A Safe Haven Inside #Syria? Bad Idea

01/09/12

by Christopher Dickey Sep 1, 2012 3:50 PM EDT

Flooded with refugees, Turkey has asked the U.N. to set up a shelter inside Syria’s borders. Christopher Dickey on the strategy’s disappointing and dangerous record.

On Thursday, the Turks pleaded before the U.N. Security Council for support to establish a safe haven inside Syria where refugees might take shelter from the bombs and tanks of the savage Assad dictatorship.

Adem Altan, AFP / Getty Images

Sounds reasonable, no? And humanitarian, for sure. But it’s not. When the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, claimed the initiative is essentially part of a strategy “promoting imminent military intervention under humanitarian pretexts,” he was just stating the obvious. And for just that reason, when it comes to safe havens, there is nothing safe about them. They generally offer poor shelter, and often give probable cause for escalating violence.

There’s no question the tide of refugees trying to escape the Syrian civil war is at the flood stage. According to the latest U.N. statistics some 230,000 have fled in all directions and sought to register as refugees. Many wind up with family or friends in Lebanon, others in a new camp—or perhaps inferno is a better word—in Jordan’s desert. About 80,000 have gone to Turkey so far, and Turkey says it just can’t handle more than 100,000, a threshold that could be crossed in a matter of days.

“How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and mass targeting?” demanded Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu when he spoke to the Security Council. But of course that begged the question: If humanitarian motives are the main concern, why doesn’t Turkey just make room for more Syrians? Ankara is allowing the rebels to operate out of rear bases in Turkey, yet recently closed its borders to civilians who wanted to cross. Its long-term priority, understandably, is to bring Assad down, then send the refugees home. But safe havens would accomplish neither goal.

António Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told the Security Council that people fleeing violence must be allowed to seek shelter and protection outside their own countries. “This is a right that must not be jeopardized, for instance, through the establishment of so-called safe havens or other similar arrangements,” said Guterres. “Bitter experience has shown that it is rarely possible to provide effective protection and security in such areas.”

Guterres didn’t get into specifics, but one obvious example was Srebrenica in Bosnia, a “safe haven” that U.N. troops could not defend and eventually surrendered to the Serbs, who massacred every able-bodied man and boy they could find there in July 1995.

Even among the powers calling for Assad’s overthrow, there’s no real will to intervene militarily. Every “urgent” conference on Syria, including this latest session of the Security Council, is an orgy of buck passing and finger pointing. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked last month about setting up a working group to study the creation of a no-fly zone and related options. But one unnamed intelligence official told James Traub, writing on the Foreign Policy site: “No serious military planning for a no-fly zone was currently underway.”

The most relevant precedent is not Libya last year, but Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991.

So what we’ve got is a Turkish effort to talk a safe haven into existence in international meetings, while Turkish action—or inaction—on the ground forces the international community to do something decisive in the face of the Assad regime’s atrocities. At best this is a cynical use of refugees as geopolitical pawns, at worst it’s a kind of humanitarian blackmail. But you can see why the Turks might want to try such a tactic.

The most relevant precedent is not Libya last year, but Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991. Then, hundreds of thousands of refugees tried to flee Saddam Hussein’s retribution against their popular uprising. He had used poison gas against them in the past, and they feared he would again. But Turkish troops stopped these panic-stricken civilians at the Turkish border. As Kurdish men, women and children—especially children—froze to death on the mountainsides, the international community was spurred into action, establishing a no-fly zone and threatening greater action until Saddam cut a deal to withdraw his forces from the region. With American, French, and British planes patrolling above, an enormous safe haven came into being a dozen years before the regime in Baghdad fell.

But the key to all this, as I saw on the ground at the time, was coordination between the two major Kurdish warlords. They’d been rivals for years, but once they joined forces, they were effective at protecting their home turf. Their peshmerga militias already were seasoned, indeed legendary, fighters. The CIA actively worked with the leadership, while U.S. Special Forces moved in to help organize and train the Kurdish troops to coordinate with allied forces. A brilliant American operative named Fred Cuny, employed by the State Department, pulled together the combined military, political, and emergency assistance measures in a matter of weeks. And the whole package worked (somewhat to my surprise). The refugees came down off the mountains, and Saddam was badly weakened even if he was not defeated.

By contrast, another no-fly zone over the Shia areas in southern Iraq was ineffectual, and did little to protect the locals. The George H. W. Bush administration was concerned about Iranians exploiting it for their own ends. And the flat terrain was an easy battleground for Saddam’s armored units.

And, oh, by the way, those Iraq no-fly zones were established after Saddam’s military had been crushed in the conventional warfare of Desert Storm during the liberation of Kuwait. In Syria, Assad’s army has not been crushed. Far from it.

The other critical difference is that, at the time, what the French called the “right to interfere” looked like it might emerge as a new guiding principle for Western policy. Humanitarian concerns were supposed to take precedence over respect for sovereign borders and recognized governments if those regimes brutalized their subjects. But that principle never really did work out in practice. Hundreds of thousands of people died in Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda in the 1990s, when humanitarian intervention proved ineffectual, too late, or nonexistent. In the last decade, the George W. Bush administration cited the way the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes treated their own people as partial justification for launching its two grinding occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, thus further discrediting the notion that doing good justifies waging war.

Such, sadly, is the history of “humanitarian pretexts.”

#Syria rebels ‘have a right to weapons from abroad’

Thomas Seibert 01/04/12

ISTANBUL // Rebels fighting the forces of Bashar Al Assad have the right to weapons supplies from other countries if the world fails to stop the bloodshed, Turkey’s foreign minister told The National on the eve of a second international conference on Syria.

“The international community should take very concrete steps to prevent a massacre,” Ahmet Davutoglu said. “If it doesn’t happen, of course those who are being attacked will look for all the alternatives to defend themselves.”

Saudi Arabia, one of the countries attending today’s conference in Istanbul, has called for the arming of rebels fighting to topple the Syrian president.

The kingdom, along with Qatar, is also in favour of carving out a safe haven inside Syria from which the opposition can operate. Turkey, which shares a border of 900 kilometres with Syria, would be a key route for any large-scale weapons shipments to the rebels.

“People say there should not be any foreign intervention, but the flow of arms to the Syrian regime continues, and that’s not acceptable,” Mr Davutoglu said.

He compared the situation in Syria to that in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina the early 1990s, when Serb forces attacked Muslim civilians in a war that eventually triggered armed intervention by Nato.

“I made an analogy to the Bosnia case, when there was an asymmetric war: on one side an army with full capacity of attack, on the other side victims without any proper equipment to defend themselves. This is not sustainable.”

The world should not allow the Syrian government to continue with the violence. “Either there must be some international effort to stop these attacks, or there should be a clear message to the regime that there will be some international position to stop the bloodshed.”

Mr Davutoglu was speaking before today’s second meeting of the Friends of Syria, a group of western and Arab nations seeking to increase the pressure on Mr Al Assad to end the violent repression of protests that has killed more than 9,000 people since March last year. At least 75 countries will be represented at the meeting, which follows a conference last month in Tunis.

The United Nations-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan called on the Syrian forces to end operations immediately. Mr Al Assad accepted Mr Annan’s plan on Tuesday, but his security forces have continued their attacks. Turkey, a former close ally of Syria, ended its own mediation efforts last year, when the Syrian regime refused to enact political reforms.

Mr Davutoglu said he expected the Istanbul meeting “to give a clear message to the regime that these methods will not be tolerated by the international community. In Tunisia we gave a strong message, but now the message will be much stronger.”

In fact, he said, Turkey hoped the meeting would “take certain measures, new measures, steps, to stop the bloodshed”.

Mr Davutoglu said he could not go into detail before the conference. “But we want to have some more concrete steps.”

He also said the meeting would discuss getting humanitarian aid into Syria and would strengthen the role of the Syrian National Council, an opposition umbrella group. A third meeting of the Friends of Syria would take place in Paris, he said.

The Syrian opposition and the Free Syrian Army, a group of Syrian deserters fighting government troops, have repeatedly called for weapons, but Mr Annan has warned against further militarisation.

Mr Davutoglu, who put the number of Syrian defectors at 60,000, would not be drawn on whether he agreed with the Saudi position on arming the opposition, but he stressed it was the international community’s duty to prevent further bloodshed.

“When the oppression continues and people are being killed - if the international community is idle and cannot do anything, people will start to think that they have the right of self-defence,” he said. “The responsibility is on the shoulders of the international community, rather on the people who are trying to defend themselves.”

While Mr Davutoglu, 53, a close aide and former chief adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, reiterated his government’s support for Mr Annan’s mission, he warned that Damascus was trying to gain time. He said Mr Annan’s plan “should not be seen as if it’s a mediation for the continuation of the Syrian regime”.

The Turkish foreign minister said Mr Al Assad was hoping he could secure his position by crushing the opposition militarily.

“This is what I call the illusion of dictators,” said Mr Davutoglu, a former professor of international relations. “They think that if they have time, they will control the situation and then they will make a cosmetic type of change.”

In Syria, as in other countries that shook off authoritarian regimes, this tactic would fail, Mr Davutoglu insisted. Even after a year of repression, Syrians were still calling for their democratic rights. “A regime or a leader cannot survive if that regime or that leader fights against its own people.”

Mr Davutoglu said the Syrian government lost its legitimacy the moment the regular army attacked cities with artillery, helicopters and the navy. “Even during a war, this is unacceptable. When you fight another country - even in that case it’s a war crime to shell a city indiscriminately.” He said Turkey condemned that kind of military operation as a “crime” when Israel attacked Gaza in late 2008. “Now the Syrian army is doing this against their own cities.”

Mr Davutoglu said he had no doubt that the Al Assad regime was doomed. “Such a regime cannot continue after all the crimes they committed against their own people. It is just a matter of time.”

Few Good Options for Syrian Opposition #Syria

By HUGO DIXON | REUTERS

When the Syrian revolution began, the activists employed almost entirely nonviolent tactics. They also rejected the idea of foreign intervention.

Published: February 19, 2012

Nearly a year later, the revolution’s character has changed. There are still protests, boycotts, strikes and funeral marches. But the opposition’s main strategy for overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime has become one of outmuscling it. To achieve that, it is calling for military help from abroad — a request that will be pressed when Friends of Syria, a contact group of mainly Arab and Western countries, meets in Tunis this week.

The switch in strategy is understandable, though regrettable. The endless killing and torture have taken their toll. Homs, Hama and several other cities are being bombarded by Mr. Assad’s forces in what look like medieval sieges and could have similar grisly outcomes. The people worry they will be massacred if they do not take up arms to defend themselves. Meanwhile, they have seen how foreign military intervention in Libya tipped the balance there and got rid of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The Assad regime probably likes the fact that the opposition has embraced armed struggle. This solidifies its support among its core constituency — the Alawites, who represent about 10 percent of the population — as well as other minorities like Christians. The regime can argue it has to hit back hard, otherwise it will be massacred.

What is more, it has seen brutality work in the past. Mr. Assad’s father survived a rebellion in Hama 30 years ago after killing around 20,000 people.

Nonviolent struggle has about twice the chance of bringing down dictators as armed struggle, according to a study of 20th- and early 21st-century conflicts, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan. Among the many reasons, those close to the regime feel less threatened by nonviolent tactics and so are more likely to shift their allegiance, while it is easier to involve millions of people in Gandhi-style civil disobedience than in military operations.

Outmuscling a dictator, of course, also works sometimes. Ms. Chenoweth and Ms. Stephan found that this was particularly so when foreign powers helped. The snag is that armed struggle results in more carnage than nonviolent struggle and reduces the chances that what follows the dictator will be a peaceful democracy. Involving foreign powers, meanwhile, means the revolution has to dance to those powers’ agendas.

Such a script is playing itself out now in Syria. The conflict has increasingly descended into a sectarian civil war, pitting the majority Sunni population against the Alawites, who are an offshoot of Shiite Islam. A glance at the map shows how this could further destabilize a volatile region. Turkey and the Gulf Arab states are Sunni — and outraged by the atrocities committed against their co-religionists. Iran and, to a lesser extent, Iraq are Shiite and do not want to see their man fall.

The West, meanwhile, is worried about the resulting effects on Israel and Iran as well as having some sympathy for a brave people being butchered. By contrast, Russia does not like the idea of autocrats being toppled, as its regime is shaky too.

This is the context of the upcoming Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis. There are various ideas on the table, all fraught with problems. One, touted by the French, would create humanitarian corridors through which aid could be ferried to the trouble spots. The snag is that a large and sophisticated military force would be needed to blast open and protect such corridors.

Another proposal is to create a safe zone by the Turkish border, where refugees and defecting Syrian soldiers could congregate. This could then be a base from which to launch a counterattack against Mr. Assad, in the same way that Benghazi was used against Colonel Qaddafi.

Again, a foreign army would be needed to secure such a haven. Western powers, which have just disengaged from Iraq, do not seem to have much appetite for that. There is also the complication that Russia and China have made it clear they would veto any resolution in the U.N. Security Council authorizing military intervention.

The rich Gulf Arab countries, led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, may not have such qualms. But they are not in a position to field an army to match Mr. Assad’s. Their main contribution is likely to be giving the Syrian opposition money to buy arms. If enough sophisticated weapons pour into the country, Mr. Assad might eventually be toppled. But the bloodshed would be horrendous, and Syria could be left with radical Islamist gangs as Afghanistan was after the West decided to arm the mujahideen as a response to Soviet occupation in 1979.

The least bad option would be to revert to a nonviolent struggle and support it from abroad with intensified economic sanctions in the hope that enough of Mr. Assad’s support would crumble that he could be eased out. The Syrian people would still be killed, but casualties might be kept lower if they emphasized tactics like labor strikes and boycotts rather than demonstrations, where they are out in the open and sitting ducks.

Defecting troops would also have to be given something to do other than attack the regime. One idea is to use them to persuade even more troops to defect.

Such an outcome does not look terribly likely. Conflicts that turn violent rarely revert to nonviolence. Probably the best known was the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, but that change in strategy took decades. Still, the other options for Syria and the region look ghastly.

How to set #Syria free

Getting rid of Bashar Assad requires a united opposition, the creation of a safe haven and Western resolve

IN HOMS they are burying their dead under cover of darkness, for fear that the mourners themselves will become the next victims. Syrian government forces are setting out to strike the city’s makeshift clinics, where the floor is already slick with blood. The rebels in Homs have guns, but they are no match for the army’s tanks. And yet the butchery seems only to fire the conviction among the city’s inhabitants that state violence must not prevail against the popular will.

The outside world, to its shame, has shown no such resolve. A vote on February 4th, in the UN Security Council, condemning Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, and calling on him to hand powers to his deputy, was defeated thanks to vetoes from Russia and China. For Mr Assad, this was the impunity he needed to redouble the killing. Earlier a ramshackle mission to Syria by the Arab League had ended in bickering. Division has eviscerated international co-operation just when the turmoil whipped up by the Arab spring makes it essential.

The people of Syria deserve better. With the number of dead rapidly climbing above 7,000, the world has a responsibility to act. It also has an interest. Syria occupies a vital position in the Middle East, jammed between Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, and allied with Russia and Iran. The country is a cauldron of faiths, sects and clans seething with grudges and mistrust. Many of Syria’s minorities are sheltering with Mr Assad’s Alawite sect only because they fear a bloody reckoning if Syria’s Sunnis, the largest group, are victorious. A lengthy civil war in Syria would feed mayhem and religious strife in an unstable part of the world.

So shifting Mr Assad from power as fast as possible is essential. It is too late for him to negotiate an accommodation with his people by overseeing reform and an increase in democracy. Mr Assad’s repeated resort to violence has earned him the permanent distrust of most of his people. Any freedom they gain would immediately become a means to resist him. For the good of Syria and the region, therefore, the aim must be both to dethrone Mr Assad and also to minimise the loss of life. The pity is that, just now, those goals are at odds.

Bombing and other sorts of hand-wringing

As tyrants go, Mr Assad has two advantages (see article). One is his willingness to do whatever it takes to put down the rebellion. Whereas the troops in Cairo’s Tahrir Square would not fire into the crowd, Syrian soldiers are steeped in blood. Although some have switched sides rather than kill their compatriots, Mr Assad commands crack units and a relatively loyal officer corps, as well as tanks, heavy artillery and an air force. Syria’s rebel irregulars could not beat them in a head-on fight.

His second advantage is others’ lack of unity—not only at the UN and in the Arab League, but also among Syria’s opposition. The Syrian National Council is a divided gaggle of exiles, with only limited authority in a place they still call home. Inside Syria there is a ragtag of militias, gangs and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), mainly soldiers who have deserted the regime.

The most direct answer is to even up the fight by flooding Syria with arms or, perhaps, bombing Mr Assad’s troops in their barracks. But such a focus on firepower would play into Mr Assad’s hands: the grounds on which he would most like to fight are military. Foreign bombing would satisfy outsiders’ urge to do something—anything—to show their outrage. But even in Libya, which had a front-line and a terrain more vulnerable to aerial attack, bombing took a long time to weaken Qaddafi’s forces. In Syria it would have less military value.

The time may come when supplying weapons to the opposition makes sense. But such a policy would not suddenly turn the opposition into a fighting force. And a country awash with weapons would be plagued by the very violence that the world was seeking to avoid. The guns that flooded into Afghanistan to arm locals against the Soviet Union helped create the chaos that spawned the Taliban.

Far better to attack Mr Assad’s regime where it is vulnerable—by peeling away his support, both at home among Syria’s minorities and abroad, especially in Russia, its chief defender on the UN Security Council. Both Syria’s Alawites and Vladimir Putin cling to this dictator because they think that, despite his faults, he is better than the alternative. Yet under Mr Assad Syria has no future. Before the Arab spring his attempts to modernise the economy enriched a coterie of his cronies but did little for ordinary Syrians. Were he to see off today’s uprising, he would be left ruling over an isolated, impoverished and angry country. Surely the opposition can offer enough Syrians of all creeds a better future than that?

Stand up as one

To make that promise credible, Syria’s fractious opposition must unite. A contact group of outside powers and the opposition could channel money into Syria, as well as help with communications and logistics. With a single voice and a credible leader, the opposition could seek to reassure the merchants, Kurds and Christians who back Mr Assad that they will be safer and more prosperous without him. The Russians would also begin to shift ground. Mr Putin enjoys standing up to the interfering West, not least for domestic political reasons (see article), but sticking with a doomed leader could cost Russia its naval-supply base in Tartus and its arms exports. The more senior officials and army officers defect from the regime, the more likely Mr Putin is to change sides too.

To help persuade them, Turkey, with the blessing of NATO and the Arab League, should create and defend a safe haven in north-western Syria. The FSA can train fighters there, and a credible opposition can take shape. Turkey seems willing to do this, providing it gets Western support. The haven would be similar to that created for the Kurds in northern Iraq; Mr Assad would suffer only if he attacked it.

A haven carries risks, if only because the opposition is so fractious. But it is likely to cause less bloodshed than joining the civil war directly or letting Mr Assad slaughter his people at will. And a free patch of Syria would be powerful evidence that Mr Assad’s brutal days are numbered.

As Homs battles, Turkey readies #Syria move

<p>Anti-government demonstrators attend the funeral of people whom they said were killed during clashes with government troops in earlier protests against Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad, in Marat al-Numan near the northern province of Idlib February 6, 2012. REUTERS/Handout</p>

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Wed Feb 8, 2012 9:51am EST

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces thrust into the rebellious city of Homs on Wednesday, killing as many as 100 civilians by the accounts of opposition activists, and Turkey appeared to be preparing a new diplomatic push against President Bashar al-Assad.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who is readying an initiative uniting Western, Arab and other states which have called for Ankara’s former ally Assad to step down, was due to speak to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev later on Wednesday.

The Turkish premier, who described the Russian and Chinese veto of the U.N. resolution at the weekend as a “fiasco,” faces a hard sell with Moscow. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has condemned Western “interference” of the kind seen last year in Libya as a “cult of violence.”

Putin, who first won the presidency after his military assault on the rebel Russian city of Grozny, is expected to return to the Kremlin via an election next month in which the Russian leader accuses the West of aiding his opponents.

Moscow’s foreign minister, having visited Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, made clear Russia was still opposed to any peace talks that were conditional on Assad first stepping aside.

A newspaper close to the Erdogan government said Turkey planned to organize a conference with Arab and Western governments in Istanbul, part of a broader initiative that may be outlined later on Wednesday. A NATO member and rising Muslim power in the region, Ankara is sheltering Syrian rebel army commanders and has spoken of creating safe havens for refugees.

As the diplomatic gears turned, the military offensive in Homs and elsewhere showed no sign of let up. Activists in the city also accused militiamen of slaughtering three families in their homes - the sort of incident that is fueling fears of a descent into more widespread, Iraq-style sectarian killing.

The day’s death toll stood at over 100, activists said, offering figures that could not be independently verified.

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For graphic of Homs link.reuters.com/tuc56s

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ASSAULT

The onslaught on Homs, one of the bloodiest of the 11-month-old revolt against Assad, has not relented despite a promise to end the bloodshed that the Syrian leader gave to Russia, which saved Damascus from U.N. Security Council action on Saturday.

In the latest assault on Homs, troops fired rockets and mortars while tanks entered the Inshaat neighborhood and moved closer to Bab Amro, the district hardest hit by bombardments that have killed nearly 200 people in the last two days, activists in the city and opposition sources said.

A group known as the Syrian Revolution General Commission called in a statement in the afternoon for outside humanitarian protection and that the day’s death toll stood at 100.

Hospitals were without electricity, it said, and were short of supplies, while the wounded and those transporting them to clinics perpetually risked arrest by the security forces.

Syrian state television blamed explosions on Homs militants laying charges. It accused “terrorists” of targeting a key refinery in the city with mortars while activists blamed the army for a fire that was filmed by residents.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said countries with influence over the Syrian opposition should press them to enter a dialogue with Assad, comments that made clear Moscow had no immediate intention of abandoning its long-time ally.

Lavrov was speaking in Moscow a day after he met Assad in Damascus, where he said both nations wanted to revive an Arab League monitoring effort that was suspended due to violence.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe dismissed Syrian pledges of peace as deceit, “and we’re not going to fall for it.”

Putin insisted Russia was acting in good faith and was wary of Western motives in Syria: “We of course condemn all violence regardless of its source, but one cannot act like an elephant in a china shop,” Putin told Russian religious leaders.

“Help them, advise them, limit, for instance, their ability to use weapons but not interfere under any circumstances.

“A cult of violence has been coming to the fore in international affairs in the past decade,” he said.

MILITIAMEN

Syrian opposition figures, who said Lavrov had brought no new initiative, spurn Assad’s promises of reform as meaningless while his troops are killing civilians and say he must go.

Walid al-Bunni, a senior member of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), dismissed Lavrov’s dialogue proposal.

“The Arab initiative is clear. Assad must step down and Syrians will then be ready to sit together at a table with whoever succeeds him to discuss a democratic transition,” the head of the SNC’s foreign policy committee told Reuters.

Western and Arab states frustrated by the Russian and Chinese vetoes of their draft U.N. resolution are seeking to isolate Assad and bolster those opposed to his 11-year rule.

Pro-Assad militiamen shot dead at least 20 civilians in Homs when they stormed their homes on the outskirts of opposition areas overnight, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rami Abdelrahman, who heads the British-based Observatory, told Reuters the unarmed victims were a family of five, one of seven and one of eight.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities and the report could not be verified. The authorities have placed tight restrictions on access to the country.

Activist Hassan said bombardment intensified in the early morning, targeting the Sunni Muslim districts of Bab Amro, al-Bayada, al-Khalidiya and Wadi al-Arab, all hostile to Assad, whose minority Alawite sect has dominated Syria for five decades.

“Mortar and rocket fire has subsided, but heavy machineguns and anti-aircraft guns are still strong,” he said. “Tanks are in main thoroughfares in the city and appear poised to push deep into residential areas.”

State news agency SANA said funerals had been conducted on Tuesday for 30 members of the security forces.

Army deserters and insurgents, at least nominally commanded by officers based in Turkey, are fighting back against Assad’s violent response to what began as a mostly peaceful protest movement and now threatens to slide into sectarian civil war.

DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

“Assad is seeing the civilized world turn against him and he thinks he will win if he uses more brutal force before the world could act,” said Catherine al-Talli, a senior SNC member.

The attack on Homs has intensified Western and regional diplomatic pressure on Assad. The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council recalled their ambassadors from Damascus on Tuesday and expelled Syrian envoys from their own capitals.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called in Syria’s charge d’affaires Jawdat Ali on Wednesday and told him it was time for Assad to “find an exit strategy before the situation in Syria degenerates further and more lives are lost.”

Russia’s veto of the Security Council resolution on Syria went beyond protecting an ally and arms buyer, analysts said. It showed Moscow’s determination to crush what it sees as a Western crusade to use the United Nations to topple unfriendly governments.

The same holds true for China, which followed Russia’s lead and joined Moscow in striking down a European-Arab draft resolution that would have endorsed an Arab League plan for Assad to transfer power to his deputy to prepare free elections.

“There are all sorts of political interests involved but there is also a basic difference about whether the international community should be involved in internal conflicts against the will of the government,” said David Bosco of American University in Washington.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Alistair Lyon and Dominic Evans in Beirut, John Irish in Paris and Yasmine Saleh and Ayman Samir in Cairo; Editing by

Despite reverses, #Syria rebel army takes heart

By ERIKA SOLOMON | REUTERS

Published: Feb 1, 2012 23:37 Updated: Feb 1, 2012 23:37

BEIRUT: Syria’s rebels may have been driven back from Damascus by President’s Bashar Assad’s army, yet they have taken heart from seizing territory and some even hope it might tempt foreign troops in to help.

In interviews with Reuters this week over shaky phone and Internet connections from covert frontline bases, the mood among rebel forces sounded upbeat, despite what they called a “tactical retreat” from the threshold of Damascus and a serious pounding by Assad’s artillery against fighters in the north.

The Free Syrian Army is a loose network of local units, made up of deserters from government ranks joined by armed volunteers and commanded, at least in principle, by defecting senior officers who have fled to Turkey.

Ten months after the street demonstrations of the Arab Spring first challenged 42 years of Assad family rule, the FSA’s resources are still limited.

Few of its own leaders - let alone international experts - give it much chance of quick victory without a dramatic change on the ground, such as a collapse of support among Assad’s still-loyal generals. Foreign intervention still seems remote.

Yet the capture this month of a strategic mountain enclave by the Lebanese border, followed by heady days of defiance in the suburbs of the capital itself, has prompted heady talk among some FSA commanders of “liberating” territory, as the opponents of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi did in the east of their country.

“We need to make our own Benghazi,” one FSA officer, a former lieutenant-colonel in Assad’s army who uses the cover name Abu Thaer, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, referring to the Libyan rebel capital during the ultimately successful uprising there.

“If there were a buffer- or no-fly-zone, there would be a string of army defections,” he said. “The picture would change 180 degrees.”

For some observers, the FSA’s encroachment on the capital has given it new credibility.

“It’s getting stronger and becoming a stronger part of the opposition and a real force on the ground,” said Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “That doesn’t mean it can overturn the state, but it certainly is challenging it.”

Reality check

Rebels are impatient with pledges of moral support from NATO powers, including Turkey, which seem unlikely to transform into more concrete assistance any time soon.

“God willing, we will liberate more territory, because the international community has only offered delayed action and empty threats,” said one fighter, aged in his 20s, who spoke from Zabadani, a chilly mountain redoubt on the old smuggling routes into Lebanon where FSA commanders forced government troops to accept a cease-fire and pull back last week.

“We need to be ready to do this on our own,” said another FSA officer, a lieutenant-colonel, who shuttles between the northern town of Idlib and the safety of Turkey. “Despite our weaker resources, we believe the force of justice will prevail.”

The spokesman of the Turkey-based high command of the Free Syrian Army, Maher Ismail Al-Naimy, was anxious to dampen any runaway enthusiasm.

The prime goal of the FSA, Naimy said, remained disrupting the government forces’ ability to harass civilians, rather than a head-on fight to the end with Assad’s army which, on paper at least, may outnumber the FSA by more than 10 to one.

Talk of Zabadani or other areas as “liberated territory” was a “misunderstanding,” he stressed.

“This is not full military control of an area. What they had been able to maintain is an ability to repel the regime forces. The FSA is unable to control a whole territory and consider it completely sealed off,” he said.

“We lack munitions. They have tanks and heavy cannon and planes. We have light weapons and we don’t have a steady supply line outside of the area.”

The FSA’s goal for now was to loosen government control over areas, rather than to impose firm control of its own, he said.

Outnumbered, outgunned

The rebels are still outnumbered and outgunned. The coalition of opposition movements grouped in the Syrian National Council (SNC), which initially had an arm’s length relationship with the FSA but now aims to coordinate more closely, puts its strength on the ground at between 20,000 and 30,000. The government has some 300,000 troops, although the loyalties of many may be strained.

For arms, the rebels count on defecting troops, raids on arms stores and smuggling from supporters abroad.

On the outskirts of Damascus, the arrival of government tanks and artillery left little option for the rebel forces but to beat a retreat, or melt back into civilian cover.

In the climate of fear and bloodshed some rebels worry that government forces may have been allowing them minor victories as part of a feint to draw them out into the open.

“There are a few areas nearly liberated,” the rebel fighter from Zabadani said. “But we won’t challenge the regime for no reason: It is like a dog, if you pull its tail it will come after you howling.”

Abu Thaer, the FSA logistics specialist, said the rebels were keeping close to Syria’s borders to avoid being encircled.

“We need our back protected,” he said. “If we chose Daraa there wouldn’t be any Syrian forces behind us from Jordan,” he said of the southern city where the uprising began last March.

Despite their success in Zabadani, he thought widening the stronghold along Lebanon’s border was unlikely due to Syria’s close ties with Lebanon’s powerful militant group Hezbollah.

“We could choose Jabal Al-Zawiya in Idlib province, with Turkey behind us,” he said. “We would probably not be attacked from there.”

The FSA lieutenant-colonel active in Idlib told Reuters he had 700 men under his command inside the city, but they lacked the arms to challenge the security forces.

“The Idlib forces are the strongest in manpower,” he said, comparing his force to other rebel groups. “But … they are the weakest in weapons because Turkey has not let in many arms and we’re buying most of them from soldiers inside Syria.”

Financing

Rebels told Reuters they were bringing in more funds and weapons through Lebanon from financiers they declined to name.

A smuggler working out of Lebanon for the FSA estimated his team sent about $100,000 in cash into the rebellious city of Homs each month. He was unsure whether or not other funding was reaching the rebel forces there by other routes.

A spokeswoman for the SNC, Basma Kodmani, said the political group, which has won some recognition as an alternative to Assad and which wants a peaceful resolution, would not arm the FSA but would consider financing it.

“They need communications equipment, bullet-proof vests and non-offensive equipment to make sure they are integrated with each other,” Kodmani said.

The West is clearly still hesitant to intervene directly on the rebel side as it did in Libya, yet Tabler said “the debate is shifting because diplomacy is not coming up with results.”

“I think a lot of people are at that point (of considering intervention) but the question is still how would you do it?“

Describing talk on the ground of a Benghazi-style “free zone” as “not realistic,” Tabler said the rebels would still need anti-tank and other heavy weapons: “Then you could have pockets adjacent to neighboring countries break away.”

The time is not yet right for foreign military intervention in #Syria

“I STICK my neck out for nobody,” drawls Rick in “Casablanca”. “A wise foreign policy,” says Captain Renault. But is it? Over the past ten months Syria has slid to the brink of civil war. Firefights, ambushes, massacres and bombings take place almost daily. Defying international sanctions, the regime kills protesting citizens by the dozen. The opposition, once hostile to all violence, has started to take up arms that increasingly pour in from neighbouring Lebanon. Aided by army defectors, it gains and loses control of small patches of territory, but it will not soon win the upper hand without more help.

Some outsiders, including the emir of Qatar and a growing number of analysts at American think-tanks, have begun to call for military action. One argument for intervention is consistency: the bloodshed in Syria is even worse than it was in Libya under Qaddafi. If outside powers have a responsibility to protect people from a mass-murdering tyrant, then surely Syria, where more than 5,000 have been killed in a campaign of state violence, is a prime candidate. Another is that several regional powers are already backing proxies in this fight. Iran and Russia aid the regime; Saudi Arabia and Turkey favour the rebels. Left alone, the rival camps will fuel a worsening conflict that could destabilise the entire region.

Damnascus

Military action would satisfy the understandable desire to do something—anything—in the face of terrible suffering. But it is unlikely to bring the conflict to a quick or satisfactory end, not least because opponents of the regime are divided. Dissidents have formed clashing camps and defectors follow rival officers, each commanding only a few hundred men.

There is no workable plan for an intervention. A no-fly zone would be useless, as the Syrian air force has not flown. Safe havens near the borders could protect citizens but they would soon need defending against regime troops. Striking the army—as in Libya—is an option but would not change the overall situation. Unlike in Libya, no unified rebel force is ready to sweep into the capital, secure the streets and take control.

Even if there were a plan, the cost of a botched intervention would be far higher in Syria. Like Iraq, where the American invasion of 2003 ignited a conflict that killed more than 100,000 people, it has a complex ethnic and sectarian make-up. Perhaps selective strikes on the regime’s most brutal and murderous troops could stop some of the killing and weaken morale among Syria’s rulers—but then again, it might just as easily persuade Bashar Assad to kill even more ferociously.

Military intervention does not make sense unless it has the legitimacy of widespread international backing and the likelihood of success. As yet, it has neither of these things.

Instead, therefore, the outside world must pursue diplomacy. Just now the opposition’s most likely source of outside support is the Arab League, which sent an unarmed observer mission to Syria last month. Predictably, the mission failed to stop the killing. Since then, six Gulf states have withdrawn their members—and rightly so, given that the regime used the observers as cover for its violence.

Yet the mission has set the stage for the Arab League to call on the UN Security Council to endorse a plan under which Mr Assad would transfer power to his deputy in two months and conduct elections in five. This too might fail, but it heightens diplomatic pressure on Mr Assad’s remaining supporters abroad, especially Russia.

Russia will soon have to choose between its troubled ally and the rest of the region. Although it has just sold $550m worth of fighter jets to Syria, its support of the regime has weakened slightly this month. It may eventually be persuaded to back a deal similar to one that this week ended a violent stand-off in Yemen. Under the auspices of several Gulf states, the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, received immunity from prosecution in return for going into temporary exile to allow for a peaceful transition of power.

In Syria that will take time, if it happens at all. Meanwhile, Western countries should help the opposition groups with sanctions and supplies such as medicines. Such aid is modest and piecemeal, but at least it will not make things worse.

#Syria Looks More Like Libya Every Day

January 21, 2012 02:23 AMBy Rami G. Khouri

The Daily Star

The continuing deterioration of the political situation in Syria led the emir of Qatar to suggest last week that it would be appropriate to send in Arab troops to stop the killing. How seriously he meant this suggestion remains unclear. He may have offered this as a practical proposal, or merely was sending a political message that the Arab world could not wait forever as Syrians are killed by the dozen every day.

The Arab League will meet in Cairo this weekend to assess its month-long mission of monitors whose presence in Syria has not slowed down the killing. Whether the league tinkers with its strategy and tries to enhance the efficacy of the monitors, or gives up and refers the Syrian situation to the United Nations Security Council, makes little difference for the moment. For in both cases the bigger issue that looms is the question of whether or not to send in foreign troops or take other measures to stop the deaths in Syria.

This is really two separate questions: Is it realistic and desirable to have foreign troops involved in Syria? The Syrian National Council (SNC), a consortium of opposition groups, is calling on Arab and foreign governments to start thinking of creating a safe haven along Syria’s northern and southern borders, or even designated “cities of refuge,” where Syrian government troops cannot attack citizens. This would not be feasible without the direct participation of foreign troops, mostly from the air enforcing a no-fly zone, for starters. There is no consensus now among the Arab countries for doing this, and such a consensus seems an absolute prerequisite for any such move to be seriously considered.

Syrian opposition figures speak of the experiences in Kosovo and Bosnia in recent decades, when foreign troops protected local civilians, as precedents that could be emulated in Syria. Foreign- or Arab-enforced safe havens along the borders would allow many more troops or civilian officials to defect from their current positions and join the opposition, which would hasten the fall of the regime. Combined with this would be a series of political and diplomatic gestures that Arab and foreign governments could make, including holding regular working meetings with the SNC and ultimately recognizing it formally as the official representative of the Syrian people, a sort of government-in-exile.

The different options that other governments have for engaging with the Syrian opposition is crucially important for those Syrians who are trying to bring down their government. That is because this is seen as the most feasible way under the current circumstances to convince President Bashar Assad that he must step aside and make way for a new democratic and pluralistic governance system in the country.

The current situation is a stalemate, similar to one in Yemen. Rebels and demonstrators express strong opposition to the regime, but the regime is also able to muster considerable assets (troops and money, mainly) to kill, beat back or intimidate enough demonstrators to maintain the Assad regime in power. Breaking this stalemate is the top priority of many in the Syrian opposition, who recognize that the current level of demonstrations and limited defections from the armed forces or civil service will not be enough to bring down the regime.

There are also considerations of precedence for those who might be pondering sending foreign troops. Other countries experiencing similar tensions and death sprees as Syria might also ask for foreign armed intervention to protect civilians. The Qatari emir’s call for sending Arab troops to Syria sends the signal that this once inconceivable idea will not always remain beyond the realm of the possible. The technical issues of how to intervene to assist Syrian civilians and opposition groups are the least complicated. The really hard obstacle now is the political dimension of whether it is wise to consider such a move.

The conclusion I draw from all this reinforces what I have been thinking and saying since the first demonstrators started against the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes a year ago: Syria suffers many of the same problems and conditions that were evident in both countries (poverty, lack of democracy, corruption, a widespread sense of indignity and anger among the citizenry), and therefore is not immune to their fate.

The Libyan situation offered examples of a phased process of opposition organization and international intervention. It is true to say, as we hear daily, that Syria is not Libya. But it now seems correct also to say that Syria is increasingly looking like Libya in the trajectory of opposition moves and regime responses that is now increasingly triggering talk of drastic interventions and measures to save civilian lives.

#Syria’s protesters are on their own

While Arab League monitors have failed to stop the bloodshed, this may be preferable to protracted talks about political ‘reform’

A protest against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Reuters

The Arab League’s much-heralded meeting to review the “progress” of its monitoring operation in Syria came and went on Sunday with barely a whimper. A few more monitors will be sent but unless Syria agrees to an extension, which seems unlikely, the mission will end on 19 January with the presentation of a report.

It’s difficult to see where the league can go from there, except by admitting failure and passing its files to the United Nations.

When the Assad regime accepted the league’s peace plan last month, after weeks of prevarication, it agreed to end the violence against peaceful protests, withdraw the army from towns, release political prisoners and start a dialogue with the opposition. The ill-prepared monitors were then sent in to assess its compliance.

The regime’s insincerity about this was never in much doubt. Apart from some token gestures it has made no real effort to comply, and the killings and arrests have continued. At the same time, though, the presence of monitors does seem to have emboldened the protesters and helped to keep Syria in the headlines.

Despite all that, the failure of the Arab League’s initiative may be preferable to its success. Had there been more progress, the result would have been protracted talks about political “reform”.

The fact is that the Syrian regime cannot reform – at least, not to the extent that would be required – without destroying its own support base. Negotiating with the regime at this late stage would not lead to a workable solution. It would simply create a diversion and throw President Assad a temporary lifeline.

That, more or less, is what has already happened in Yemen where the Gulf Cooperation Council’s “transition” plan has stymied a revolution. Though the “transition” may result in President Saleh leaving office and being confined to the sidelines, its overall effect is to prevent radical change by preserving the status quo.

Considering that the Yemen plan was orchestrated by one of the world’s most autocratic and conservative countries, Saudi Arabia, nobody should be surprised by the results. Nor should anyone expect that the Arab League – still, in essence, a dictators’ club noted for an inability to get its act together – can do any better in bringing change to Syria.

Lack of headway on the diplomatic front inevitably leads to talk of military action – a course also favoured by some of the Syrian opposition. One recent report, from the Washington Institute, looks at a variety of options (including a no-fly zone) while another, from the Henry Jackson society, favours creating a safe haven in the north of Syria.

While both reports favour military intervention, neither makes a particularly convincing case. They both acknowledge considerable risks and the Washington Institute’s report ends rather feebly by saying military intervention “should be carefully considered, not avoided altogether”. If this is the most that two thinktanks with neocon tendencies can come up with, then it’s probably a non-starter.

Although the arguments about protecting civilians during the Libyan uprising can also be applied to Syria, there are major differences in terms of practicalities. The opposition Syrian National Council explains them in a report which urges the US and its allies to “consider carefully the potential costs and unintended consequences of further intervention in Syria”.

The reality, harsh as it may be, is that there is very little that outsiders can usefully do to help the Syrian uprising beyond isolating the Assad regime as much as possible. This does not mean the revolution is doomed but it does mean the protesters will have to depend mainly on their own resources. In the long run, that could be beneficial if it eventually produces a government that is self-reliant and relatively independent of foreign influences.

The cost in human lives is certainly high, and it could get worse. But beneath the surface, the picture is shifting gradually but surely in the protesters’ direction. The regime is in deepening financial trouble and its authority is crumbling. As Syria watcher Joshua Landis noted on his blog:

“What we are witnessing … is not the clash of two titanic and centralised bodies: the state and the opposition. Instead, we are seeing the steady erosion of state authority and national institutions, as the opposition, which remains largely organised on a local basis, undermines central authority at many points.”

The question is no longer whether the regime will fall, but when.

SNC Calls For the Establishment of a Safe Zone in Syria

The Syrian National Council (SNC) was launched to unify and represent the voices of the Syrian people in their plight against the brutal regime of Bashar Assad. The SNC is entering a critical phase in the Syrian revolution whereby the hope of a continued campaign of passive resistance to an exceptionally brutal and unrestrained regime is becoming more and more akin to a suicide pact. Syrian protesters demanded an establishment of no-fly zones, safe havens and other forms of international interventions. The SNC consulted with military and strategic experts to better express the demands of the Syrian people.

The United States (U.S.) and European Union (E.U.) sanctions on Syria have indeed begun to take a serious economic toll on President Bashar al-Assad regime’s ability to finance the state apparatus of repression. They will, in the long run, seriously impact the regime’s ability to sustain its hold indefinitely over key elements of society. But sanctions have not stopped or slowed the murder, arrest, child-rape and torture of ordinary Syrians. Ten months of peaceful protests have been met with unremitting barbarism the likes of which have not been witnessed elsewhere in the Arab Spring. More than 5,000 people have been killed, over 50,000 declared missing, another 59,000 incarcerated and upwards of 16,000 dispossessed by the Assad regime.

A recent study issued by the Strategic Research and Communication Center entitled “Safe Area for Syria: an Assessment of Legality, Logistics, and Hazards” lays out the different forms of intervention with the risks and logistical elements that need to be considered. The SNC has been working with military experts, academic professionals, public policy experts, and strategic advisors to formulate the most accurate approach for civilian protection. The SNC submitted official requests to the Arab League and the United Nation to exercise the “Responsibility to Protect” and save the innocent lives being killed and tortured in Syria. The UN Security Council failed several times to issue a condemnation due to the veto by Russia and China. However, the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission both issued condemnation resolutions. The Arab League issued historic resolutions and imposed sanctions on the Assad regime.

What should be realized is that global politics and shift in regional and global allignments takes time to persuade and change. The SNC has been working deligently on several courses of action to rally international support for the idea of humanitarian corridors, safe zone, official recognition of SNC as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, humanitarian assistance and political support. To this effect the SNC followed several leads with the UN, International Criminal Court, Arab League, Organization of Islamic Conferences, as well as individual visits to different governments.

On Dec 21, 2011, The Syrian National Council’s (SNC) Executive Office engaged in extensive contacts at the Arab and international levels, following the Syrian regime’s brutal massacres and acts of genocide in Zawyia mountain (Idlib) and Homs. At least 250 civilians, including women and children, have been killed in these latest massacres.

In this regard, the SNC directed letters to representatives of the 15 member nations of the UN Security Council, including the permanent members, urging them to convene in an emergency session to discuss the brutal and systematic killings, the humanitarian situation, and the displacements forced by the regime and its security and military apparatus.

The SNC stressed in the letters that the regime is using children as human shields so that tanks and armored vehicles can storm residential areas. Incidents of gruesome murders have been recorded, including examples such as the killing of four brothers from the Hajj Ali family in Idlib; and the killing of Sheikh Ahmadal-Fateh, the Imam of Shamali mosque in Kafar Awaid village (Idlib), who was beheaded before his head was hung above the entrance to the mosque.

The SNC also pointed to the regime’s use of heavy weapons and artillery in shelling civilian neighborhoods, as was the case in the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, as well as in the villages of Kansafra, Kafar Awaid, and Mazrain (Idlib), where a large number of residents were killed. Other residents were forced to flee under heavy gunfire.

The SNC also issued urgent communiqués to the Arab League; the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; the Gulf Cooperation Council; the General Secretariat of the United Nations; the U.S. Department of State; the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs; representatives from the Chinese Foreign Ministry; and the governments of France, Spain, Germany, Canada, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan.

The SNC urgently requested that these parties support the Syrian people’s and the Syrian Revolution’s demands for international protection, the establishment of safe zones for civilians, and the establishment of humanitarian corridors for delivery of relief, medical, and other humanitarian needs. The SNC also demanded a prompt intervention to stop the massacres, which have reached the level of genocide and which coincide with the signing of the Arab League Protocol to send observers into Syria.