The UN General Assembly on Wednesday condemned the Syrian government’s “escalation” of the country’s war and backed the role of the opposition coalition in transition talks.

But Russia, Syria’s key diplomatic ally, fiercely opposed the resolution, branding it a potential obstacle to peace negotiations expected to be held in Geneva next month.

And only 107 countries in the 193-member assembly backed the text, down from 133 when the last Syria vote was held in August.

The United States, Britain and France joined Arab countries in supporting the resolution which expressed “outrage at the rapidly increasing death toll,” now estimated at more than 80,000 by Syrian activists.

Russia, China, Syria, Iran and North Korea were among 12 countries to oppose the resolution. Fifty-nine countries, including Brazil, South Africa, India and Indonesia abstained.

The assembly “strongly condemns the continued escalation in the use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons”, including “ballistic missiles” against civilians, said the resolution, which was drawn up by Qatar and other Arab states.

On political efforts to end the war, the assembly demanded all sides work to “implement rapidly” a communique agreed by the major powers in Geneva in June last year laying out the steps toward a transitional government.

The resolution welcomed the opposition Syrian National Coalition “as effective representative interlocutors needed for a transition.” This phrase infuriated Russia which said it would encourage the opposition to step up “armed actions” against the Syrian government.

The Arab League has recognized the coalition as Syria’s legitimate government. There was no recognition in the UN text but Arab states are said to be planning moves to get the coalition into Syria’s UN seat later this year.

Russia and the United States agreed to press for a new international conference on the war which is expected to be held in Geneva next month. Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin wrote to all 193 UN members ahead of the vote to slam the resolution as “one-sided and biased”.

Russia and China have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions, proposed by western nations, aiming to step up pressure on President Bashar al-Assad over the conflict.

And Western nations strongly backed the new assembly resolution.

“The consequences of this crisis are growing more dire not only within Syria, but across the region,” said deputy US ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who added that backing the resolution was in line with efforts to set up a peace conference.

France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud said the resolution would help the opposition to unite for any peace conference.

“This is a substantive draft that reflects the horrific situation on the ground and pushes for a political solution,” said Germany’s UN ambassador Peter Wittig.

Qatar’s UN ambassador Meshal Hamad Al-Thani called the resolution “fair and balanced” but the text was slammed by Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari as an attempt “to escalate the crisis and fuel violence in Syria.”

The UN assembly passed a resolution condemning Syria in August last year with 133 countries in favour, 12 votes against and 31 abstentions.

Diplomats said the lower number voting in favor this time reflected the international divisions over Syria and doubts about how it can be ended.

The resolution called for “urgent” international financing to help countries struggling with more than 1.4 million Syrian refugees. Jordan in particular has said the refugees are now a threat to its stability.

AFP - 05/15/2013

06/12/12

Putin said new ideas emerged at talks in Turkey

* Spokesman says unclear whether ideas acceptable to Syrians

* Russia says it opposes forced removal of Assad

By Alexei Anishchuk

ASHGABAT, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Russian and Turkish diplomats will soon start working on new ideas for ending the conflict in Syria which emerged in talks between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Putin and Erdogan agreed to differ on Syria at Monday’s talks in Istanbul but Russia has distanced itself from President Bashar al-Assad and tried to position itself for his potential exit from power.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed diplomats would discuss what Putin said were “some new, fresh ideas” but gave no details.

“It was agreed that these ideas will be discussed in more detail by our diplomats in the very near future, in order to understand how viable they are and how great their potential to resolve (the Syrian crisis),” Peskov said.

“It is still unclear to what degree they might be acceptable to the sides in Syria itself,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.

Russia has shielded Assad by blocking, along with China, three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at pushing him out or pressing him to end violence that has killed more than 40,000 people since a crackdown on protests began in March 2011.

Turkey - worried about Syria’s chemical weapons, a growing refugee crisis, and Syrian support for Kurdish militants - has backed the Syrian opposition and led calls for international action against Assad.

After talks with Erdogan, Putin said Russia and Turkey still disagreed about how to end the crisis in Syria.

Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow is not insisting Assad remain in power, but that his fate must not be decided by foreign governments or other external forces, including the U.N. Security Council.

“The exit or the continuation of the Assad regime is absolutely not a must,” Peskov said.

“But we cannot say, sitting in Ankara or London or Qatar, that Assad must go. That cannot be, it is not viable - such decisions could potentially lead to a worsening of the situation,” he said.

Putin, who returned to the presidency in May, has made Syria a showcase of what he says is the determination to protect the principle of non-intervention in sovereign states.

Russia has warned the West it would not allow a repeat in Syria of last year’s events in Libya, where NATO military intervention helped rebels to topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

But the talk of considering fresh ideas suggested Russia is looking for ways to end the diplomatic deadlock or at least cast itself as part of a solution, and position itself for the possibility of Assad’s exit.

“Russians are now looking beyond Assad,” said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank.

“I don’t think they will change their position on the basic issues such as ‘regime change’ or outside intervention but I think they will be looking at the day after, what happens when the government falls,” he said.

Putin’s Middle East affairs envoy, Mikhail Bogdanov, met the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the request of the United States on Tuesday and the British ambassador on Wednesday, Russian’s Foreign Ministry said. The focus was on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian situation but details were not announced.

Russia has stepped up meetings with Syrian opposition groups, seemingly hedging its bets.

“I would not rule out that behind the scenes, (Russia) could be trying to find a way to solve ‘the Assad problem’,” a Western diplomat said.

That could be easier said than done.

“Russia’s influence over Assad has been widely exaggerated,” Trenin said. “The Russians have very unfortunately manoeuvred themselves into a situation in which they are considered to be responsible for Assad without any real influence over him.”

18/11/12

Iran held a conference to reconcile Syria’s government with opposition factions and end the country’s civil war, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The report said the one-day meeting on Sunday of some 200 opposition members and Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar could be a step toward a future, broad-based opposition gathering.

The report did not say if any of Syria’s major rebel or exile groups had attended. Most of those groups distrust Iran, a key ally of their adversary President Bashar Assad.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned at the opening of the meeting that providing opposition groups with heavy arms could put the entire region at risk of “organized terrorism.”

He said that arming Assad’s opponents, as Damascus accuses Qatar and Saudi Arabia of doing, violates international law and principles of non-intervention in countries’ domestic affairs.

Salehi reiterated Iran’s traditional stance on Syria, blaming “foreign intervention and irresponsible armed groups” for the country’s uprising. He said Iran supports peaceful solutions to end the crisis.

The conference is seen as a reaction to last week’s meeting in Qatar in which opposition groups formed an umbrella coalition to topple Assad.

In August, Iran held a previous conference on the Syria conflict, attended by representatives of 30 countries. The Islamic Republic has supported Assad in the 20-month uprising, repeatedly accusing the West and Israel of instigating the conflicts

(Reuters) - Syria’s splintered opposition factions started talks in Qatar on Sunday on a common front to gain international respect and recognition and, crucially, better weapons for their quest to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

It was the first concerted attempt to meld opposition groups based abroad and align them with rebels fighting in Syria, to help end a 19-month-old conflict that has killed more than 32,000 people, devastated swathes of the major Arab country and threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration.

But there were early signs the discussions in Doha, the capital of Qatar, would not go smoothly.

Tensions between Islamists and secularists as well as between those inside Syria and opposition figures based abroad have thwarted prior attempts to forge a united opposition.

Four days of talks in Doha are anticipated with the goal of overhauling and broadening the Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest of the overseas-based opposition groups, from some 300 members to 400.

Opposition leaders hoped this would pave the way to a follow-up meeting in Doha on Thursday bringing in other opposition factions with the goal of creating an anti-Assad coalition and ending months of political and personal infighting.

“The main aim is to expand the council to include more of the social and political components. There will be new forces in the SNC,” Abdulbaset Sieda, current leader of the Syrian National Council, told reporters in Doha ahead of the meeting.

He said the meetings will also elect a new executive committee and leader for the SNC, criticized in the past over perceptions of domination by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The United States called last week for an overhaul of the opposition’s leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the SNC and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the meeting in Qatar would be an opportunity to establish a credible opposition.

Internal feuding, a lack of cooperation between leaders abroad and fighters in Syria and the rising clout of autonomous Muslim militants in rebel ranks have deterred Western powers keen to see Assad gone from offering more than moral support.

Influential opposition figure Riad Seif has proposed a structure melding the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other insurgent units alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.

On Sunday, Seif said the initiative has won the backing of “12 key countries” but would not specify which ones. He said if a decision on the new leadership was made on Thursday, “maybe 100 countries will recognize this new leadership as the legitimate and only representative of the Syrians.”

Those countries would convene a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Morocco to support the new elected group, he said.

IMPROVING PITCH FOR ARMS

Western, Turkish and Arab recognition of the new opposition structure, Seif said in an interview with Reuters last week, will help channel anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels and “decide the battle”.

Western diplomats based in the Middle East said Washington was supporting an initiative by Seif, which could effectively lessen the sway of the SNC. But SNC leaders criticized what they saw as foreign meddling in the opposition’s affairs.

“Syrians are the ones who choose their leadership… There were some (foreign) powers who tried to interfere but I think they backed down,” Sieda said.

Opposition sources said the success of the proposal would depend partly on the degree to which he could resist pressure from the SNC to pack the new assembly proposed by Seif with its members.

Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the assembly proposed by Seif should complement the SNC structure but not replace it.

“We will succeed if we make (the initiative) an operation room for the opposition,” he said, adding that the SNC has 15 seats in the assembly proposed by Seif, and wants to increase that to around 22 seats.

SNC leaders said Seif’s proposal would suffer if it were perceived as nothing more than a replacement for the SNC.

“We witnessed many trials to bypass the SNC but they all failed and we think that any (new) attempt to bypass the SNC will also fail,” veteran opposition figure George Sabra told Reuters.

“There is a fear among some that it (the initiative) would be a substitute for the council… and this could create new disagreements between the Syrians that we don’t need.”

Others did not expect a final agreement on Thursday.

“We did not say we are rejecting it and we did not accept it. We are talking,” Sieda said.

“We welcome a consultative meeting for the powers on the ground and the political factions in the Syrian opposition.”

(Additional reporting by Khaled Oweis in Amman; Editing by Stephen Powell)

(CNN) — Syria’s government is waging “a war of extermination” against its own people, the prime minister of Qatar said Tuesday, according to state media, hours after a failed four-day ceasefire during a Muslim holiday left hundreds dead.

In strongly worded comments to the Al Jazeera Arabic network, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani also accused foreign powers of standing by while President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out a slaughter.

“What is happening in Syria is not a civil war but a genocide, a war of extermination with a license to kill by the Syrian government and the international community,” he said, according to the official Qatar News Agency.

Al Thani, who’s also Qatar’s foreign minister, said he had confidence in U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi — but that his country did not trust Al-Assad’s government.

Brahimi had pushed for government forces and rebels to stop fighting during Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday that began Friday and ended Monday. But it soon became clear the violence was continuing almost unabated.

Syria rebels, Kurdish militia discuss cease-fire

“When the Syrian government announced that it would comply with the truce, it also announced that its military would respond to anything that took place on the ground, and it was clear from this rhetoric that there was no truce,” said Al Thani, according to QNA.

“Everyone knows what the solution is and what the Syrian people want. Everything that is happening now is a waste of time and just buying time to kill the Syrian people and to destroy the Syrian infrastructure.”

The prime minister said he sensed “a bigger awakening” among Arab nations and in the wider international community over the crisis in Syria, despite moves by Russia and China to block tougher U.N. Security Council action. But, he said, a “paralysis” would prevent action until after the outcome of the U.S. elections.

A group that documents the names of those killed in Syria’s conflict, the Violation Documenting Center, calculated the total number of those killed during the failed ceasefire as 407.

The report from the VDC, which works closely with the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria, put the total civilian toll at 32,013 over some 20 months of violence, with 2,900 government soldiers killed in the same period.

The LCC said the death toll so far Tuesday was 61. About half the deaths were in Idlib province, where airstrikes pummeled a residential neighborhood in the city of Maarat-al-Numan Tuesday, the LCC said.

Regime forces inflicted “heavy losses” on rebel fighters in clashes in the Damascus countryside and Hama provinces and near the city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

CNN cannot independently confirm reports of violence or casualties as the government has severely restricted the access of international journalists. The numbers reported by the LCC do not include deaths from security forces or the military.

In other developments Tuesday:

General assassinated in Damascus

An air force general was assassinated Tuesday in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Syrian state media reported. Pilot Maj. Gen. Abdullah al-Khalidi was killed by “an armed terrorist group” in the Rukn-Eddin neighborhood of Damascus, SANA said.

He was shot to death as he got out of his car, SANA reported.

U.N. envoy visits Beijing

Brahimi headed to Beijing Tuesday to meet senior Chinese officials, a day after he held talks with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for the first time on what to do about the Syrian civil war.

The state-run China Daily newspaper quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei as saying the envoy would have “in depth communication” with Chinese officials during his two-day visit.

China backs Brahimi’s efforts to find a political solution to the crisis, rather than the use of force, Hong is quoted as saying.

Following Monday’s meeting in Moscow, Russia accused the United Nations of double standards for failing to condemn a car bombing in a pro-Assad stronghold near the capital, Damascus.

Syria’s foreign ministry also wrote to U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to criticize the United Nation’s failure to condemn such attacks — an omission it said “encouraged terrorists to continue committing crimes against the Syrian people.”

Lavrov said on his own Twitter feed that Russia was disappointed at the lack of support for Brahimi’s call for a holiday truce, but that it appreciated his efforts to try to “find potential collaborative ways for the international community” to help stabilize Syria.

The Russian-French Security Cooperation Council will meet in Paris October 31, the foreign ministry said.

Speaking after his meeting with Lavrov, Brahimi said neither side in Syria is showing signs of backing down.

“The government says they are fighting terrorists and only terrorists, and that it is their duty to do so — to protect their people. And the other side says we’re fighting a very cruel government that is persecuting us, and we’re defending ourselves,” Brahimi said after the meeting.

He recalled speaking with a woman who has one son in the Syrian military and another son in the rebel Free Syrian Army. “If that is not civil war, I don’t know what is,” Brahimi said.

Diplomacy with Russia is a delicate dance. Russia, along with China, has repeatedly vetoed attempts at the U.N. Security Council to take stronger action against al-Assad.

Many have accused Russia of backing the Syrian government, but Russia says it just wants a political solution for Syria determined by its own people.

Envoy to Syria meets with Russian minister after truce unravels

28/10/12

22/10/12

This weekend Syria’s bloody conflict went regional. The killing of Lebanon’s top security official and tensions at the borders with Jordan and Turkey prove that Bashar al-Assad’s fierce battle to hold on to power is causing wider instability. This is making the west’s posture of concerned non-intervention harder to sustain.

The west has long walked a difficult line on the Syrian conflict. It has called for Assad to go but done nothing actively to promote this end, fearing the risks of being drawn into a prolonged and messy civil war. The result unfortunately has been to encourage Assad to fight on, while simultaneously leading to the radicalisation of the opposition. The result is now a vicious stalemate in Syria, with huge loss of life. But with neighbouring states being sucked into this morass, the stakes have risen beyond the purely humanitarian concern that everyone must feel for Syrian citizens.

Exhorting Assad to change tack has been a waste of breath. While he continues to be propped up by Russia and Iran, he has every incentive to prolong the war, even if he has no chance of prevailing militarily. Russia’s split with the international community, meanwhile, also rules out any consensus on a UN-led intervention.

This, then, is a choice between unappealing options. The international community can sit back and allow the war to burn on, sucking in more radical elements and potentially sparking a series of wider regional conflicts. Or it can offer more than rhetorical support for the anti-Assad forces in Syria.

This is far from a simple option. Not only would it risk a conflict with Russia and Iran, it could also end up militarising an opposition that may contain unsavoury jihadist elements. This is particularly concerning in a situation where Assad has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world.

If anything is to be done to change the dynamics of this conflict, the west must prepare the ground for greater intervention. This does not mean boots on the ground. But it does mean arming the rebels. This will not happen overnight. If the west is to supply more sophisticated weaponry to the opposition, it has to establish a more formal relationship with them. There have to be safeguards on how these weapons will be used. And when hostilities are concluded, it must be possible to recover the weapons. Finally, a broader case needs to be built with regional powers, such as Turkey and the Arab world, to justify such intervention.

Non-intervention is only credible as a policy if it is respected by everyone. This is manifestly not the case in Syria. The Assad regime is receiving military and financial help from Iran and Russia. The rebels are being supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The conflict is at a bloody impasse, while the policy of the international community amounts to little more than hand-wringing from the sidelines. This risks prolonging a dreadful conflict and radicalising the region. Now is the moment to change course

15/10/12

15/10/12

By Faisal Baatout

DOHA — UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is considering proposing the deployment of peacekeepers to Syria if a deal on a transition is reached, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council said on Monday.

One of Brahimi’s ideas “is considering the deployment of peacekeeping forces which would accompany any political proposal,” the head of the SNC’s media office Ahmed Ramadan told AFP in Doha as the exiled opposition group began a meeting in the Qatari capital.

“But this issue is still being discussed,” he added.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani told reporters that any such force must be “well-armed.”

“Any mission that is not well-armed will not fulfil its aim. For this, it must have enough members and equipment to carry out its duty,” he said.

Qatar’s emir Sheikh Hamad called last month for Arab military intervention in Syria because of the failure of the UN Security Council and other international bodies to end the conflict.

“What’s important is ending bloodshed,” said the Qatari premier, “whether it’s an Arab or UN mission.”

He also demanded a “courageous decision from Syrian authorities to stop the bloodshed and respond to the demands of the Syrian people.”

A UN observer mission deployed to oversee an abortive peace plan brokered by Brahimi’s predecessor as envoy, Kofi Annan, in April was withdrawn in August.

Brahimi was in Iraq on Monday on the latest leg of a regional tour that has also taken him to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.

While in Istanbul at the weekend, he met SNC representatives, Ramadan said.

The SNC’s 35-member general secretariat was meeting in Doha to “discuss the situation on the ground, political developments and the problem of refugees,” he said.

The two-day meeting will “discuss the establishment of mechanisms to administer the areas which have been liberated” by the rebels, he added.

A senior member of the bloc, Louay al-Safi, said that other issues such as “restructuring the SNC and expanding it to include other political activists and civil society representatives will also be discussed.”

Another meeting will be held on October 22 in Qatar which will bring together other factions and independent opposition figures for talks.

The SNC has postponed until early November a meeting which was set to take place this week to admit other opposition groups into its ranks.

Next month’s meeting will also elect a successor to current SNC leader Abdel Basset Saydaa, a Kurd appointed in June.

SNC sources have said the delay reflects divisions over broadening the support base of the bloc, which is committed to the armed struggle against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and has said it will not admit factions that oppose it.

Now in its 20th month, the conflict has left more than 33,000 people dead, mainly civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

15/10/12

The majority of weapons secretly shipped to Syria at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar go to hardline Islamic rebel groups rather than more secular organizations favored by the West, The New York Times reported Monday.

Citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said this was the conclusion reached in classified reports presented to President Barack Obama and other senior officials.

This situation has prompted officials to voice frustration over the fact that there is no central clearinghouse for the shipments and no effective way of vetting the groups that receive them, the report said.

Because of this, Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus traveled secretly to Turkey last month in a bid to steer the supply effort, the report said.

The CIA has not commented on the trip.

Petraeus’s goal was to oversee the process of “vetting, and then shaping, an opposition that the US thinks it can work with,” the paper quoted an unnamed Middle Eastern diplomat as saying.

The CIA has also sent officers to Turkey to help direct the aid, but the agency lacks good intelligence about the many rebel figures and factions operating in Syria, The Times noted.

-AFP

13/10/12

13/10/12

This is Mr Brahimi’s second visit to the region since his appointment in September

The UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is due to hold talks in Turkey, amid rising tensions between Ankara and Damascus.

Mr Brahimi will hear Turkey’s perspective on the raging crisis from Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Several days of cross-border firing followed the killing of five Turkish civilians by Syrian shelling last week.

Earlier this week, Turkey intercepted a Syria-bound plane amid reports it had Russian-made defence equipment aboard.

Syria has dismissed the claim as a lie, challenging Turkey to show any evidence.

And in Syria itself, activists said on Friday that rebel fighters had seized a government air defence base near the embattled north-western city of Aleppo.

The claim has not been independently verified.

‘No obvious plan’

Mr Brahimi is due to meet Mr Davutoglu in Istanbul later on Saturday. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, will also have talks with his Turkish counterpart.

“It is important that no one pours oil on the fire. We are counting on moderation and de-escalation,” the German minister said, according to news agency AFP.

Turkey may not be at war with Syria, but it is now increasingly involved in its neighbour’s conflict, the BBC’s James Reynolds in Turkey reports.

The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accuses Turkey, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of arming the rebels.

However, Syria has said it is ready to set up a joint committee to oversee security on the border.

Its foreign ministry said it had been discussing with diplomats from Russia, a key ally, the idea of a Syrian-Turkish security committee to avoid misunderstandings at the border, which would establish a “mechanism for surveillance of the border while respecting national sovereignty”.

‘Hazardous’ aftermath’

Mr Brahimi’s visit comes a day after he met senior Saudi officials in the city of Jeddah.

Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdel Aziz bin Abdullah was quoted as urging “an immediate halt to the bloodshed of the Syrian people”.

However, the envoy’s visit to the region carries no immediately obvious peace plan, our correspondent says.

He adds that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has suggested Mr Brahimi may head to Damascus next week if his meetings in the region go well.

But speaking on Saturday, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticised the UN Security Council for being ineffective in dealing with the conflict in Syria.

“If we leave the issue to the vote of one or two members of the permanent five at the United Nations Security Council , then the aftermath of Syria would be very hazardous and humanity will write it down in history with unforgettable remarks,” he said.

“It’s high time to consider a structural change for international institutions, especially for the UN Security Council.”

12/10/12

A Syrian man, wounded by Syrian Army shelling, cries while the bodies of his relatives lie on the street near Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/ Manu Brabo)

11/10/12

The UN’s chief humanitarian coordinators for Syria, on a Gulf tour to seek aid, have warned that already scarce resources for the growing number of displaced in the war-torn country are quickly drying up.

The UN’s regional refugee coordinator, Panos Mumtzis, told AFP in Dubai that the aid effort was hit by a “significant funding shortfall,” adding that financial support is needed for shelter, winter preparation, health and water.

The UN estimates some half a million Syrians have fled the country. About 335,000 of them are registered refugees who have escaped to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.

By the end of the year, the UN expects the number to registered refugees to more than double to around 710,000 refugees.

Inside Syria, there are an estimated 1.2 million displaced Syrians living in ill-equipped public buildings.

“This is no longer business as usual. We have moved into an emergency situation. It is a crisis,” said Mumtzis of the 18-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime that shows no signs of abating.

“When we get 2,000 to 3,000 refugees per day crossing the border continuously now for two months, this is really serious.”

The UN has requested $488 million for Syrian refugee assistance alone. So far $142 million, only 29 percent, has been provided.

The situation is just as grim for the UN’s humanitarian agencies assisting Syria’s internally displaced and other vulnerable populations within the country.

A UN call for $348 million for those still trapped within the country’s war-ravaged borders is only 38 percent funded.

The biggest reason for the funding shortage is that the Syrian crisis is unfolding “a lot faster than anyone had thought,” Mumtzis added.

The UN has been forced to revise its humanitarian appeals on three separate occasions in the past six months.

The “speed [of escalation] is reaching levels where we need to have an equally speedy funding mechanism,” said Mumtzis.

But time is one thing the aid agencies don’t have.

Winter is fast approaching, refugee numbers are rising every day and funds are being depleted at an ever-faster rate.

Even more alarming is the fact that at least three quarters of the refugees are women and children, raising fears that a persistent shortage of funds could put the conflict’s most vulnerable populations at even greater risk.

The most urgent need right now is “to be ready for winter,” the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator Radhoune Nouicer told AFP, adding that the aid community’s level of preparedness “will depend on funding.”

In total, more than 2.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance. So far, more than 32,000 people have been killed in the revolt, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Today we are coping… from hand to mouth,” said Mumtzis, who warned the UN “absolutely [does] not” have enough for the increasing demands of the deadly conflict.

“The funds are going out very very quickly because more and more people keep on coming [for help],” said Mumtzis.

The largest donors through the UN system are the United States and the European Union. Arab countries have been primarily donating through local and regional charities, or bilaterally.

Few of the Arab donations, with the exception of a million-dollar pledge by Kuwait and a $7.5 million pledge by Saudi Arabia, have gone through UN agencies.

Saudi Arabia also held a five-day public fundraiser in July raising more than $72.33 million, $5.3 million of which was from King Abdullah himself, though most of it has yet to be allocated and it remains unclear how much of it will go through the UN.

The UN coordinators said they hoped their tour of the oil-rich Arab states of the Gulf which will include Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia will result in pledges of both aid and greater cooperation.

-AFP

07/10/12

The Sunday Times’ reports Iran has withdrawn 275 

members of elite brigade from Syria in face of

domestic economic crisis.

Photo: Raheb Homavandi/Reuters

Iran has withdrawn 275 members of its elite Qods Force from Syria in the face of its domestic economic crisis, The Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The members belong to a brigade known as Unit 400, which fought alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad against Sunni rebels, the report quoted a western intelligence officer as saying. According to The Times, the unit flew out of Syria last week. The report added that the information was confirmed by a relative of a Unit 400 officer.

The withdrawal of Iranian troops from Syria was seen by some as an indicator of waning confidence among Iran’s Shi’ite leaders in Assad’s ability to survive the uprising.

According to The Times, there have been loud complaints about an estimated $5 billion of Iranian money spent to prop up the Assad regime in Damascus.

There are signs that Iran’s oil wealth, which pays for its nuclear program and support for Assad, is eroding. Iran faces new sanctions for failing to cooperate with Western concerns about its nuclear program, and the sanctions are taking its toll, evident in the fall in the value of the rial and soaring food prices.

Last week, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz predicted that Iran’s economy is edging towards collapse due to international sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.

“The sanctions on Iran in the past year jumped a level,” Steinitz said. “The Iranians are in great economic difficulties as a result of the sanctions,” he added.

A Foreign Ministry document leaked last week also said sanctions had caused more damage to Iran’s economy than at first thought and ordinary Iranians were suffering under soaring inflation.

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Iran that the international community is ready to impose more sanctions if the country does not begin to address concerns about its nuclear program.

The first official acknowledgement from a senior military commander that Iran has a military presence on the ground in Syria came last month. Commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Mohammad Ali Jafari admitted: “A number of members of the Qods Force are present in Syria.”

However, he denied the existence of on the ground assistance, stating, “the IRGC is giving intellectual help and even financial assistance but there is no military presence.”

“We all have a responsibility to support Syria and not allow the line of resistance to be broken,” Fars news agency, which claims to be independent but which is widely known to have close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, quoted Hossein Taeb, the intelligence unit head, as saying.

Following the admission, Western members of the UN Security Council blasted Iran for providing Assad with weapons to help him crush an 18-month-long uprising by rebels determined to topple his government.

“Iran’s arms exports to the murderous Assad regime in Syria are of particular concern,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told the 15-nation council during a meeting on the world body’s Iran sanctions regime.

A UN Security Council panel of independent experts that monitors sanctions against Iran has uncovered several examples of Iran transferring arms to Syria’s government. Damascus has accused Qatar and Saudi Arabia of arming rebels determined to topple Assad’s government.