Turkey ‘will support’ #Syria no-fly zone

Erdogan says Assad government’s alleged use of chemical arms means it crossed Obama’s red line “a long time ago”.

Turkey will support a US-enforced no-fly zone in Syria, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told a US television station.

In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, the Turkish prime minister said that President Bashar al-Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against his opponents meant that the Syrian regime had already crossed US President Barack Obama’s so-called red line “a long time ago”.

“Right from the beginning … we would say ‘yes’,” Erdogan told NBC when asked if Turkey, a NATO member that shares its longest border with Syria, would support a no-fly zone or American soldiers on the ground.

A no-fly zone to prohibit Syrian military aircraft from hitting rebel targets has been previously mentioned by US politicians as one of the options the US could utilise in a bid to put pressure on Assad.

But setting up a no-fly zone would require US air raids and possibly ground forces, heightening the risk of casualties.

There is little chance the US would undertake that anytime soon, US security officials have said.

Erdogan’s comments are likely to add further pressure on the US to take action in a nearly two-year conflict that has already killed more than 70,000 people and further destabilised a volatile region.

Wary of the false intelligence used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, the US says it wants proof before taking any action.

“It is clear that the regime has used chemical weapons and missiles. They used about 200 missiles, according to our intelligence,” Erdogan said.

He did not make clear whether his country believed that all 200 missiles carried chemical weapons, adding his government had not determined whether sarin gas was used.

“There are different sizes missiles. And then there are deaths caused by these missiles. And there are burns, you know, serious burns and chemical reactions,” Erdogan said when asked what evidence Turkey had.

“And there are patients who are brought to our hospitals who were wounded by these chemical weapons.”

“You can see who is affected by chemical missiles by their burns.”

Erdogan said Turkey would share intelligence with the UN Security Council in the matter.

Britain said on Thursday it believed it was “very likely” that the Syrian government had used chemical arms but that it had “no evidence to date” that the rebels had done so.

Assad’s forces and rebels fighters have accused each other of using chemical weapons.

Erdogan said in the interview that he doubted Assad’s opponents had used such weapons because they lacked access to them.

“But if it exists, we are against this … we are against whoever holds the weapons.” he said.

Last week a UN war crimes investigator said testimony from Syrian casualties and medical staff indicated that rebels had used the banned nerve agent sarin, although other investigators later played down those suggestions.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish foreign minister, criticised what he called declarations made without evidence to support them.

He had raised the issue with Jan Eliasson, UN Deputy Secretary-General, in London this week, and said that as a Syrian neighbour, Turkey had the right to know if the UN had evidence of poison gas use by rebels.

AJE - 05/10/2013

UK military in talks to help #Syria rebels

International coalition could offer air and sea support as well as military training

A plan to provide military training to the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime and support them with air and naval power is being drawn up by an international coalition including Britain,The Independent has learnt.

The prospect of Western intervention comes as opposition groups, which have been disorganised and divided, at long last formed an umbrella political group and a command structure for their militias. Their foreign backers are said to believe that the 22-month-long civil war has now reached a tipping point and it has become imperative to offer help to the revolutionaries to enable them to make a final push against the regime.

The head of Britain’s armed forces, General Sir David Richards, hosted a confidential meeting in London a few weeks ago attended by the military chiefs of France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE, and a three-star American general, in which the strategy was discussed at length. Other UK government departments and their counterparts in allied states in the mission have also been holding extensive meetings on the issue.

The commanders’ conference was held at the request of the Prime Minister, according to senior Whitehall sources. David Cameron is said to be determined that more should be done by Britain to bring to an end the bloody strife which has claimed 40,000 lives so far and made millions homeless.

One key concern is the onset of winter, with 2.5 million people inside Syria needing help and 1.5 million internally displaced by the fighting, according to the UN. More than 100,000, it is estimated, will be gathering at borders with neighbouring states which are already hosting refugees and refusing to take them in.

There is also a growing belief among the Western backers of the opposition that intervention in some form is necessary now to influence the future political shape of Syria. Jihadist groups among the rebels, some like Jabhat al-Nusra linked to al-Qa’ida, have steadily gained in power and influence because of their access to weapons and money coming from the Gulf states putting more secular groups at a severe disadvantage.

The Obama administration is considering proscribing Al-Nusra as a terrorist organisation, making it illegal for American citizens to fund it and sending a warning message to Arab states not to back it. At the same time Western help will be directed at and strengthen the moderate groups. The unified rebel command structure set up in Turkey, at the behest of the US and UK, has excluded the Islamist militias.

Britain, France and the US have agreed that none of their countries would have “boots on the ground” to help the rebels. The training camps can be set up in Turkey. However, the use of air and maritime force would, in itself, be highly controversial and likely to lead to charges that, as in Libya, the West is carrying out regime change by force.

Furthermore, any such military action will have to take place without United Nations authorisation, with Russia and China highly unlikely to back a resolution after their experience over Libya where they agreed to a “no-fly zone” only to see it turn into a Nato bombing campaign lasting months.

The plan will also draw accusations that the decision to station Nato Patriot missile defence systems at the Syrian border, at the request of Turkey, was, in reality, to camouflage intervention. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Foreign Secretary William Hague and the alliance’s Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, had all insisted at a meeting in Brussels last week that the deployment was a purely defensive measure. British defence sources maintain that Ankara would have made the request even without the plan to aid the rebels. Neither Germany nor the Netherlands, which will be deploying the Patriots, have been part of the secret Syria talks.

There has been a steady flow of briefings from the US that the Damascus regime is readying its stock of chemical weapons. Ms Clinton stated that a desperate Assad may resort to such an attack, while President Obama has warned of a “red line” on chemical weapons, saying the use of them will not be tolerated.

However, there is a growing belief that the Russians, who had steadfastly backed the regime, are now reconciled to a future Syria without Assad. Officials in Ankara say that a visit by President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Turkey last week went extremely well. Speaking in Istanbul, President Putin said: “We are not lawyers for the Syrian leadership’s actions; we are concerned with other things, namely what will happen in the future.”

British and American officials say that the Kremlin’s concerns about chaos following the departure of Assad, with jihadists emerging in control, is shared by governments in the West and Russian help will be needed in averting a bloody endgame.

Intervention, they say, is now inevitable. Le Figaro newspaper has reported that French military advisers have met rebel groups just across the Lebanese border. The US is said to have stockpiled weapons retrieved in Libya for future supply to Syria.

One senior Whitehall official said: “The efforts have so far been unco-ordinated without any focused objective. If this is worth doing, then it is worth doing professionally; training the FSA and providing them with air and maritime support when necessary.

“Obviously there are risks involved in such a mission, but there is enough capability to accomplish this.

“We are aware of the Russian view. We know that Syria is an important strategic ally for them. But it will not remain an ally if the jihadists take over after Assad goes, we are sure they realise this. We still hope they can persuade Assad to leave and an agreement can be formed on the future of the country.”

MONDAY 10 DECEMBER 2012

Election over, U.S. cautiously mulls #Syria options

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With the U.S. election over and Syria’s civil war growing bloodier and spreading, the Obama administration is quietly re-examining its options for involvement in the conflict.

Whether that will lead to a change in strategy remains unclear. President Barack Obama and his advisers are extremely cautious, current and former officials involved in discussions say.

But those who favor greater U.S. involvement – not least Syrian opposition leaders – clearly believe their time has come. What Washington must consider, they say, is more support for the rebels and perhaps limited military action.

Even with electoral pressures gone, a major deployment of U.S. troops remains unthinkable. The kind of more limited but sustained air campaign that helped oust Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi is also off the table, at least for now.

Arming the rebels, the Obama administration says, might simply make matters worse – particularly given the mounting evidence of a growing Islamist presence, increasing sectarian bloodshed and accusations of rebel war crimes.

But simply standing on the sidelines may also no longer be viable. As the body count has mounted in Syria, there have been growing signs the war is also destabilizing neighboring states, particularly Lebanon but also Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.

This weekend Syrian and Israeli forces traded fire across their border in the Golan Heights.

“I’m amazed by how quickly people have started talking about Syria” after the election, said Joseph Holliday, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and expert on the Syrian opposition at the Institute for the Study of War who frequently briefs American officials.

“I think there’s a feeling that doing nothing is in itself a choice, and that the longer we hold back the worse things are getting.”

With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad increasingly using helicopters and jets against civilian targets, there is growing talk of some form of “no-fly zone” – or perhaps a series of targeted strikes to damage his air force.

A likely request by Turkey for U.S. Patriot ground-to-air missiles to defend its airspace could also see U.S. troops deployed in its territory within miles of the Syrian border.

The new united rebel leadership announced this weekend in Doha – the result of months of pressure from western states and Arab allies – is also seen as offering the best hope so far that the opposition can form a united front.

Discussions being held within the State Department, Pentagon and elsewhere are not, insiders say, part of a centrally ordered policy review.

“We constantly review options,” one senior administration official told Reuters, although he said there was no change in the White House’s opposition to arming the rebels directly.

Another U.S. official knowledgeable about Washington’s Syria policy confirmed, however, that a post-election revision was under way.

“The question is: what to do?” he said.

THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE?

A few senior U.S. figures, such as Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador touted as a potential new secretary of state to replace Hillary Clinton, are reported to be more supportive of drastic action. The U.S. military and intelligence agencies, insiders say, are much more reluctant.

Even if Assad were to go, they worry the country might tear itself apart in ethnic bloodletting that could go on for years.

Obama himself has shown little appetite for new foreign interventions, and approaches his second term with no shortage of domestic challenges.

But the shifting reality on the ground in Syria, some argue, may be opening up new options.

One of the greatest barriers to greater involvement in the conflict, Western officials have long complained, has been the chaotic and disunited nature of the rebels – as well as their persistent failure to perform on the battlefield.

But that may now be changing. Disparate elements of the Free Syrian Army are increasingly seizing ground and holding it against Assad’s forces. The newly created Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, under reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz Alkhatib, must build on those victories.

Long-term Assad supporter Russia, some experts say, may be tiring of the Syrian leader. Moscow might have little appetite for Western-backed overthrow of Assad, but it also wants to make sure it retains influence with any government that replaces him.

‘WAITING FOR THE WEST’

Some key allies remain reluctant. British officials have also been re-examining their Syria options, British sources say, but this week they rolled back from suggestions they might arm the rebels or ease a European arms embargo. France has yet to make good on statements it might provide anti-aircraft weaponry.

But Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – all arming the rebels – may be betting on a U.S. policy shift that would bring European powers along and help them not just in Syria but in their region-wide rivalry with Assad’s ally Iran.

Up to now, their support for the rebels has largely been limited to intelligence agents and rich Arab individuals cutting deals to arm and supply whichever groups they fancy. That, many experts say, has strengthened the hand of the Islamists.

The opportunity now, rebel supporters say, is for a much more coordinated strategy perhaps led by Washington.

They “are waiting for the West,” Salman Shaikh, a former adviser to the Qatari royal family and now director of the Brookings Doha Center, said via video link. “They don’t want to be in this alone. Only the U.S. can bring this about.”

The fact that Turkey held back from talking about a Patriot missiles request until the day after the U.S. election may be no coincidence. While theoretically defensive, the range of the missiles would reach well inside Syrian airspace.

The option of using Turkish-based Patriot batteries to enforce a limited “no-fly zone” over nearby rebel territory is, insiders say, already circulating within the U.S. government.

Deploying the missiles, however, would require stationing dozens if not hundreds of U.S. troops in volatile border regions already swarming with refugees and weapons.

“There is undoubtedly going to be more attention placed on Syria by the administration in the aftermath of the election,” says Ari Ratner, a former Obama administration State Department appointee and now a fellow at the Truman National Security Foundation. “Not least because the situation on the ground and the needs of our allies will only escalate.”

Syria - Assad Attack Helicopters

Bomb Kafaranbel 4-Sept-12 Idlib - NO

FLY ZONE NEEDED NOW

Syria opposition still calls for foreign military intervention

Main opposition group pleads for weapons, urgent military intervention ‘to defend civilians’ from bombardments by Assad’s army.

Middle East Online

‘We are seeking very quick action’

MADRID - Syria’s main opposition group pleaded Monday for weapons and urgent military intervention to defend civilians from bombardments by President Bashar al-Assad’s army.

“We need a humanitarian intervention and we are asking for military intervention for the Syrian civilians,” Syrian National Council leader Abdel Basset Sayda said after meeting Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

“I have the duty of asking for weapons that will allow us to defend against the Syrian armour and weapons that are killing civilians all the time,” he told a joint news conference.

Sayda said the Syrian conflict had now killed 30,000 people and forced millions from their homes, including more than three million internal refugees and 250,000 who had fled the country. Another 100,000 had been detained.

“Every day we have dozens of martyrs and hundreds of wounded and disappeared,” he said in Arabic, addressing journalists through a translator.

“We are seeking very quick action by the international community,” he said.

Syria’s opposition believed the European Union could persuade Russia to change its posture at the UN Security Council so as to establish safe havens for refugees, Sayda said.

Russia, an ally of the Assad regime, and the Security Council’s other veto-wielding members have failed to reach agreement on a proposal to set up protected enclaves for displaced civilians, which would imply authorising a highly controversial protective military operation.

Following criticism that the SNC was not sufficiently representative, Sayda vowed to call a national dialogue so as to forge a unified position on a post-Assad transition to democracy.

“Syria is a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country and everyone will have a part in its future. We want everything to be organised according to this principle,” he said.

A spokesman for the SNC said on Sunday that the group had agreed to expand its membership and would hold a vote later in September to elect its leadership.

Sayda’s mandate, which was due to expire on September 9, had been extended until the leadership vote, he said.

Spain’s foreign minister condemned the Assad government’s onslaught on Syrian civilians.

“We will do all we can to provide humanitarian help to the Syrian people who are suffering a slaughter,” Garcia-Margallo said.

“The Spanish people view the killings with horror.”

But he urged Syria’s pro-democracy opposition to join forces to avoid a power vacuum.

“In Syria we clearly are talking about a change of regime, Bashar cannot carry on a moment longer for humanitarian reasons,” said the foreign minister.

But “the disappearance of al-Assad cannot be transformed into a power vacuum that could be used by factions,” he added.

“Spain is worried about the unity of the democratic forces,” the minister said. “Our desire: that the democratic forces come together, including all the minorities except for those that opt for violence,” the minister said.

15/08/2012 Washing away the blood in #Syria

With the acrid stench of disinfectant in the air, a woman, expressionless and intent on finishing this daily task as quickly as possible, sluices the last puddle of diluted blood off the hospital steps and onto the sidewalk.

For her this is routine. The pale faces of medical staff who for the past hour had been grimacing with intense concentration and inner frustration were close behind her.

“You cannot show our faces on television - you can’t reveal what we are doing here,” one doctor told me.

Two children under five years of age were dead and another - barely alive - had been sent to Turkey in a battered old car. Seven adults were seriously wounded. The hysteria of wailing relatives and children was now gone. The uncomfortable silence was deafening.

The stark reality echoing now in my mind as I write this a week later is that it was nothing unusual - it just happened to be caught on our camera.

Daily trauma

For months we have known about the medics wanting their work to be kept secret for fear they will be targeted in the same way that a rebel fighter could expect.

It had been one snapshot in the chain of daily trauma, the aftermath of what we all hear referred to as “indiscriminate shelling”. The shells from long-range artillery had landed on a village near al-Atarib this time.

A two-year-old boy was lying lifeless on one of two beds in the tiny, ill-equipped emergency room.

The doctors had moved on to another patient after at least ten minutes of CPR, the hand pumped respirator now at work elsewhere.

The toddler’s mother was being restrained in the other bed as a nurse applied bandages to her face. On the floor were injured men and women being checked over in some sort of triage process. And outside this claustrophobic mayhem on the reception room floor, another young child took his final breath.

I have no doubt that no one crammed into those 60 minutes of excruciating attempts to save lives could be described as a revolutionary. They were all civilians. And nobody wanted to talk about freedom or human rights.

There was just a question barked in my direction: “Where is the help that the outside world keeps promising?” Or words to that effect.

‘Guns, not medicine’

Earlier that day, the same question was put to me by a brigadier-general who defected five months ago from his post as head of intelligence for a region that included Aleppo city.

But the question was aimed in a different direction. He wanted more guns, bigger ones. And much more ammunition.

No mention of humanitarian assistance.

Was he a true revolutionary? Well, he says he is now. But a year ago, he was actively at work trying to crush the uprising.

Where do the civilians stand in all of this?

Certainly the majority of the masses who have fled Aleppo and many of those who remain there would not candidly have numbered themselves as actively supporting the uprising months ago.

Top of wish list

Guns, heavier weaponry, bullets, shells and rockets are at the top of the wish list for those fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Second comes medical personnel, field hospitals, medicine and equipment.

Some of the latter we know have been getting into Syria, mostly through the smuggling routes on Syria’s borders.

Primarily, those routes run through Turkey. It’s a trickle of support, not a surge, though.

My line of thought fast forwards to Istanbul, and coverage of Hillary Clinton’s Saturday visit that packed in separate talks with the Turkish foreign minister, the prime minister, the president, a selection of refugees, activists, prominent opposition members in exile and the Syrian National Council.

One headline to emerge from those meetings was that Turkey and the US had “agreed to accelerate preparations for the fall of the Syrian president”.

Meaning?

The setting up of a bilateral team to help the opposition while trying to work out which part of a splintered political spread of people could be onside. Or, better still, have some semblance of unity.

Also, providing aid to fleeing refugees and planning contingencies for worst-case scenarios that include a chemical weapons attack.

No-fly zone

Questions put at the obligatory joint news conference raised the idea of a no-fly zone - not for the first time.

It wasn’t ruled out by Clinton, who more than made up for any perceived differences with her NATO ally by repeated gushing thanks for Turkey’s costly operation to provide an undeclared safe haven for more than 55,000 registered refugees and the Free Syrian Army.

Plus an assurance that the US would stand by Turkey in its fight with the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, to ensure it would get no foothold in Northern Syria.

And there was, of course, the announcement of another $5.5 million in humanitarian aid.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, also said a no-fly zone was still on the table, despite the knowledge that Russia and China would be likely to veto any such move.

Clinton said it was going to require more in-depth analysis by the joint working group. It being an election year in the United States, it is unlikely that any unilateral action will be taken. ”Contingency”, “operational planning” and “co-ordination” were the buzz words on Sunday.

Before leaving Istanbul to the surreal feeling of London in Olympic euphoria, my mind went back to the hospital. Political reality is hard to describe to those bereaved or maimed by a war for which initially they had no vested interest.

Daily trauma

I called it a snapshot in a chain of daily trauma. It’s probably more aptly described as a perpetual horror story that, for now, has no end. And it’s playing out every day all over Syria, much of it unseen by media.

The images of the doctors’ pale faces and the children who died take an indelible place in a collage of memory from war zones I have worked in over the past three decades.

Usually, that recurring universal question, where is the help from outside, is eventually answered by meaningful humanitarian aid, with or without military intervention.

For Syria, it’s much more complicated.

And I’m pretty sure that when I return there again soon, I will still stumble to placate or calm the next questioner even more than the last time.

The UN is unable to make a move as long as Russian and Chinese objections continue to exist, and the states that want Assad out of power are engaged in talk of an endgame that doesn’t appear to have been worked out.

And the cleaner in the hospital will still be going through her daily routine of washing away the bloodshed.

Follow Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmon’s on Twitter @SimmJazeera.

Graphic videos stir outrage as #Syria fighting rages

14/08/2012

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Grisly footage of apparent atrocities in Syria triggered outrage Monday, as regime forces bombarded rebel strongholds around Damascus and launched a mass raid in the historic heart of the capital.

The graphic videos posted on YouTube showed what appeared to be rebels callously throwing bodies off a post office building in a city near the northern metropolis of Aleppo, while another showed a man, blindfolded and bound, as his throat was savagely cut.

Fighting was also raging in the northern metropolis of Aleppo, where security forces were advancing on an opposition-held district but where all communications have reportedly been cut.

With the international community deadlocked over how to end 17 months of bloodshed, the opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council appealed for the establishment of no-fly zones.

And in a new blow for embattled President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s top representative at the UN Human Rights Council said he has defected, the latest in a line of senior officials to flee the regime.

International concern is mounting over how to end a conflict that has triggered a major humanitarian crisis and sent hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing, with at least 100 people being killed daily.

Foreign ministers of Muslim states hold talks in Saudi Arabia Monday while the UN Security Council — which has so far failed to reach a consensus on how to stop the bloodshed — meets on Thursday to debate the future of its mission.

In one shocking amateur video posted Monday, several bodies were seen crumpled on the ground outside a post office building in Al-Bab city before another three are hurled from the rooftop as the crowd cries “This is a shabiha,” referring to the pro-government militia.

In another, a group of men forced a blindfolded man, with his hands tied behind his back, down to the ground in Aleppo while an assailant forced what appeared to be a small knife repeatedly across his throat as his blood spurted.

“If these videos are confirmed, such atrocities harm the revolution. They only benefit the regime and the enemies of the revolution,” Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Both sides in the increasingly vicious conflict have been accused of human rights violations as reports of cold-blooded killings mount, although the authenticity of the latest videos could not be verified.

Also Monday, security forces arrested residents in a major operation in the heart of Damascus, including the historic Old City, while shells slammed into rebel strongholds around the capital from before dawn, according to the Britain-based Observatory.

It was biggest operation of its kind in the city since the launch of the uprising against Assad, the Observatory said.

It said 21 people had been arrested and that security forces also swept into a graveyard “under the pretext of searching for weapons”, while other activists said the troops had broken down the doors of shops closed in a show of defiance against the regime.

The Observatory said 50 people had been killed on Monday, including 28 civilians in violence across the country.

In Aleppo Monday, government troops were advancing on the southwestern rebel stronghold of Sukari, security sources in Damascus said. The Observatory meanwhile said opposition fighters attacked a key air force intelligence branch in the western Zahraa district.

Fighting also broke out in the southwestern district of Salaheddin, which rebels fled last week but has seen continued clashes since, it said.

The fate of Aleppo — Syria’s largest city — is seen as potential turning point in the conflict whose outcome will have major repercussions for Syria’s neighbours and the military and geopolitical balance of power in the region

More than 21,000 people have been killed across Syria since Assad’s regime launched its brutal crackdown on dissent, with fighting escalating after the failure of former envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

Abdel Basset Sayda, who heads the opposition Syrian National Council, told AFP that the rebels wanted “two no-fly zones, one in the north, close to the Turkish border, and another in the south, close to the border with Jordan,” in addition to “safe places for refugees and humanitarian corridors.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Turkey at the weekend, after Washington imposed a new round of sanctions on Syria, saying their “number one goal” was to hasten the end of Assad’s regime.

Foreign ministers of Muslim states were meeting Monday in Jeddah ahead of an Islamic summit Tuesday hosted by regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia on the Syria crisis.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said she will visit Syria and Lebanon from Tuesday.

Syrian rebels call for no-fly zone - #Syria

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad need the protection of no-fly zones and safe havens patrolled by foreign forces near the borders with Jordan and Turkey, a Syrian opposition leader said.

Battles raged on Sunday in the northern city of Aleppo, where tanks, artillery and snipers attacked rebels in the Saif al-Dawla district next to the devastated area of Salaheddine.

Syrian civilians desperate to check on their homes pushed into fluid front lines around Salaheddine, even as sniper fire cracked out and rebels warned them to stay away.

Abdelbasset Sida, head of the Syrian National Council, said the United States had realized that the absence of a no-fly zone to counter Assad’s air superiority hindered rebel movements.

He was speaking a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country and Turkey would study a range of possible measures to help Assad’s foes, including a no-fly zone, although she indicated no decisions were necessarily imminent.

“It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and operational planning,” she said after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul.

Though any intervention appears to be a distant prospect, her remarks were nevertheless the closest Washington has come to suggesting direct military action in Syria.

“There are areas that are being liberated,” Sida told Reuters by telephone from Istanbul. “But the problem is the aircraft, in addition to the artillery bombardment, causing killing, destruction.”

He said the establishment of secure areas on the borders with Jordan and Turkey “was an essential thing that would confirm to the regime that its power is diminishing bit by bit”.

A no-fly zone imposed by NATO and Arab allies helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi last year. The West has shown little appetite for repeating any Libya-style action in Syria, and Russia and China strongly oppose any such intervention.

Insurgents have expanded territory they hold near the Turkish border in the last few weeks since the Syrian army gathered its forces for an offensive to regain control of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and economic hub.

TANKS ADVANCE

Rebels who seized swathes of the city three weeks ago have been fighting to hold their ground against troops backed by warplanes, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery.

One rebel commander named Yasir Osman, 35, told Reuters tanks had advanced into Salaheddine, despite attempts to fend them off by 150 fighters he said were short of ammunition.

“Yesterday we encircled the Salaheddine petrol station, which the army has been using as a base, and we killed its commander and took a lot of ammunition and weapons. This ammunition is what we are using to fight today,” he said.

Aleppo and the capital Damascus, where troops snuffed out a rebel offensive last month, are vital to Assad’s struggle for the survival of a ruling system his family and members of his minority Alawite clan have dominated for four decades.

Assad has suffered some painful, but not yet fatal, setbacks away from the battlefield, losing four of his closest aides in a bomb explosion on July 18 and suffering the embarrassment of seeing his prime minister defect and flee to Jordan last week.

Syrian state television showed Assad swearing in Wael al-Halki on Saturday to replace Riyad Hijab, who had only spent two months in the job. Halki is a Sunni Muslim from the southern province of Deraa where the uprising began 17 months ago.

The deputy police commander in the central province of Homs was the latest to join a steady trickle of desertions, said an official in the opposition Higher Revolution Council group.

“Brigadier General Ibrahim al-Jabawi has crossed into Jordan,” the official told Reuters from Amman.

At least 20 people were killed on Sunday in the second day of an armored offensive to retake the northern Damascus suburb of al-Tel from rebels, opposition activists said.

Heavy artillery barrages were hitting the Sunni Muslim town as loyalist troops made a renewed push after an attempt to storm Tel on Saturday was repelled, several activists and Free Syrian Army sources in the area said.

The Arab League said it had postponed a meeting of Arab foreign ministers scheduled for Sunday to discuss the Syria crisis and to select a replacement for Kofi Annan, the United Nations-Arab League envoy, and would set a new date.

Deputy Arab League chief Ahmed Ben Helli told Reuters the meeting was delayed because of a minor operation undergone by Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are the leading regional supporters of the Syrian opposition. Assad’s main backers are Iran and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah movement.

By Hadeel Al Shalchi

ALEPPO, Syria | Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:46am EDT

Syrian rebels need no-fly zone-opposition leader #Syria

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad need the protection of foreign-guarded no-fly zones and safe havens near the borders with Jordan and Turkey, a Syrian opposition leader said on Sunday.

Battles raged on in the northern city of Aleppo, where tanks, artillery and snipers attacked rebels in the Saif al-Dawla district next to the devastated area of Salaheddine.

Abdelbasset Sida, head of the Syrian National Council, said the United States had realized that the absence of a no-fly zone to counter Assad’s air superiority hindered rebel movements.

He was speaking a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country and Turkey would study a range of possible measures to help Assad’s foes, including a no-fly zone, although she indicated no decisions were necessarily imminent.

“It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and operational planning,” she said after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul.

Though any intervention appears to be a distant prospect, her remarks were nevertheless the closest Washington has come to suggesting direct military action in Syria.

“There are areas that are being liberated,” Sida told Reuters by telephone from Istanbul. “But the problem is the aircraft, in addition to the artillery bombardment, causing killing, destruction.”

He said the establishment of secure areas on the borders with Jordan and Turkey “was an essential thing that would confirm to the regime that its power is diminishing bit by bit”.

A no-fly zone imposed by NATO and Arab allies helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi last year. The West has shown little appetite for repeating any Libya-style action in Syria, and Russia and China strongly oppose any such intervention.

TANKS ADVANCE

Insurgents have expanded territory they hold near the Turkish border in the last few weeks since the Syrian army gathered its forces for an offensive to regain control of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and economic hub.

Rebels who seized swathes of the city three weeks ago have been fighting to hold their ground against troops backed by warplanes, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery.

One rebel commander named Yasir Osman, 35, told Reuters tanks had advanced into Salaheddine, despite attempts to fend them off by 150 fighters he said were short of ammunition.

“Yesterday we encircled the Salaheddine petrol station, which the army has been using as a base and we killed its commander and took a lot of ammunition and weapons. This ammunition is what we are using fight today,” he said.

Osman said army tanks had thrust past a roundabout in Salaheddine visited by a Reuters team on Saturday after accompanying rebels on a mazy route through holes punched in apartment walls to create a passage safe from army snipers.

After emerging at the roundabout, sniper fire started up, then a tank could be heard rumbling in the next street. “Tank, tank, tank,” one man yelled.

Quickly, a rebel shifted a rocket-propelled grenade over his shoulder and squatted on the rubble-strewn ground to fire, but minutes later, a tank shell exploded against a nearby building.

Rebels fired another RPG, answered with a rain of mortar bombs filling the sky with smoke and shrapnel. “They’re going to send more mortars. Hide in the doorway,” one rebel screamed.

The uneven battle showed the disparity in firepower between Assad’s forces and their outgunned opponents.

ASSAD SWEARS IN NEW PREMIER

Aleppo and the capital Damascus, where troops snuffed out a rebel offensive last month, are vital to Assad’s struggle for the survival of a ruling system his family and members of his minority Alawite clan have dominated for four decades.

Assad has suffered some painful, but not yet fatal, setbacks away from the battlefield, losing four of his closest aides in a bomb explosion on July 18 and suffering the embarrassment of seeing his prime minister defect and flee to Jordan last week.

Syrian state television showed Assad swearing in Wael al-Halki on Saturday to replace Riyad Hijab, who had only spent two months in the job. Halki is a Sunni Muslim from the southern province of Deraa where the uprising began 17 months ago.

The deputy police commander in the central province of Homs was the latest to join a steady trickle of desertions, said an official in the opposition Higher Revolution Council group.

“Brigadier General Ibrahim al-Jabawi has crossed into Jordan,” the official told Reuters from Amman.

Ali Abbas, a journalist for the state news agency SANA, was killed on Saturday night by what the agency called “an armed terrorist group”, referring to anti-Assad rebels.

At least 11 people were killed the same day when the military mounted an armored attack to try to dislodge rebels from al-Tel, a northern suburb of Damascus, activists said.

More than 160 Syrians, including 116 civilians, were killed across the country on Saturday, the London-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

The Arab League said it had postponed a meeting of Arab foreign ministers scheduled for Sunday to discuss the Syria crisis and to select a replacement for Kofi Annan, the United Nations-Arab League envoy, and would set a new date.

Deputy Arab League chief Ahmed Ben Helli told Reuters the meeting was delayed because of a minor operation undergone by Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are the leading regional supporters of the Syrian opposition. Assad’s main backers are Iran and Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah movement.

(13/07/2012) #Syria - Speech by Brigadier General Ahmed Barre in response to the Tremseh massacre (with translation):

RIP our martyrs , the dignity and freedom martyrs.
Brave men, all the heroes of syria .. the time for delays have expired. We should all be in a united field of action. The criminal corrupted regime has gotten deeper and deeper in killings and destruction. Its crimes cover all of Syria and has extended to neighbouring countries, using all kinds of murderous equipment: aviation , artilleries, tanks and using the internationally prohibited, cluster weapons against unarmed civilians .
I appeal to the international community and say: enough delays, you should take a decisive resolution under chapter 7 point 42 that allows military action and NFZ ,or leave us, and god will be with us.
countries that are supporting the regime are the killers of our people, headed by Russia that is supporting the regime with weapons and international positions.
We say to the whole world, aren’t these massacres enough ?! And finally, regarding the Treysseh massacre which was committed by (regime gangs) regime shabiha that resulted in the killing of innocent people, women and children .
We confirm that FSA wasn’t present in this village, and if there would be anyone from the FSA, the regime would not dare commit this massacre .
I promise all people and the FSA, that we will avenge our martyrs and our people and you will see, god willing, what will relieve your hearts ( good news ) .
I appeal to my military brothers who are standing in a foggy position, to act according to their conscience. The victims are their people. I ask, people who are abroad and inside syria to join the FSA. Enough of being afraid and hesitant.
We confirm to our people that we will have no mercy for those who are killing our people no matter who they are.

Translated by: Syrian Freedom Livestream

Syrian Rebels Carve Buffer Zone Near Turkish Border #Syria

More than 35,000 Syrians have sought shelter in Turkey. Most of the refugees at the Kilis refugee camp in southern Turkey are women and children.

More than 35,000 Syrians have sought shelter in Turkey. Most of the refugees at the Kilis refugee camp in southern Turkey are women and children.

July 10, 2012

At this isolated part of the Turkish border, there’s just one Turkish guard, a fence and, beyond an olive grove, Syria.

The Syrian side is just a short walk, perhaps 10 minutes. The area looks completely calm and there is no sign of the Syrian military.

Abu Amar, a rebel who has fought in Syria for five weeks, walked across this field from the Syrian village of Atma, which is now serving as a rebel headquarters. He says much of the northwestern province of Idlib is now controlled by the rebels, and it has become easy to move back and forth between Syria and Turkey here.

“Actually we have a buffer zone now. I mean it’s not declared by the Turkish government,” he says. “People transport arms freely. The Turks are closing their eyes. We bring our wounded people here; we go back and forth and nobody bothers us at all.”

There are now more than 35,000 Syrian refugees living in camps inside Turkey, along the Syrian border, with several hundred more arriving every day. As the fighting in Syria escalates, these camps have become logistic bases for rebel fighters.

Syrian Troops Stay Away From Border

In June, Turkey moved anti-aircraft guns along its southern border after Syria shot down a Turkish jet over the Mediterranean. The effect has been the creation of a kind of no-fly zone for Syrian army helicopters that were patrolling the border. It is much safer now — for the rebels in northern Syria — and for Syrians who live in border camps just inside Turkey.

Refugee camp doesn’t quite describe the Kilis camp. It’s more like a city made up of shipping containers and can house 12,000 people. There are banks, schools and food markets, paid for and protected by the Turkish government.

When many of these Syrians first left their country, the trip was dangerous and long. Now, the picture is much different. The traffic goes both ways, and it’s a relatively safe journey.

Haj Nasr, who invites us to his camp home, says he now goes to northern Syria a couple times a week.

AFP/AFP/Getty Images

A member of the Free Syrian Army stands near a medieval castle outside Homs, a flashpoint for much of the recent fighting, last month. The Syrian army continues to wage offensives against the rebels in many places, but the rebels say they can move back and forth between northwest Syria and southern Turkey.

“We go back to bring families, children,” he says.

He has become a logistics chief for the rebels in his village. When a Syrian government soldier defects, Nasr gets a call.

“We took them to a safe place. They will take some rest and go back to the fight [for the rebels],” he says.

A Changed Atmosphere

Mahmoud Mosa, a former headmaster of a school in northern Syria, joins the conversation, saying it was too dangerous to go back into Syria for the past year. But then about a month ago, he walked right in.

Asked if the Syrian army is getting weaker, he says, “Yes, because I was there [in northern Syria]. I know the army is weaker and weaker.”

Mosa is a teacher not a fighter. He gathers data for Western human rights organizations documenting atrocities and deaths. He says he hopes leaders of the Assad regime will eventually be put on trial. He confirms that rebels are in control in some northern areas, but that it’s not yet time to take his family home.

“I want my children to stay here, it’s safer for them, this camp is for families,” Mosa says. “But young men can do something inside [Syria].”

The population in the camp is mostly women and children. The classrooms are packed, with Turkish teachers guiding the lessons. When the kindergarten students are asked to draw, they draw scenes of war that they witnessed in their homeland.

Asked where they’re from, they rattle off places that have been hardest hit by the Syrian army: Homs, Jisr al-Shughour, Khirbet al-Jouz.

At their home, Mosa and his children watch a Turkish soap opera while huddled near a fan to keep cool in the dry summer heat.

Rebels Operate More Freely

Mosa says the rebel operation — the flow of arms and medical care — has improved in recent weeks. The camp has become a rear base for the fight against the regime.

“They are more organized,” he says of the rebels. “They come here to see their children and families every week, every 10 days, and then they go back to Syria,” he says.

Still, the Syrian army is waging a punishing offensive across the rest of the country. The undeclared safe zone in the north remains a limited success. So far, the rebels have been unable to expand the territory under their control.

US military completes planning for #Syria

U.S. military completes planning for Syria

By Barbara Starr

The U.S. military has completed its own planning for how American troops would conduct a variety of operations against Syria, or to assist neighboring countries in the event action was ordered, officials tell CNN.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has finalized its assessment of what types of units would be needed, how many troops, and even the cost of certain potential operations, officials tell CNN.

The planning comes as the U.S. has become increasingly concerned that the violence in Syria is verging on civil war. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the recent series of bombings have heightened the worry.

Dempsey said it reminded him of the escalating violence during the Iraq war.

The violence “gives us all pause that have been in Iraq and seen how these issues become sectarian and then they become civil wars and then they become very difficult to resolve,” Dempsey told CNN in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

A senior U.S. official said the developments have been a matter of discussion in the Obama administration.

“There is a sense that if the sectarian violence in Syria grows, it could be worse than what we saw in Iraq,” the official said.

The military planning includes a scenario for a no-fly zone as well as protecting chemical and biological sites. Officials say all the scenarios would be difficult to enact and involve large numbers of U.S. troops and extended operations.

The planning, officials insist, is being done protectively and there have been no orders for any action from the White House.

The U.S. Navy is maintaining a presence of three surface combatants and a submarine in the eastern Mediterranean to conduct electronic surveillance and reconnaissance on the Syrian regime, a senior Pentagon official said. The official emphasized that the U.S. routinely maintains this type of naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, but acknowledged the current focus is on Syria.

The United States, Britain and France have all been discussing contingency scenarios, potential training and sharing of intelligence about what is happening in Syria with neighboring countries including Jordan, Turkey and Israel. But it is Jordan, so far, that is most seeking the help because of its relatively small military and potential need for outside help if unrest in southern Syria were to impact Jordan’s security.

U.S. special forces are training and advising Jordanian troops on a range of specific military tasks they might need to undertake if unrest in Syria spills over into Jordan or poses a threat to that country, three Defense Department officials told CNN. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the training. Jordanian officials also are refusing to publicly confirm details, but a senior Middle Eastern government official also confirmed details to CNN.

The U.S. has been training in Jordan using mainly special operations forces under a program called Joint Combined Exchange Training, which sends troops overseas to train foreign soldiers and units in specific missions. Jordan’s major security concern is that if the Syrian regime were to suddenly collapse, then it would face unrest on its northern border, as well as the possibility of large refugee flows, weapons smuggling into Jordan, and potential disarray in Syria’s chemical and biological weapons complex. Jordan also is considering how and where to potentially set up humanitarian assistance bases inside its borders, another matter the U.S. is advising it on.

The Jordanians do not believe regime of Bashir al-Assad would attack them. But they have made it clear to the United States they want the training so they are ready to move quickly if any scenario develops that could destabilize their country, which is already reeling politically from a collapsing economy. While there’s no formal agreement, one of the U.S. officials said the U.S. would come to the defense and support of Jordan in the event any of the Syria scenarios pose a challenge.

While there is no current scenario for putting U.S. troops on the ground in Jordan or Syria, the U.S. could wind up providing air support to move Jordanian troops to the border. In addition, American forces could provide a wide range of intelligence and surveillance capabilities to Jordan so they would have up-to-date information on what is happening on the Syrian side of their border region. In one of the most extreme scenarios, a small unit of Jordanian troops could move into Syria to protect a chemical or biological weapons site.

U.S. satellites are monitoring the chemical and biological weapons sites around the clock, and so far “there is no reason to believe they are not secure,” one of the U.S. officials said.

The U.S. believes the facilities are guarded by some of the most elite Alawite troops loyal to al-Assad. But the official noted that the opposition forces appear to be gaining strength in some areas, and that the United States, Jordan and the allies are concerned that as the amount of al-Assad controlled territory shrinks, some of those critical facilities could be open to attacks, pilfering or efforts by terrorist groups to buy material.

“This is getting a fair amount of attention,” another U.S. official told CNN. Also discussed with Jordanian forces was the possible need for U.S. chemical and biological weapons detecting equipment, the official said.

The overall assessment by the U.S. is that in the event some action had to be taken to secure Syrian chemical, biological or weapons facilities, troops from some country would have to enter Syria in a matter of hours.

This latest training is said to be separate from the recent multinational “Eager Lion 2012” training exercise that took place in Jordan.

During that exercise, U.S. and Jordanian troops also practiced many of the same scenarios, but the JCET training is much more focused, according to the officials.

U.N.: More than 8,000 have been killed in Syrian crisis #Syria

By the CNN Wire Staff

March 13, 2012 — Updated 1115 GMT (1915 HKT)

(CNN) — Opposition activists have declared Tuesday a day of mourning across Syria as the death toll from a year of government attacks escalates.

More than 8,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, including many women and children, said Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the U.N. General Assembly. Opposition activists have put the toll at more than 9,000.

“Violations of human rights are widespread and systematic,” Al-Nasser said Monday. “The international community has a responsibility to act.”

But how to act remains a point of contention.

The opposition Syrian National Council on Monday called for urgent international military intervention to help stop the growing violence and to protect civilians.

The council, an umbrella group that includes opposition members abroad as well as dissidents inside Syria, also demanded a no-fly zone across the country and a “speedy operation” to arm the Free Syrian Army, rebel fighters made up primarily of defectors from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

“Sympathy messages are no longer enough. … What is needed is actions on (the) ground and decisions and measures against (al-Assad’s) gangs,” the group said after a meeting in Turkey.

Violence erupted once again Tuesday, with at least 16 people killed across the country, opposition activists said.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights said eight people were killed in Homs, including five from shelling in the Jib al-Jandali neighborhood.

Yousuf, a resident and opposition activist in Homs, described incessant bombings across the city Tuesday.

“There have been over 100 explosions heard in Homs this morning caused by the continuous tank shelling and rockets” in several neighborhoods, said Yousuf, who is not being fully identified for safety reasons.

So far, diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict have failed to stop the killing.

The U.N. Security Council on Monday took up the issue of Syria again, with the United States and Britain pushing for quick action on a resolution and Russia warning against blaming just one side.

All parties called for an immediate end to the violence, even as an opposition group said that dozens of women and children in Homs had been stabbed and burned to death over the weekend.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the Security Council meeting that “an immediate end of violence as the No. 1 priority.” But he cited reports that members of al Qaeda are responsible for fomenting violence in Syria and said the Free Syrian Army is also to blame.

Still, the Russian foreign minister described a cease-fire in Syria as “an absolute must.”

Lavrov said he hoped last weekend’s meetings between al-Assad and Kofi Annan, the U.N. special envoy to Syria, “would succeed in developing some ideas which would make it possible for us to agree on how to stop the bloodshed immediately, how to stop the fighting, irrespective of the source of the violence.”

For others at the U.N. meeting, the source of the violence was not in doubt.

“The United States believes in the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all member states, but we do not believe that sovereignty offers a grant of immunity when governments massacre their own people,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters.

In an acknowledgment that Russia and China last month vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned al-Assad and called on him to step aside, Clinton called on “all nations, even those who have previously blocked our efforts,” to speak with one voice in calling for the killings of civilians to end and a transition to democracy to begin.

Valerie Amos, U.N. humanitarian chief, described the Syria situation as “clear deadlock.”

Amos said she recently returned from a refugee camp across Syria’s border with Turkey, where she spoke with displaced Syrians “who were very angry about what’s happening in Syria and being abandoned by the international community.”

About 30,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring countries in the past year, according to Panos Moumtzis, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ coordinator for Syrian refugees.

But even those fleeing to countries such as Turkey and Lebanon could face landmines, according to Human Rights Watch.

Syrian forces have placed landmines near the borders with Turkey and Lebanon in recent weeks and months, the group said Tuesday, citing witnesses and Syrian deminers.

“The Syrian army should cease its use of antipersonnel landmines and recognize that planting this internationally banned weapon will hurt Syrians for years to come,” Human Rights Watch said. “Both antipersonnel and antivehicle mines of Soviet/Russian origin have been cleared by deminers associated with the opposition.”

While the Syrian regime continues blaming the country’s violence on “armed terrorist groups,” opposition activists said they will mourn those who died during a day of remembrance Tuesday.

“Stores should remain closed; work, universities, and schools should not be attended; and streets should be blocked,” said the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition activist network. “We urge everyone to participate, even if only symbolically, by wearing black ribbons, raising black flags, or wearing black.”

Also Tuesday, Annan will meet with opposition members in Turkey.

CNN cannot independently confirm reports of casualties or attacks in Syria because the government has severely restricted the access of international journalists.

But most of the reports from inside Syria indicate the regime is slaughtering civilians to wipe out dissidents seeking al-Assad’s ouster. The al-Assad family has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

CNN’s Saad Abedine, Amir Ahmed, Kareem Khadder, Salma Abdelaziz and Holly Yan contributed to this report.

#Syria’n president in control, with ‘formidable’ power: U.S. intelligence officials

Saturday, 10 March 2012

A child holds up a placard during a protest against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers at Al-Qusour in Homs. The placard reads: “To the heroic Syrian people, do not expect anything from the United Nations. We learned our lesson.” (Reuters)

By Al Arabiya

Senior U.S. intelligence officials described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as firmly in control and willing to unleash one of the region’s formidable militaries to secure position, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The senior officials, who spoke to The Washington Post on condition of anonymity, said that Assad’s inner circle is “remaining steadfast,” with little indication that senior figures in the regime are inclined to defect, despite U.S. government’s efforts and its allies to impose sanctions and other measures to create a wave of defections.

On Thursday, leader of the opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), Burhan Ghalioun, welcomed the defection of the highest civilian official, Syria’s deputy oil minister. Contrary to the U.S. senior officials’ accounts, Ghalioun said that he expects more government officials and politicians to defect.

Assad in charge

Assad “is very much in charge,” a senior U.S. intelligence official responsible for tracking the conflict told the newspaper, adding that Assad and his inner circle seem convinced that the rebellion is being driven by external foes and that they are equipped to withstand all but a large-scale military intervention.

“That leadership is going to fight very hard,” one of the officials said. Over the long term, “the odds are against them,” he said, “but they are going to fight very hard.”

The intelligence officials described Syria as a formidable military power, with 330,000 active-duty soldiers, surveillance drones supplied by Iran and a dense network of air defense installations that would make it difficult for the United States or other powers to establish a no-fly zone.

“This is an army that was built for a land war with the Israelis,” said another official. After the regime hesitated to attack civilian population centers earlier in the conflict, its “restraint . . . has been lifted,” the official added.

Meanwhile, the officials described the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as a loosely organized group with few links to the political opposition. They said there is an estimated of 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers who have defected, form the bulk of FSA.

According to them, the gravest assault against Assad regime was by Al-Qaeda, and that the Islamist militant group is trying to infiltrate quietly into the opposition.

Ghalioun on Friday said that SNC is receiving financial support and weapons from foreign governments. “The priority now is to break the killing arm of the Syrian regime and topple Bashar al-Assad and the militia that is now ruling Syria,” he added.

His announcement came amid an international atmosphere that shuns any military intervention in Syria even by countries that called on Assad to cede power.

Why the world isn’t intervening in #Syria

Syrians in the city of Idlib demonstrate Friday against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

(CNN) — As the death toll grows in Syria, so do the desperate pleas for help.

“What is the world waiting for?” asked one Syrian woman this week while holed up in a makeshift bomb shelter with her sick son. “For us to die of hunger and fear?”

The United States, the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey are all enforcing sanctions against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, but the violence has only worsened in recent weeks. Government forces have pounded Homs and other anti-Assad strongholds, devastating homes and leaving many people dead or wounded.

That has only intensified the fierce debate over whether the international community should be doing more to stop the bloodshed. Many have mentioned arming the opposition or providing the same kind of air support that was given to Libyan rebels last year.

But there is a hesitancy right now to intervene militarily, and here are some of the major reasons why:

There is no international consensus.
This is the most obvious hurdle. Last year, the U.N. Security Council voted to impose a no-fly zone in Libya and use “all necessary measures” to protect its people from Moammar Gadhafi.

But the council is not unified on Syria. China and Russia, two Syrian allies, vetoed a resolution earlier this month that would have condemned the Syrian regime and provided legitimacy for a Libya-like intervention if necessary.

“The Chinese and Russians are dead set against (intervention),” said CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in a recent blog post. “So it couldn’t happen through the United Nations. There would be effectively a kind of unilateral or NATO operation with no international legitimacy.”

Nobody seems to want to go it alone on this one, at least not yet. But the idea isn’t without its supporters. A group of prominent U.S. conservatives, for example, recently called for the Obama administration to “take immediate action” despite the vetoes.

That could be the worst possible thing to do, according to Rami Khouri, who runs the international affairs program at the American University in Beirut.

“I think foreign military intervention would probably be catastrophic, and to hear Americans suggest this is to think back what they did in Iraq and what an extraordinary catastrophe that has been,” Khouri said on “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

We don’t know the opposition well enough.
Many questions still surround the Syrian opposition. Who’s in charge? Are they unified? Are they strong enough to mount a serious challenge to al-Assad’s regime? Can they be trusted?

“Until we’re a lot clearer about who they are and what they are, I think it would be premature to talk about arming them,” U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Zakaria in a recent interview.

In Libya, rebels operated out of a large base in Benghazi, an anti-Gadhafi stronghold. The rebels in Syria don’t have anything like that. They don’t control much territory at all.

“They have tiny little enclaves that we’re seeing being shelled right now,” said CNN’s Nic Robertson, who visited the country a few weeks ago.

Many just feel that it is just too risky to give weapons and support to what is still an uncertain entity.

“Until the Syrian opposition truly unifies, gains some credibility in the eyes of the Syrian people and effectively coordinates … the Syrian uprising is not likely to go very far,” wrote Bilal Y. Saab, a visiting fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Al-Assad still has strong support in his country.
Syria is very much divided.

“Al-Assad still has 20% to 30% support of the population,” Robertson said. “They still buy his message that he is fighting terrorist groups who are backed by an international media conspiracy.”

Many of al-Assad’s supporters are Christians and Alawites, the Shiite sect that he belongs to. Most of the country’s rebels are Sunni Muslims.

“The message that Assad sells his people is that you’re only going to be safe under me,” Robertson said. “The Sunni majority, if they get power, (will force you) out of your homes and businesses.”

Perhaps most importantly, al-Assad still has the support of Syria’s army — one that is much stronger, better equipped and more unified than the one in Libya.

All of this makes military intervention very difficult.

“As long as Damascus, Aleppo, most mosques, schools and the bulk of the armed forces support (al-Assad), we would be mistaken to underestimate the risks of an all-out war, sectarian bloodshed and rival tribal fighting,” said Ed Husain, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Geography is an issue.
There are geographical concerns that have to be taken into account when considering military intervention in Syria.

Libya was relatively easy last year. Most targets were close to the Mediterranean coast and NATO air bases in Italy.

But Syria is landlocked, and neighboring countries probably won’t be very accommodating for supplies, troops or anything else that might be needed in the mission.

Iraq and Lebanon have their own sectarian issues, writes CNN’s Tim Lister. Jordan would likely be hesitant to help, too, and Israel is out of the question. Turkey would be the most likely staging ground, but they have risks to consider as well.

Topography also is a concern, Lister says. Syria is much more mountainous than Libya, and that would make fighting — not to mention travel — much harder.

Some believe sanctions could still work.
The U.S. isn’t taking any long-term options off the table, but right now it’s committed to clamping down with tougher sanctions, not arming the opposition.

“Our strong preference is not to fuel what has the potential to become a full-blown civil war,” said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Rice is optimistic that the al-Assad regime is on its last legs, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “the pressure is increasing, the economy is crumbling.”

The hope is that economic difficulties will eventually turn more of the Syrian people, including its soldiers, against al-Assad.

“The tipping point, I believe, is the social balance of forces inside Syria,” said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Study Center at the London School of Economics. “Once the middle class fully joins the uprising, Assad is a goner.”

Zakaria agrees that economics could become a major problem for the Syrian regime.

“It’s not like Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It can’t bribe its people. It doesn’t have that kind of ability even to bribe the army.

“Eventually, they’re going to face real cash shortfalls. And what that means going forward is a really interesting question. This is not a regime that can outlive the sanctions and all this pressure unendingly. They have got one source of cash right now: Iran. And that, too, is drying up.”

Perhaps the key question to ask right now is, how long do you wait? With people dying every day, when do you say enough is enough and give up on sanctions?

“Today, the death toll is approaching 8,000, with 60,000 detained and 20,000 missing,” a Syrian resistance leader said in a plea posted to CNN.com last week. “When will it be the right time to help us? What other option is there that hasn’t been tried yet?”