A senior US administration official said Thursday that “all options are on the table” if it can be confirmed that Syria has used chemical weapons against opposition forces.

The White House said earlier in the day that Syria had likely used chemical weapons against rebel fighters on a “small scale,” but emphasized that US intelligence agencies are still not 100 percent sure of the assessment.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington wants to be absolutely sure that Syria has used chemical weapons before concluding that Damascus has crossed a “red line,” triggering possible military action.

“What we will be doing is consulting closely with our friends and allies and the international community more broadly as well as the Syrian opposition to determine what the best course of action is,” he told reporters.

“I don’t want to go to hypotheticals at this juncture,” the official added.

“But suffice to say, all options are on the table, in terms of our response, and it could run a broad spectrum of activity across our various types of efforts in Syria.”

The official recalled that the United States is already engaged in “diplomatic initiatives [and] assistance to the opposition” in Syria, where the US says a grinding civil war has left more than 70,000 dead since March 2011.

“But again, at the president’s direction, there are additional options and contingencies that we prepare for, that we would have to consider as we make our determination about chemical weapon use.”

Speaking earlier Thursday, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said US intelligence services have assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that Syria has used chemical weapons “on a small scale.”

The assessment, based in part on what Hayden called “physiological samples,” points to the possible use of sarin, a man-made nerve agent used in two attacks in Japan in the 1990s.

Hayden warned, however, the chain of custody of the weapons was “not clear, so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred and under what conditions.”

“Given the stakes involved, and what we have learned from our own recent experience, intelligence assessments alone are not sufficient,” she said.

Mounting evidence of chemical weapons attacks on fighters battling Assad’s regime could increase the pressure on Obama — who has sought to avoid any US military role in the conflict — to intervene.

On Capitol Hill, members of Congress urged Obama to take action to “secure” Syria’s chemical weapons.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that a red line has been crossed,” Senator John McCain told reporters, adding that there is a danger of chemical weapons falling into the hands of extremists.

“We have to have operational capability to secure these chemical weapon stocks. We do not want them to fall into the wrong hands, and the wrong hands are a number of participants in the struggle that’s taking place in Syria.”

04/25/2013 - AFP

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the Pentagon had backed proposals to arm the Syrian opposition battling to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

The idea — ultimately rejected — was first floated by then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who met privately with David Petraeus, CIA chief at the time, in the summer of 2012 as fighting raged in Syria.

They proposed vetting rebel groups and training fighters in a plan which they presented to the White House, according to the New York Times, quoting administration officials.

But the administration of President Barack Obama was worried about the risks of pouring more arms into the volatile conflict and rejected the idea, sticking instead to providing humanitarian assistance and non-lethal aid.

Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, admitted under questioning in the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that they had both supported the idea.

“I would ask again, both of you, what I asked you last March when 7,500 citizens of Syria had been killed. It’s now up to 60,000. How many more have to die before you recommend military action?” Senator John McCain asked them.

“And did you support the recommendation by then secretary of state Clinton and then head of CIA General Petraeus that we provide weapons to the resistance in Syria? Did you support that?”

“We did,” replied Panetta. “We did,” added Dempsey.

McCain, who has long advocated arming the rebels, said in a statement later he “was very pleased to hear” both men say they supported the proposal.

“What this means is that the president overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team, who were in unanimous agreement that America needs to take greater action to change the military balance of power in Syria,” he said.

McCain called on Obama to heed the advice of his former and current national security leaders and “immediately take the necessary steps, along with our friends and allies, that could hasten the end of the conflict in Syria.”

“The time to act is long overdue, but it is not too late.”

02/08/2013 

Syrians on both sides of the conflict must take steps to protect the country’s rich historical and archeological heritage stretching back thousands of years, a top US official warned Tuesday.

“We are always concerned in situations like this. And we’ve seen it in other areas of conflict, whether it was in Afghanistan, or in Iraq,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

In war zones “criminal elements, bad actors” can “take advantage of the chaos and of the violence to loot, to steal patrimony that belongs to all the people of the country, to spirit it across borders,” she warned.

UNESCO has already voiced alarm at the destruction of ancient sites in Syria, where some of the cities date back to 2,000 BC. There are currently six UNESCO world heritage sites in Syria.

Aleppo, which has borne much of the fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, is widely regarded as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Located at the end of the Silk Road, Aleppo was the crossroads for centuries of many trade routes and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986.

The Syrian people need to do what they can to protect the country’s patrimony so when Assad is ousted “the great history and culture of the country has not been stripped from them,” Nuland said.

In October, the head of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Irina Bokova warned “the fighting is now destroying cultural heritage that bears witness to the country’s millenary history valued and admired the world over.”

01/24/2013

The Syrian government’s former spokesman, Jihad Makdissi, is co-operating with US intelligence officials who helped him flee to Washington almost one month ago, the Guardian understands.

Makdissi became one of the most prominent regime defectors in late November when he left Beirut after first crossing from Syria. The Guardian reported at the time that he had fled for the US, possibly in return for asylum. This has now been confirmed.

The latest development comes after almost a month of debriefings, which have helped intelligence officials build a picture of decision-making in the inner sanctum of the embattled regime.

Syrian officials have denied that Makdissi has defected, saying he had instead taken three months of administrative leave. However, at the time of his departure, Hezbollah’s television network in Beirut – not known to be out of step with the regime line – announced that the spokesman’s views had strayed from official positions and that he had been fired.

The state department did not respond immediately to requests for comment, and the CIA was unwilling to discuss the story.

Makdissi is the most senior member of the regime to defect since Syria’s prime minister, Riyad Hijab, fled with his family to Jordan in August. While not a member of the inner sanctum, Makdissi was central to shaping the regime’s message and privy to many of its most sensitive communications.

Makdissi, a former senior diplomat at the Syrian embassy in London, worked closely with foreign minister, Walid al-Mouallem and information minister, Adnan Mahmoud, whom he dealt with regularly as security steadily decayed over the past 18 months.

Despite the worsening situation, the Syrian security establishment has remained largely intact and committed to defeating the armed insurrection that aims to topple it. Key decision makers in Syria are largely drawn from the Alawite sect, to which Bashar al-Assad belongs.

Intelligence officials in states that are hostile to the regime are not known to have close links to the inner sanctum. Until recently, debriefings of Hijab and former general, Manaf Tlass, both Sunni Muslims, have been instrumental in shaping western views of how decisions are taken in Syria and the influence of foreign stakeholders.

Details of Makdissi’s journey to the US are not yet known, although Britain has previously denied that he arrived in the UK after fleeing Beirut. Lebanese officials had previously suggested he was either staying with his family in a Christian area near Beirut or had been captured and returned to Syria.

12/24/2012

18/11/12

Is it time to arm the Syrian opposition?

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday announced $30 million in extra humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict in Syria, as she welcomed its new opposition coalition.

Clinton, in Australia for annual security and defense talks, said the formation of a new Syrian opposition coalition was “a good beginning”.

“We agreed today that the formation of the new Syrian opposition coalition is an important step forward and will help the international community better target our assistance where it is needed most,” she said.

“Today I’m pleased to announce that the US is providing an additional $30 million in humanitarian assistance to help get much-needed food to hungry people inside Syria and to refugees who have fled to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.”

Clinton said she welcomed the progress made to broaden and unify the opposition leadership under the National Coalition.

“We have long called for this kind of organization,” she said, but added that Washington now wanted to see that momentum maintained.

“Specifically we urge them to finalize the organizational arrangements to support the commitments that they made in Doha and to begin influencing events on the ground in Syria,” she said.

“As the Syrian opposition takes these steps, and demonstrates its effectiveness in advancing the case of a unified, democratic, pluralistic Syria, we will be prepared to work with them to deliver assistance to the Syrian people.

“We want to see the steps taken that have been promised and we stand ready to assist this new opposition in standing itself up and representing the Syrian people to the regime and the international community.”

The diverse forces involved in the Syrian opposition coalition agreed on Sunday to unify their fighting forces under a supreme military council and to set up a national judicial commission for rebel-held areas in Syria.

The move came after talks in Doha. Washington had pushed the Syrian National Council to broaden its membership, saying it was not representative of all the groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

-AFP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘WAITING FOR THE WEST’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nov 12/2012

The Syrian crisis cannot be solved with simple quarantine methods, Turkish Ambassador to Washington Namık Tan has said, reiterating that Turkey and the United States are on the same page concerning the crisis.

”It is obvious that the Syrian crisis can’t be quarantined by palliative treatments,” said Tan. “We are on the same page with the U.S. on the cause of the Syrian crisis’ origin and the parameters of the solution,” he said. “Turkey’s expectations from the U.S. are similar to our expectations from the international community. We want to see an immediate end to the problem bordering Turkey before a spillover.”

Commenting on the Syrian opposition’s fractured structure, Tan echoed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s words in which she criticized the opposition Syrian National Council for not representing all Syrian opposition groups as an umbrella organization.” It is true that it has not been possible to achieve a complete reconciliation between the opposition groups in Syria since the beginning of the crisis,” said Tan. “But while criticizing the opposition in this manner, it also needs to take into account the background of the opposition movement. The fact that the political opposition in Syria has been prohibited for 40 years must not be forgotten. A trust problem among the opposition groups suffering from a lack of communication between each other is normal.”Touching on the possible deployment of NATO’s Patriot missile along the Turkish-Syrian border, Tan said: “We informed NATO a couple of times about the region and Syria. The contingency plans have been prepared by NATO to protect the borders of NATO. It is an ongoing process. So it is not a new development. And it is not possible to give the details about these plans until the work is done.”

On Iran, the second big challenge facing bilateral relations between Turkey and the U.S., Tan seems critical of the sanctions pursued by the Barack Obama administration and its effects on Turkish companies.

7 Nov 2012 #Syria  #TheGreatestHomsiDescovery In Homs we expect 1 of the candidates will win US  #elections. Either Obama or Romney will win !!!

Homsi humour via @samersniper thanks samer :)

(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)

11/03/12 By Kamal Taha

AMMAN — Details emerged on Saturday of plans to reshape Syria’s opposition into a representative government-in-exile, on the eve of key talks between regime opponents.

The talks starting Sunday in the Qatari capital Doha come amid US criticism of the main exiled opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week was not representative.

Reports have emerged that Washington is pressing for an overhaul of the opposition, with long-time dissident Riad Seif touted as the potential head of a new government-in-exile dubbed the Syrian National Initiative.

Seif and about two dozen other leading opposition figures gathered in Jordan’s capital Amman this week and came up with proposals for a new body to represent the disparate groups opposing President Bashar al-Assad.

Among those in attendance were some SNC members, former premier Riad Hijab, who defected in August, Ali Sadreddin Bayanuni of the Muslim Brotherhood and Kurdish and tribal representatives, participants said.

In a statement Saturday, participants sought to quell concerns the overhaul is aimed at building an opposition that would be willing to negotiate with Assad.

“Assad and his entourage leaving power is a non-negotiable precondition for any dialogue aimed at finding a non-military solution, if that is still possible,” the statement said.

The Amman meeting also came out in support of “efforts underway to put in place a unified political body for the whole of the opposition,” according to the statement.

It examined “the means to unify the opposition in a way worthy of the sacrifices on the ground and to secure the international, regional and Arab support needed to overthrow the regime.”

The group backed the rebel “Free Syrian Army and the movements behind the revolution on the ground as legitimate means to topple the criminal regime.”

Hijab’s spokesman, Mohammed al-Otri, said the group was proposing “the creation of a new political organ of the opposition, representing all of its components.”

He said the new body would include the 14 members of the SNC executive, three members of the Kurdish National Council, representatives of on-the-ground activists and fighters, longstanding dissidents and religious leaders.

“It remains to be decided whether this body will replace the SNC or will constitute a new coalition,” Otri said, adding that the creation of the group “will certainly lead to the formation of a government” in exile.

In a separate statement, Bayanuni underlined the Brotherhood’s support for “the idea of a political leadership to bring together the opposition” including the SNC.

But he said the Brotherhood supported maintaining the SNC, in which it holds significant influence, and “not replacing it with a new body.”

The SNC lashed out on Friday at alleged US interference with the opposition, accusing Washington of undermining the country’s revolt and “sowing the seeds of division” by seeking the overhaul.

Clinton had voiced frustration with the SNC, saying it was not representative of on-the-ground opposition forces and that it “can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition.”

Washington denied it was trying to interfere with the opposition, insisting it was simply seeking to ensure that more voices were heard.

“This is not a matter of the US dictating,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Nuland said the United States had backed the SNC for more than a year but now felt it needed to broaden its political base to “connect the various political groups inside Syria”.

Washington, she said, wants to see a broader spectrum of communities in the opposition leadership including “not only the Sunni population but the Alawis, the Druze, the Christians, the Kurds, any other minority groups, women.”

By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers

ISTANBUL — A U.S. decision to de-recognize a Syrian exile umbrella group and to propose a new political forum – and even who should be on it – drew an angry response from opposition figures Thursday, who charged that Washington was trying to impose its will on them while passively watching the bombardment of cities and towns by the Assad regime.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the United States would no longer view the Syrian National Council “as the visible leader” of the opposition and said she had “recommended names and organizations which we believe should be included in any leadership structure.”

“The politics of the United States are very, very bad, very stupid,” said Mohammed Sarmini, spokesman for the Syrian National Council, whose 310 members represent most of the major parties and organizations in exile. “This may be an American project, but it is very offensive to the Syrian people. You should support us on the ground, not get into our politics.”

A respected Syrian scholar who heads a Washington think tank was equally critical.

“I think that no country … can interfere or can impose the leaders on the Syrian opposition,” said Radwan Ziadeh, executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies, who’s also a Syrian National Council member. “I call on the international community to back and support the Syrian opposition groups so they can organize themselves, not to interfere in the different groups.”

The U.S. move came on the eve of a conference in Doha, Qatar, where the Syrian National Council, known as the SNC, plans to elect a new board and restructure itself, then later meet with other groups not under its umbrella and forge a common strategy. The meetings coincide with the U.S. presidential election.

Clinton said she had consulted European allies and members of the Arab League before reaching the decision, but there were signs that the Obama administration may be out of touch with Syrian exile politics.

Just as Clinton was speaking in Zagreb, Croatia, to reporters accompanying her on a two-day swing through the Balkans, Ziadeh was wrapping up a three-day conference in an Istanbul suburb where all the Syrian opposition parties reached accord on a plan leading to a transitional government.

In her remarks, Clinton disparaged the SNC as “people who have many good attributes but have, in many instances, not been inside Syria for 20, 30 or 40 years.” She called for representation of those “who are on the frontlines, fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

In fact, dozens of military and civilian personnel from inside Syria took part in Ziadeh’s conference, including representatives of “every military command, without exception,” he said. They included Abdel Rizaq Tlass, the founder of the powerful Farouk Brigade in Homs, Lt. Ammar al-Wawi, leader of the Ababil Battalion in Aleppo, and Col. Afif Suleiman, head of the revolutionary council in Idlib.

The three-day conference was said to be the biggest and most inclusive gathering of its kind. There were more than 20 officers and fighters from the armed resistance in attendance, some 70 civilian activists from inside Syria, and representatives of 18 political parties and factions.

They reached accord in four major areas, the most important of which is probably the plan for a transitional government. The accord calls for an assembly of 300 Syrians, to be held inside the country if possible, to elect the government. Most of the participants would be from the inside, intended to give the legitimacy that many transitional governments do not have.

One-quarter of the participants would represent the municipal councils set up to run liberated areas, one-quarter from the armed resistance groups, one-quarter of state bureaucrats who have defected to the opposition and one-quarter from the Syrian National Council.

Other points agreed to at the meeting were to build a new constitution, based on the 1950 constitution, which put heavy stress on civil rights; to institute an election law that provides for multiple parties and a parliamentary system; to institute a new national security administration and to make it a constitutional requirement that the military stays out of politics.

Based on the conclusions reached by Ziadeh’s group, which were to be ratified by the SNC and the other groups next week, there is now a question whether the action announced by Clinton will unite the opposition – against U.S. pressure – or carve a new fissure.

For months, as the bloodshed continued in Syria, American officials have been elusive and avoided media inquiries.

Haynes Mahoney, the former deputy chief of mission in Damascus, who closely follows Syrian refugee affairs from Istanbul, attended part of the first day of the Ziadeh conference but was otherwise absent. Mahoney told a McClatchy reporter Monday that he is under orders not to talk with the news media, except off the record and then only with express permission from the State Department. McClatchy requested a talk with Mahoney in early October but was turned down three weeks later.

Similarly, Robert Ford, the former ambassador to Syria and now the main point man in Washington, has declined to give interviews to a McClatchy reporter for several months.

But it appears that the U.S. officials also don’t have a lot of contact with respected opposition figures. Ziadeh said he was not sure whether the United States had actually drafted the plan for the opposition or had bought into a new plan drafted by Riad Seif, a prominent dissident who left Syria earlier this summer after a decade of house arrest and jail.

Seif’s plan is to create a council of 51, which might turn into a transitional government, Ziadeh said.

The humanitarian situation in Syria is now one of if not the worst crisis on Earth. Officially the death toll is stated at 30,000 to 35,000. But a European diplomat in Istanbul who closely monitors the war and humanitarian aid efforts estimates the actual death toll at more than 100,000, a number with which reputable Syrian opposition figures agree. U.S. officials say they wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers are higher than 30,000.

The 100,000 figure is based on an estimate of the number of people who have been forcibly “disappeared” and on the existence of what the European diplomat said were believed to be mass graves.

Reputable opposition groups say the Syrian government has arrested 92,000 people on political charges.

The U.N. High Commission for Refugees on Thursday estimated that 360,000 Syrians had fled abroad and sought to register as refugees, but the real number is more than double that, more than 700,000.

No international organization seems to have a handle on the internally displaced, that is, civilians either living in the open or forced to live in the dwellings of friends or relatives. The official U.N. estimate is 1.2 million, but a respected Syrian diplomat, who defected to the opposition, says it could be as high as 10 million.

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

A destroyed street in Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday.

By HANIA MOURTADA, HWAIDA SAAD and MICHAEL R. GORDON

Published: October 31, 2012