. appeared unlikely, however, as Russia, a strong Syrian ally, has opposed moves like sanctions.

While Syria has approved extension of the observers’ presence for another month, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem signaled that the crackdown on protests will continue, insisting that Syria will solve its own problems.

A Syrian military assault near Hama began Tuesday night, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists and opposition members. Shells slammed into several districts around Hama’s Bab Qebli area, the LCC said.

“It was impossible to rescue the wounded due to the ongoing arbitrary shelling,” the group said in a statement.

Two people were killed by sniper fire, according to the LCC and another opposition group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In the town of Qusair near the central city of Homs, a woman and her 5-year-old child were killed when a shell struck their home during clashes between government troops and gunmen believed to be army defectors, both groups said.

Three other people were killed during raids in a Damascus suburbs.

Al-Moallem’s televised news conference underlined signs that the Arab strategy to solve the crisis was collapsing. After announcing their pullout from the observers mission, Gulf Arab countries urged the U.N. Security Council to take all “necessary measures” to force the country to implement a League peace plan announced Sunday to create a national unity government in two months.

Damascus has rejected the plan as a violation of national sovereignty.

Al-Moallem brushed off the threat of referring the issue to the Security Council- a move that could lead to tougher sanctions- rather than trying to resolve it regionally. The prospect of U.N. involvement has raised fears in Syria that an international intervention could be next.

The U.S., the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey all have introduced sanctions against Damascus in response to Assad’s crackdown, but Russia threatens to veto such measures.

Syria informed the Arab League Wednesday that it had agreed to extend the observer mission one month, until Feb. 24, said Adnan al-Khudeir, head of Cairo operations room that handles reports by the monitors.

He also said the League has put together a new group of observers to replace the 55 GCC monitors, who were leaving Wednesday. They consist of 15 Mauritanians, 10 Palestinians and six Egyptians, and they will head to Syria within a week, he said.

The uprising, which began with largely peaceful protests, has grown increasingly militarized in recent months, as frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces.

Defectors clashed with government soldiers Wednesday in northern Syria’s Idlib province, activists said.

Soldiers siding with a group of anti-regime army defectors known as the Free Syrian Army are also known to be active in Hama, and some in the city said they were the target of the current government assault.

Residents near Hama reported hearing loud explosions throughout the night and on Wednesday and said phone lines to the targeted areas were down.

“They are trying to storm the Bab Qebli, Hamidiyeh and Malaab districts because defectors are there,” said Ahmad al-Jimejmi, an activist who spoke by telephone from a town several miles away.

A Jordanian man of Palestinian origin accused pro-regime forces of kidnapping and killing his 27-year old son in Hama.

Hafez Abu Osbeh said his son, Ahmed, 27, was kidnapped last Friday, and his body was left outside his mother’s residence three days later with gunshot wounds to his head. He said a description of the kidnappers’ vehicle pointed to government loyalists.

In #Syria, many caught ‘in the middle’

Editor’s note: CNN’s Nic Robertson and crew recently returned from a rare look inside Syria, where the government has been placing restrictions on international journalists and refusing many of them entry at all. While there, Robertson followed Arab League monitors already in the country and talked to the residents.

(CNN) — It wasn’t until I left Syria that I found the voice I’d been looking for.

I was only hours out of the capital, and it came by surprise, a chance meeting at an airport on my way back to London.

He was a Syrian Christian, a member of one of the country’s larger minorities. They make up about 10% of the population. Many are businessmen; many have benefited from President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

His message was clear: We want change, but we don’t want uncertainty. “The opposition need to reach out to us, tell us their vision of Syria.” Then, he said, they’d have 60% to 70% support: “everyone in the middle ground, enough to overthrow the president.”

He was speaking out because he could, with no need to fear that al-Assad’s secret police would come knocking on his door. In Damascus and the rest of Syria, it had been different. None of the intellectuals, the businessmen, the others “in the middle” wanting al-Assad’s corrupt regime replaced dared raise the conversation beyond the mildest hint at change of some sort; “but not, of course, the president” is required.

Just one day of covering pro- and anti-government rallies convinced me of how polarized the country has become. People are metaphorically retreating to their confessional bunkers.

Al-Assad’s rallying cry is that only he can protect the country’s minorities: Christians like the man I met at the airport, Alawite like himself, about 15% of the population. He keeps the ethnic Kurds, a little less than 10%, on his side by courting their biggest tribes.

It’s a tactic that’s working. The Kurds don’t back him, but they haven’t turned against him as they did against his father. The Alawites who make up most of the officer corps in the army are still loyal, as are the Christians. But not without reservation.

A source close to the Saudi ruling circle told me Alawite generals threaten to abandon al-Assad if he makes them turn their guns on civilians in the streets of Damascus.

Several Westerners with detailed knowledge of the country expressed their frustration with the opposition, too. Why don’t they reassure the minorities they won’t face retribution once al-Assad is gone? they ask.

One opposition figure had threatened to wipe the Alawites off the map; another group said they would try al-Assad’s top 100 generals for war crimes. So far, according to these Westerners, leading opposition groups have not distanced themselves from the calls that serve only to reinforce al-Assad’s claims.

Al-Assad’s track record charts a far different course. He and his father before him have assiduously sold their secular brand of socialism as the panacea for internal conflict. The truth is different, according to the Westerners: Al-Assad has been fermenting sectarian tensions. It is a lie that he is the defender of the minorities, they say.

It’s hard to escape the feeling in Damascus that the moment to reach out is being lost. But it’s easy to see why.

Al-Assad is utterly committed to a security crackdown, and the opposition is getting armed and fighting back. Blood is being spilled on both sides; more families are being affected and attitudes hardened.

It’s rapidly getting to the point where even if opposition leaders did want to reach out to the man or woman in the middle or an army general or two, the base supporters will have no stomach for compromise.

At anti-government rallies, time and again, we saw anger and frustration boiling over, people literally screaming in our faces for fear we didn’t get the desperation of their plight. Al-Assad’s strong-arm tactics denying free speech have ensured that the street voice for reform has metastasized into something far more malevolent.

In places like Homs, the cradle of the uprising, the writing is on the wall for the rest of the country. Some neighborhoods have thrown out the government completely, such as in the Baba Amr district, where the Free Syrian Army has control. Communities have divided on sectarian lines. Many Christians have fled to Damascus. Garbage is piled high in the streets, electricity is cut, civilian causalities mount, and on the other side of the impromptu front-line barricades, the death toll of government soldiers creeps up as well.

A drive around Homs reveals a medieval-style siege, multiple checkpoints to move between neighborhoods, even a deep new ditch in places rings the city. But the uprising continues.

The opposition in Homs is better organized. A new council has been formed, it has a budget — money, some say, is coming from the Gulf — and runs medical and humanitarian supplies.

But the council is not the only show in town. Salafists are moving in too, Islamic radicals, many with terror tactics honed in neighboring Iraq. Reports abound of infighting both inside and outside Syria, the hard-liners already jockeying for post-al-Assad power.

If war escalates, as it surely seems it will, expect a long and bloody campaign. As the man in the middle I met on my way back to London told me: “We are afraid of the men with guns, afraid the radicals will impose their backwards views on us.”

#Syria: Building collapses in Homs after apparent shelling trapping people in the rubble

Amateur footage purports to show the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of a building in the Bab Tadmur area of Homs in which many people were reported killed.