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

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

18/11/12

Is it time to arm the Syrian opposition?

UK to review EU ban after Cameron visits refugee camps as Turkey says it will ask Nato to put Patriot missiles along border

Nicholas Watt in Amman and Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian, Thursday 8 November 2012

A Syrian rebel fighter throws a grenade towards Assad forces in Aleppo. David Cameron says he will press Barack Obama to make Syria a priority. Photograph: John Cantlie/AFP

AMMAN (Reuters) - Britain will begin contacts with Syrian opposition military figures to help unite the fragmented rebel movement to oust President Bashar al-Assad, British officials said on Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary William Hague will announce the effort later on Wednesday, the same day Prime Minister David Cameron will meet Syrian refugees in Jordan, the prime minister’s office said.

An aide to Cameron said the move was intended to help unite the opposition and also was an acknowledgement that a protracted conflict had taken hold in Syria. However, British officials will not be giving military guidance.

“He (Hague) has authorized diplomats to have direct contact with military figures on the ground in order to better understand the actual situation and the relationship between political and armed opposition groups,” Cameron’s office said in a statement.

“This increased contact with the opposition reflects the reality that these groups are increasingly dictating events in Syria,” the statement added.

Cameron will visit a camp for Syrian refugees at the end of a trade and diplomacy trip to the Middle East that has also included the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and is expected to announce 14 million pounds ($22.4 million) in aid.

Some 340,000 people have fled Syria and registered as refugees since a March 2011 uprising against Assad turned into an armed rebellion and triggered brutal government crackdowns.

Another 1.2 million people have been displaced within Syria, and 32,000 people have died in the violence.

The effort to improve ties with anti-Assad activists comes ahead of a meeting of Syrian opposition figures on Thursday in Qatar, where they will try to forge a united front in a bid to gain more international support.

10/10/12

Two Britons arrested at Heathrow Airport over alleged terrorism offences are to be questioned about the kidnap of a British photographer in Syria, the Metropolitan Police has said.

The man and woman, both aged 26, were arrested at 20:30 BST on Tuesday after their flight landed at the airport.

They were held on suspicion of travelling to Syria in support of alleged terrorist activity.

Police said their possible involvement in the abduction was a line of inquiry.

British photographer John Cantlie - who had done work for the Sunday Times - and Dutch journalist Jeroen Oerlemans were taken hostage by Islamist militants in Syria for week in July.

After the ordeal, Mr Cantlie said one captor had claimed to be an NHS doctor.

Scotland Yard said the pair arrested at Heathrow on Wednesday had flown into the UK from Egypt. It confirmed both were of British nationality and had been arrested over allegations of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

Joining jihadist groups

Officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Command took the pair to a central London police station where they remain in custody.

Two addresses in east London are being searched under the Terrorism Act in connection with police inquiries, the Met said.

Foreign Secretary William Hague, speaking to the BBC, said the UK government was aware of Britons going to Syria to fight.

“That’s not something we recommend, and we do not want British people taking part in violent situations anywhere in the world,” he said.

Dozens of people are thought to have travelled from Britain to Syria to fight in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The BBC’s defence correspondent, Frank Gardner, said some of those are believed to have made such trips have joined jihadist groups.

However, he said the Syrian conflict had attracted relatively low numbers of Britons travelling for jihadist reasons compared to previous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And there is no evidence that those leaving Britain to fight in Syria have any Syrian family connections, our correspondent said.

According to activists, more than 30,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March last year. The UN estimates that at least 20,000 have died.

Jihadists - those committed to establishing an Islamic state by violent means - have been seen on the battlefield in Syria.

08/09/12

#Syria rebels say Assad using ‘mass-killing weapons’ in Aleppo 

Syrian opposition says Damascus forces using thermobaric weapons on civilians in northern Syria; Damascus TV reports forces ‘cleansing area of terrorists

Syrian opposition sources claim that the Assad regime used “mass-killing thermobaric weapons” on civilians in Aleppo, in northern Syria, the UK’s Times reported on Friday. Thermobaric are lethal weapons that explode above a target area with a massive blast and suck air in, leaving a vacuum.

Commanders of the Free Syria Army (FSA) said that the heavy shelling over the Aleppo suburb of Salaheddin included the use of such weapons.

n an op-ed article for the Times of London published Friday, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK would intensify contacts with the political wing of the Free Syrian Army, to “prepare for the inevitable day of (President Bashar) Assad’s fall.”

Diplomats said Hague would announce the details of the new funding later, but insisted that none of the money would be used for weapons.

 ”We must build relationships now with those who may govern Syria in the future,” Hague said.

Related information:

• Thermobaric weapons - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

#Syria rebels forced from key Aleppo district

Rebels admit tactical retreat from southern Salaheddin neighbourhood, as UK announces $7.8m aid boost for opposition.

10/08/2012

Syrian rebels have been pushed out of a strategic district in the commercial capital of Aleppo, but fighting has continued in other parts of the city.

Hossam Abu Mohammed, a rebel commander, said that his men were still fighting in parts of Salaheddin district on Friday, after most fled under heavy bombing and advancing troops.

“We will not let Salaheddin go,” the Free Syrian Army’s Abu Mohammed told AFP  news agency by telephone as the third day of a government offensive to take the city raged.

Rebels said clashes continued in the district and that, while the government had at least 80 tanks stationed in various parts of Aleppo, the military appeared reluctant to engage in close combat, preferring to use helicopters and fighter jets.

Sheikh Tawfiq, commander of the Nur al-Din Zinky brigade based on 15th street in Salaheddin, said the army’s formidable weaponry was offset by apparently faltering morale.

“At the 10th street front line we are face-to-face with the army and can hear them make orders on their radios. We hear their commanders give orders to soldiers to advance and they keep urging them to, but the soldiers don’t and are hesitant.”

State television said: “Our special forces have cleansed Salaheddin district of terrorists.”
  
State media reported that the government offensive in Aleppo had taken place on several fronts, including a neighbourhood near the airport in southeast Aleppo, several eastern districts, and a town on Aleppo’s northwestern outskirts, state media said.

Despite the violence, the Red Cross delivered food and medical supplies to Aleppo, the first time one of its aid convoys managed to enter the city in several weeks.

Kassem Saadeddine, a spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army, said that the rebel withdrawal “does not mean we are leaving Aleppo. We have military plans to fight in the city, but we cannot reveal them”.

‘New Syria envoy’

Diplomats at the United Nations, meanwhile, indicated on Thursday that Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat, could be named next week to replace Kofi Annan as the joint UN-Arab League envoy to Syria.

Also on Thursday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appointed Wael al-Halki, the country’s health minister, as Syria’s new prime minister. Halki replaces Riad Hijab, who fled to Jordan and defected to the opposition earlier his week.

As the battle for Aleppo raged, Iran called on Thursday for “serious and inclusive” negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition. Iran made the appeal after a gathering of diplomats from like-minded states in Tehran for talks on the conflict.

“There will be no winner in Syria,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement read by a UN representative to the conference in Tehran.

“Now, we face the grim possibility of long-term civil war destroying Syria’s rich tapestry of interwoven communities.”

On Friday, the United Nations said that the number of registered Syrian refugees had topped 150,000 since the conflict began in March 2011. The total includes 50,227 in Turkey, where more than 6,000 Syrians arrived this week alone.

There are also 45,869 refuguees registered in Jordan, with 36,841 more in Lebanon and 13,587 in Iraq. The number of refugees in Iraq does not include the return of 23,228 Iraqis, who had fled the US invasion in 2003, from Syria.

Smaller numbers of refugees have also fled o Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Greece, the UN says. 

UK increases opposition support

William Hague, the British foreign minister, on Friday announced that his country was offering $7.8 million in aid to the Syrian rebels. He said that none of the money would be used for weapons.

The UK will also be intensifying its contacts with Syrian opposition political figures as well as with the Free Syrian Army, he said.

The aid was likely to include mobile phones, satellite phones and radios to warn civilians of governmen assaults and 
“overcome the regime’s communications blockade and ensure their message gets to the outside world”, Hague said.

“I have also agreed in principle that our assistance should include lifesaving protective equipment for civilians to help those carrying out vital work in the crossfire, and this could for instance include body armour,” he said.

Britain would also supply medical equipment including paramedic trauma kits, surgical equipment, field dressings, antibiotics, painkillers and water purification kits, the foreign minister said.

Diplomats at the UN, meanwhile, indicated on Thursday that the official announcement regarding the appointment of Brahimi as the UN-Arab League envoy would be made early next week.

Brahimi was the UN envoy in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks and in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion.

Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary-general, said he was leaving the post because of the lack of international support for his efforts to end the 17-month Syria conflict, in which rebels say more than 20,000 people have been killed.

Annan is staying in his post until August 31.

Human rights organisations must start coping with reality: The victors write the laws and hold the trials.

Human rights organisations should not be so quick to put rebel militias to the same standard as a standing army [AFP]

08/08/2012

Cambridge, UK - Human rights organisations pride themselves on being impartial, on not taking sides in the conflicts they report on.

On July 31 in Aleppo, when Syrian rebels summarily executed the head of a pro-regime Shabiha militia, Ali Zeineddin al-Berri - and some of his men - there was a chorus of condemnation from Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and the UN.

“What it looks like is execution of detainees and if that is the case, that would be a war crime,” said a senior legal advisor for HRW.

To be sure, these same organisations have assiduously investigated the atrocities of the Assad regime.

But what are we to make of the idea that the violence of the regime and that of the rebels should be measured against the same standard? Does it make sense to be impartial about a war?

Al-Berri was a regime thug who allegedly killed 15 Syrian rebels during a recent truce. Some of the worst massacres of the conflict have been carried out by Shabiha militia. Killing al-Berri may have been simple revenge; or it may have been a calculated message to encourage militiamen to stay home.

Maybe the killing was a mistake. It might convince regime dead-enders that they have no choice but to go down fighting. It certainly generated negative media coverage among the rebels’ supporters in the West.

But for the human rights community, assessing al-Berri’s killing is a legal not a strategic matter. Note the language used by HRW’s lawyer: the Syrian rebels had unlawfully killed a “detainee”.

The Syrian rebels are a collection of different groups, with no clear political direction or command structure. They are fighting a desperate war against a regime that will bomb and massacre its own people to stay in power, and which would prefer to see Syria destroyed than surrender.

The Syrian rebels actually doing the fighting mostly lack training, organisation, and leadership. Needless to say, they have not prioritised hiring lawyers, writing legal codes, and setting up a judiciary. It is unlikely the Syrian opposition has a consistent or enforceable “policy” on “detainees”, whatever statements its campaign spokesmen outside Syria may make.

Yet HRW talks as if the rebels were just like a state. It seeks to hold them to the same standards with respect to discriminating between combatants and civilians, treatment of prisoners and so on.

What bias in human rights talk is revealed in this attempt at impartiality?

Firstly, the laws of war were written by states. There is a systematic bias favouring the official, uniformed armed forces of states. From the point of view of the state, a rebel is at best an “unlawful combatant” or a criminal, at worst a traitor or even a barbarian.

According to the Geneva Conventions, the definition of a legal combatant is one who carries weapons openly and ideally wears a uniform or distinguishing mark.

When rebels are strong and in control of territory, they can carry weapons openly. To do so in other situations is to surrender one of their few advantages. Had the Free Syrian Army carried weapons openly and worn uniforms when they infiltrated into Damascus and Aleppo, the regime would already be victorious.

From the point of view of these great standards of civilisation - the Geneva Conventions - a Syrian soldier fighting rebels bearing arms is perfectly legal. But the rebels who kill regime officials in their homes are war criminals.

How far would the rebellion against Assad have gotten if every rebel had to identify himself by openly carrying arms, engaging only in “fair fights” with the Syrian Armed Forces?

The problems with human rights talk go deeper.

NATO deploys lawyers en masse and its air forces are meticulous and expert in their targeting. But it could not satisfy HRW in the Libyan campaign. In May, HRW released a report asking NATO to account for 72 “civilian” casualties caused by air strikes. (Even if HRW is entirely correct, 72 dead civilians is a remarkably low price to pay for NATO’s contribution to unseating Gaddafi.)

The definition of a civilian may seem straightforward. In fact, it is a very difficult matter, even in wars between states. Are arms workers civilians? Are soldiers not on duty civilians? Are unwilling conscripts civilians or soldiers? The Geneva Conventions evade the matter. They essentially say that a civilian is anyone who is not a legal combatant, that is, someone who is not carrying arms openly.

In war, the question of carrying weapons openly is a tactical issue and camouflage is a principal military art. Under sustained air attack, Gaddafi’s military did not seek to advertise its “distinguishing marks” as the uniformed armed force of a sovereign state. After the first few days, for example, Libyan commanders did not use military radios or military vehicles. To do so was to invite death from the air from their enemies. After the war, HRW investigators found no evidence of military equipment at bombed out buildings that NATO said were Libyan command and control facilities. They naively assumed in such cases that civilians had been killed.

HRW now demand NATO investigate and account for these deaths. The idea here is that, ideally speaking, every death in war can be clearly adjudicated in legal terms. But given the ambiguity in the core distinction between civilian and combatant how could this ever be so?

The fantasy that matters of right and wrong in war are subject to legal determination creates a bogus position of moral superiority. It is a position occupied by those who believe human rights talk elevates them above the politics of war. They presume an imaginary world in which all war crimes will be investigated and punished, irrespective of who committed them.

Consider in this vein UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remark that “Aleppo… is the epicentre of a vicious battle between the Syrian government and those who wish to replace it. The acts of brutality that are being reported may constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes. Such acts must be investigated and the perpetrators held to account.”

By reference to the notion of war crimes, Ban Ki-moon creates a moral equivalence between the murderous regime of Assad and those who are fighting against the odds to defeat him. Whatever the failings of the rebels, and they are many, there is no such equivalence for any right thinking person.

Ban Ki-moon’s comment also implies there will be some grand trial where good and bad, right and wrong, legal and illegal all will be decided.

In the real world, we know that the powerful write the laws and the victors hold the trials.

While HRW and Amnesty issue reports, and UN officials make grand statements, no US or UK official will ever be tried for war crimes in Iraq or for the on-going torture and imprisonment of terrorist suspects.

Human rights talk is a way of evading having to take sides in war and of pretending to be above war. But the only reason we have the UN and the human rights community is because of the victory of the Allies in World War II and of the West in the Cold War.

Perhaps it is time for human rights organisations to dispense with the lawyers and start studying politics and the paradoxes of war.

Tarak Barkawi is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, New School for Social Research.

24.07.12

Planning for possible intervention is already under way in Western capitals, Turkey and Jordan, the report says.

It is being spurred, above all, by fears of Syrian chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands.

The report comes from the Royal United Services Institute - with close ties to the UK defence ministry, say analysts.

Last week the Syrian regime was rocked by the assassinations of four of its senior officials in a bomb blast.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama warned the Syrian government against using chemical weapons, after an implicit acknowledgement by Damascus that it held a stockpile of such weapons.

‘Responsibility to prepare’

The Rusi report quotes Col Richard Kemp, who led UK forces in Afghanistan, as saying the escalating civil war meant it was more likely that Western governments would intervene to stop the bloodshed spreading to neighbouring countries.

“Military planners have a responsibility to prepare for intervention options in Syria for their political masters in case this conflict chooses them,” Col Kemp says in the report, called A Collision Course for Intervention.

“Preparation will be proceeding today in several Western capitals and on the ground in Syria and in Turkey.

“They will however have grave reservations over the consequences and the cost of intervention as well as the geopolitical implications.”

The report suggests President Assad’s own future is becoming less relevant, says BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall.

The key issues now include:

• the danger of Syria’s chemical weapons being used either by desperate pro-regime commanders, or extremists allied to the opposition
• the spectre of a flood of refugees
• the crisis turning into a proxy confrontation between Iran and its Shia allies on one side, and Sunni governments from the Gulf on the other.

The report discounts a full scale invasion as unlikely, but concludes more limited action to protect civilians or to try to secure and destroy chemical stocks may be necessary, our correspondent says.

That could include arming opposition groups or putting together a military coalition for action.

Intervention ‘already happening’

The report suggests planning for this and other scenarios is already under way.

However, Col Kemp asserts in the report that foreign intervention is already under way in Syria.

“External intervention has been under way in Syria for months, with Russia arming the regime,” he says.

“At the same time Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with US and Turkish facilitation, have been arming and funding the opposition; and this covert support has been substantially responsible for the progress opposition forces have made in recent weeks.

“Western political leaders may have no appetite for deeper intervention. But as history has shown, we do not always choose which wars to fight.”

Michigan, USA (PRWEB) July 05, 2012

With the approach of the Olympic Games in London-UK, coincided with the intensification of repression by Assad regime and the barbaric atrocities against Syrian people, Syrian Expatriates organization urges the International Olympic Community to ban the participation of Syrian national team in the upcoming Olympic Games, as a condemnation against Syrian regime atrocities and violation of human rights. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9299502/London-2012-Olympics-Syrian-athletes-may-compete-under-neutral-five-ring-Olympics-flag.html

Dr Nadim AlSadat, SEO board member, said, ”Although we acknowledge the importance of Olympic Games as a way of unity for all people around the world, however, the calamitous situation in Syria, caused by Assad’s retaliation against our people, and the hideous atrocities committed against Syrians, has impacted every aspect of their life, including the sport activities. Football stadiums have been converted into large detention areas, others have been demolished under the continuous shelling. Athletes were killed, detained, or tortured.”

The Assad’s killing machine didn’t spare the athletes, who had their own share in the Syrian sacrifices. Reported by the Syrian British Solidarity Campaign, a world-winning Boxing champion, Ahmad Wattar, had been detained by Assad security forces, no word of his situation till now.
http://sbsc.org.uk/index.php?limitstart=5

Zaman-alwasl news has reported on 04-11-2012 the death of Jamal Bayerly, Syrian national champion in Karate, in Homs by Assad forces. The same report also stated the death of Hama’s Goal-keeper, Khalid Jerjanzi
http://zaman-alwsl.net/readNews.php?id=25907

According to the HRW report on Syria,”Torture Archipelago” released July 2012, “the Syrian authorities also established numerous temporary unofficial detention centers in stadiums,schools, hospitals, and on military bases.” this demonstrates the extent of brutality and savagery of Assad regime.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria0712webwcover.pdf

SEO urges the IOC to ban Syria’s participation in the upcoming Olympic Games in London, as a strong message of condemnation against Assad regime. SEO asks the Olympic organizing committee to observe a minute of silence in a memory of the 16,000 martyrs, including athletes, who scarifies their lives to establish free and democratic Syria.
http://www.victims.syrianrights.org/

By James Robbins Diplomatic correspondent

The UK is to double its non-military aid to opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.

William Hague said the aid would help to provide training for activists and citizen journalists

He said the extra £500,000 will help groups both inside and outside Syria.

Mr Hague used his annual Mansion House speech in the City of London to urge President Assad to accept he has no hope of political survival.

The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have been killed during a year-long Syrian revolt.

The foreign secretary is working to boost Syria’s opposition at a moment when new diplomacy offers hope - however uncertain - that President Assad may be pushed into change.

Mr Hague told his audience, including dozens of foreign ambassadors in London, that the UK will give opposition groups extra help worth £500,000.

It will include more training for activists and citizen journalists to help them get their stories out of Syria, and possibly secure phones to make the co-ordination of protest safer.

Civil society groups will also be given more assistance gathering evidence of atrocities for possible future trials.

Mr Hague warned the regime its reliance on violence was not only morally indefensible, it was futile.

‘Economic disarray’

He said: “President Assad and his allies may look at the rubble of Homs, the abandoned streets of Idlib and Syria’s overflowing prisons and they may entertain hopes of political survival.

“But they cannot avoid ever greater numbers of Syrians wanting a better future, and rejecting the bloodshed, insecurity and economic disarray their leaders have brought upon them.”

Mr Hague said he expected the Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul on Sunday to adopt new measures to increase pressure on the regime and boost Kofi Annan’s diplomatic mission.

The foreign secretary did acknowledge President Assad’s apparent willingness to accept Mr Annan’s UN plan, but he said the regime needed to convince a sceptical world and a wounded Syrian people.

On Thursday, Arab states meeting in Baghdad called for the immediate implementation of the plan, which would see a UN-monitored end to fighting, troops pulled out of opposition areas and access for humanitarian services.

At the same meeting, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki warned that arming either side in Syria would lead to a “proxy war”.

Syria’s opposition leaders are so far refusing to contemplate any negotiations which could leave President Assad in power and he is warning that his participation in a UN peace plan may depend on foreign governments ending all support for his opponents, whom he calls terrorists.

By HALA DROUBI

Published: March 24, 2012

Those officials had been encouraged by a United Nations vote last week in which Russia and China, after previously blocking Security Council action on Syria, joined a statement supporting an attempt to broker a cease-fire.

But on Saturday — a day before scheduled talks in Moscow with a United Nations envoy — a senior Kremlin adviser indicated that Russia continues to have a sharply different view than the United States and other Western countries, placing the main burden to stop the fighting on opposition forces, rather than the Syrian government.

“The main thing is to convince the Syrian opposition to come to the negotiating table with representatives of the authorities, and to achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis,” the adviser, Sergei E. Prikhodko, told the Itar-Tass news agency.

That view contrasts with the reactions of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the British foreign secretary, who responded to the Security Council vote by urging the Syrian government to act first and immediately pull back its forces from population centers, echoing the text of the statement.

While the uprising last year started with peaceful protests, army defectors and others have since taken up arms against the government after months of a brutal crackdown.

On Saturday, Syrian troops intensified a renewed attack against the beleaguered central city of Homs, activists said. The city was the site of a major offensive earlier this year that heavily damaged the restive neighborhood of Baba Amr, but had been calmer in recent weeks.

The government had said that assault had pacified the city, but many opposition fighters appeared to have just moved to other neighborhoods. On Saturday, activists reported that troops continued an assault on the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh that had started last week.

Omar Idilbi, with the Local Coordinating Committees, an activist group, said that Khaldiyeh was one of several neighborhoods being shelled. His group put the number of dead in the city from Saturday’s fighting at 24, out of 45 killed Saturday throughout Syria.

“There is not one neighborhood in Homs that doesn’t have members of the F.S.A. in it, even Baba Amr,” he said, referring to the loose-knit rebel militias, the Free Syrian Army. “That’s why the shelling continues.”

Abo Mohammed, an activist in Khaldiyeh reached through Skype, said: “There are kids here, and they’re seeing the dead bodies on the streets. You can’t hide them anymore.”

As has been true since the start of the conflict, reports are difficult to confirm, since the country has severely restricted entry by foreign reporters.

Troops also continued their attempts to flush rebels from areas north of Homs, entering the town of Saraqeb in Idlib Province. The London-based Syrian Observatory, another activist group, said tanks had entered the city and troops were arresting residents.

An activist in Turkey, who goes by the name Menhal and who recently fled Saraqeb, said people in the town reached by phone said it was bombarded by tank fire. “The situation is horrible,” he said by telephone. “I don’t know what more to say. They are looting stores and destroying them, burning houses, and there are many wounded people, and God, many wounded kids, many wounded kids.”

The diplomatic efforts to end the violence are expected to continue Sunday, when Kofi Annan, the special representative of the United Nations and the Arab League, is scheduled to meet with Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, and its foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. Mr. Annan is then expected to continue to China for more talks.

Mrs. Clinton has sought to portray Russia’s backing of the United Nations Security Council statement in support of Mr. Annan’s mission as an important shift, demonstrating new international unity.

“The Council has now spoken with one voice,” Mrs. Clinton said Wednesday, calling for the pullback of government forces and the beginning of a Syrian-led political process “that will lead to a democratic transition.”

But the comments from the Kremlin on Saturday suggested that there was still a rift, and that Russia would continue to oppose efforts to oust Mr. Assad, its longtime ally.

The Kremlin adviser, Mr. Prikhodko, rather than focusing on Mr. Assad, said Russia believed that the violence could only be stopped by ending foreign support for the Syrian opposition.

He said that at the meeting with Mr. Annan on Sunday, Mr. Medvedev “will present our basic approach to the problem of the cease-fire and violence in Syria, which would be difficult to do without putting an end to the external fueling and political support of the armed opposition.”

by Paul Conroy (click link source for Facebook page)

The Butcher of Homs

Last Tuesday I was asked to join a panel discussion at the House of Commons. I readily agreed as it was to screen Jonathan Miller’s fantastic and ground breaking film ‘Syria’s Torture Machine. One of the most insightful and inspiring pieces of filmmaking I have seen in many years.
The event was hosted by Anne Clywd MP with representatives from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, a Syrian torture victim, a representative from the Russian federation and me.
After an introductory round of speeches we watched Jonathan’s superb film and the panel then opened for answers. By this time I had moved back to the audience as my leg injuries were not ideal for sitting up front. Still wishing to take part in the panel discussion and perhaps do a little Q&A I asked if I could have a microphone. My colleague asked one of those media study, large red glasses and tight jeans assistant producer types if this was possible “It’s not going to happen” he was told in a rather bolshie and self-important way. “I think you will find he’s doing it anyway” my colleague Miles Amoore from the Sunday Time grinned.
The point in this is that all week I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a comment from the Russians regarding arms supplies to Syria. Now, right there in front of me, was a real life, in the flesh card carrying representative of the Russian federation and a Channel 4 work placement fruit bat wouldn’t give me a microphone.
I was reduced to putting up my hand and rather grumpily waiting my turn. In the event the wonderful Ann Clywd chairing the proceedings saw my rather desperate outstretched hand, similar to that of a child at school who finds he miraculously knows the answer to a question and is desperate not to go unnoticed.
Given that I had had a large piece of Russian shrapnel removed from me a few days previously I was eager to ask about the Russians continued supply of arms to Syria. I started by reminding him that it was a piece of a Russian made shell that had just been removed from my back. He looked suitably embarrassed but said nothing.
My main question I said was a three part yes or no question which he agreed to have a pop at
Q Is it true that Russia is supplying arms and heavy artillery munitions to Syria
A. Yes
Q. Are you are aware that these weapons and munitions are being used against civilians
A. Yes
Q. Knowing this will Russia stop selling weapons and heavy munitions to Syria
A. No (brief gasp from me and others) if we don’t do it somebody else will.
Now excuse me but that seems like an answer that a crack dealer would resort to when caught outside of a primary school with a huge bag of class A drugs he has been peddling to pre-teens, not the answer of a representative of one of the most powerful (and dangerous) nations on the planet.

So there we have it, direct from the horse’s mouth. Vladimir Putin ‘The Butcher of Homs’ as he so fondly known on the streets of Babr Amr is indeed supplying the Assad regime weapons, munitions and who know what else on the solid conviction that ‘If they don’t sell it someone else will’.

It’s little wonder we live on such a peaceful and harmonious planet.

Cameron makes joint call with Nicolas Sarkozy as Vladimir Putin signals Russia’s increasing distance from the Assad regime

Britain and France on Friday sought to step up the pressure on the Syrian regime by demanding that President Bashar al-Assad and his officials face an international war crimes trial.

The move came as the last remaining international support for Assad appeared to be melting away as Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, said his country did not enjoy a special relationship with Damascus and his foreign ministry said it would not protect the regime from a military intervention.

At the end of an EU summit in Brussels, David Cameron said that the Syrian leadership was responsible for scenes of “medieval barbarity”, while the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, blamed Assad for the murder of hundreds of children.

“The Assad regime is butchering its own people. The history of Homs is being written in the blood of its citizens,” Cameron said.

“We should do more to make sure that those who are responsible for atrocities are held to account. We need to document their crimes. It needs to be written down. We need to make sure that the evidence is there. Britain is doing its part in doing that.

“We will make sure … that there is a day of reckoning for those who are responsible. I have a clear message for those in authority in Syria: make a choice, turn your back on this criminal regime or face justice for the blood that is on your hands.”

Senior diplomats said that the calls to gather material that could be supplied to the international criminal court in The Hague for a war crimes trial were a calculated Anglo-French attempt to step up the political pressure on the Syrian regime.

Cameron’s calls were echoed by Sarkozy, who confirmed that France was closing its embassy in Damascus. “Dictators anywhere in the world should know that they will have to account for their crimes,” he said. “Those who have committed crimes should be brought to trial.”

Sarkozy added that there would need to be a UN security council resolution before there could be any moves towards establishing humanitarian corridors in Syria, or decisions to supply arms to the Syrian opposition.

Putin accused the west of fuelling the conflict, but in a marked change in Moscow’s position the foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, said that Russia would not provide any kind of military assistance to Syria in the event of a foreign intervention.

The remarks followed Russia’s earlier decision – with China – to back a new security council resolution expressing “deep disappointment” at Syria’s failure to admit UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos after the two countries vetoed a previous security council resolution on the crisis.

Putin signalled his increasing distance from Assad in an interview with a group of European editors. He said: “It is up to the Syrians to decide who should run their country … We need to make sure they stop killing each other.”

The apparent shift in the Russian and Chinese positions came as the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, predicted that both Russia and Iran would soon realise they had little choice but to join international diplomatic efforts to remove Assad.

“I think in time Russia will see its support has been abused by the Syrian regime. They will recognise this fact when they see the heavy weapons being used against the people in Syria. That is not very tolerable, not even for Russia,” he said.

 Ian Traynor in Brussels and Peter Beaumont

guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 March 2012