(Reuters) - Veteran fighters of last year’s civil war in Libya have come to the front-line in Syria, helping to train and organize rebels under conditions far more dire than those in the battle against Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan-Irish fighter has told Reuters.

Hussam Najjar hails from Dublin, has a Libyan father and Irish mother and goes by the name of Sam. A trained sniper, he was part of the rebel unit that stormed Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli a year ago, led by Mahdi al-Harati, a powerful militia chief from Libya’s western mountains.

Harati now leads a unit in Syria, made up mainly of Syrians but also including some foreign fighters, including 20 senior members of his own Libyan rebel unit. He asked Najjar to join him from Dublin a few months ago, Najjar said.

The Libyans aiding the Syrian rebels include specialists in communications, logistics, humanitarian issues and heavy weapons, he said. They operate training bases, teaching fitness and battlefield tactics.

Najjar said he was surprised to find how poorly armed and disorganized the Syrian rebels were, describing Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority as far more repressed and downtrodden under Assad than Libyans were under Gaddafi.

“I was shocked. There is nothing you are told that can prepare you for what you see. The state of the Sunni Muslims there - their state of mind, their fate - all of those things have been slowly corroded over time by the regime.”

“I nearly cried for them when I saw the weapons. The guns are absolutely useless. We are being sold leftovers from the Iraqi war, leftovers from this and that,” he said. “Luckily these are things that we can do for them: we know how to fix weapons, how to maintain them, find problems and fix them.”

In the months since he arrived, the rebel arsenal had become “five times more powerful”, he said. Fighters had obtained large caliber anti-aircraft guns and sniper rifles.

Disorganization is a serious problem. Unlike the Libyan fighters, who enjoyed the protection of a NATO-imposed no-fly zone and were able to set up full-scale training camps, the rebels in Syria are never out of reach of Assad’s air power.

“In Libya, with the no-fly zone, we were able to build up say 1,400 to 1,500 men in one place and have platoons and brigades. Here we have men scattered here, there and everywhere.”

LACK OF UNITY

Although many rebel units fight under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, their commands are localized and poorly coordinated, Najjar said.

“One of the biggest factors delaying the revolution is the lack of unity among the rebels,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is only when their back is up against the wall that they start to realize they should (unite).”

Syria’s uprising has evolved into an all-out civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting the mainly Sunni rebels against security forces dominated by Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. Assad is backed by Shi’ite-led Iran and opposed by most Arab states, which are ruled by Sunnis.

“This is not just about the fall of Assad. This is about the Sunni Muslims of Syria taking back their country and pushing out the minority that have been oppressing them for generations now,” Najjar said.

The presence of foreign fighters is a sensitive issue for Syria’s rebels. Assad’s government has taken to referring to the rebels as “Gulf-Turkish forces”, accusing the Sunni-led Arab Gulf states and Turkey of arming, funding and leading them.

Harati’s unit is known as the Umma Brigade, referring to the global community of Muslims. Najjar said thousands more Sunni fighters from the Arab world were gathering in neighboring countries prepared to join the cause.

Harati is reluctant to enlist them because he does not want his cause tarnished by the perception that foreign Islamists are linked to al Qaeda, Najjar said, but he said that many of the foreigners were making their way to Syria on their own.

The Umma Brigade’s Facebook page shows a picture of Najjar aiming his rifle in what looks like an open field. In another he is posing with Harati and rebels. A YouTube video shows Harati leading an attack on a checkpoint in Maarat al-Numan in Syria.

Najjar said militancy would spread across the region as long as the West does not do more to hasten the downfall of Assad.

“The Western governments are bringing this upon themselves. The longer they leave this door open for this torture and this massacre to carry on, the more young men will drop what they have in this life and search for the afterlife,” Najjar said.

“If the West and other countries do not move fast it will no longer be just guys like me - normal everyday guys that might do anything from have a cigarette to go out on the town - it will be the real extreme guys who will take it to another level.”

David Blair 09/04/12

(Reuters) - Syria says the year-old revolt to topple President Bashar al-Assad is over, but the army again shelled opposition areas on Saturday and rebels said they would not cease fire until tanks, artillery and heavy weapons are withdrawn.

Washington and Gulf Arab states urged peace envoy Kofi Annan to set a timeline for “next steps” if there is no ceasefire, and Saudi Arabiarepeated a call for rebels to be armed.

Annan has said neither measure would be helpful. The former U.N. chief’s mission has brought no respite in the killings.

Syria also said it would keep its forces in cities to “maintain security” until it is safe to withdraw in line with the peace deal, which Assad has said he accepts.

Annan’s plan says the army must stop violence immediately and be the first to withdraw forces.

“We cannot accept the presence of tanks and troops in armored vehicles among the people,” a spokesman for Free Syrian Army commanders inside Syria said.

“We don’t have a problem with the ceasefire. As soon as they remove their armored vehicles, the Free Syrian Army will not fire a single shot,” Lieutenant Colonel Qassim Saad al-Din told Reuters by telephone from Homs.

A rebel officer in Damascus said separately: “When Assad’s gangs stop the shelling and killing of civilians, then our leaders can issue an order to stop operations and we will commit to it to show our good intentions.”

Opposition activists reported 25 people killed and five bodies found bearing signs of torture, including two children.

A protest singer in Kafr Ruma was killed when his house was raided. A young man and his sister were shot dead when state forces stormed their village, and a man died of gunshot wounds inflicted during a protest in Damascus.

HOMS UNDER FIRE

Artillery and mortars pounded a pro-opposition part of Homs city, killing one. Ten deaths were reported in Homs province.

“Mortars are falling every minute and the sounds of explosions are shaking the (Khalidiya) neighborhood,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rocket fire killed a child in the al-Bayyada area of Homs and a man was killed in crossfire in clashes near a checkpoint.

In southern Deraa province, five were killed by machinegun fire in Kharbat Ghazaleh and three died from wounds sustained in clashes on Friday. Rebels killed six soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel in Deir al-Zor, the Observatory said.

Despite the violence, Damascus says it has the upper hand.

“The battle to topple the state is over,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad al-Makdissi told Syria TV late on Friday. “Our goal now is to ensure stability and create a perspective for reform and development in Syria while preventing others from sabotaging the path of reform.”

His assertion follows army victories over rebel strongholds in the cities of Hama, Homs and Idlib, and Assad’s acceptance this week of Annan’s plan that does not demand he step down.

The political opposition remains divided and prospects of Western-led military intervention are close to zero.

Assad’s opponents have not yet formally accepted the plan.

They were due to meet the foreign ministers of allied Western powers, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Sunday at a “Friends of Syria” conference in Turkey, which provides a safe haven for Syrian rebels.

After Clinton met Gulf foreign ministers in Riyadh on Saturday, they said Annan should set a timeline for unspecified measures should his efforts fail to halt the bloodletting.

“Given the urgency of the joint envoy’s mission, (U.S. and Gulf ministers) urged the joint envoy to determine a timeline for next steps if the killing continues,” a statement said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told a news conference with Clinton: “The arming of the opposition is a duty, I think, because it cannot defend itself except with weapons.”

WESTERN SCEPTICISM

Assad has endorsed Annan’s six-point peace plan, which has the U.N. Security Council’s unanimous backing, but Western leaders say the 46-year-old Syrian leader has broken similar promises before and must be judged by actions not words.

Syria’s Makdissi said Annan, who met Assad in Damascus on March 10, had acknowledged the government’s right to respond to armed violence during the ceasefire phase of the peace plan.

“When security can be maintained for civilians, the army will leave, he said. “This is a Syrian matter.”

Annan’s plan says Syria must stop putting troops into cities forthwith and begin taking them out.

“The Syrian government should immediately cease troop movement towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centers, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centers,” it states.

A sustained end to violence by all sides would be supervised by a U.N. team of around 250 monitors, diplomats said.

Western diplomats say the key to any ceasefire deal lies in the sequencing of the army pullback and ending rebel attacks.

They say the opposition won’t feel safe negotiating before the army stops shooting, but also note it would be impractical to expect a complete government pullout before rebels respond.

More than 9,000 people have been killed by Assad’s forces during the revolt, according to the United Nations, while Damascus says it has lost about 3,000 security force members.

Western and Arab foreign ministers backing Syrians trying to topple Assad will seek clear endorsement of the Annan plan from the Syrian National Council (SNC), although they themselves doubt whether Assad will genuinely try to implement it.

In Libya a year ago, the West and the Arabs quickly granted recognition to a revolutionary national council as the sole legitimate government of Libya. They are not close to doing the same for the splintered SNC in Syria, diplomats say.

There is also little chance they will agree to arm rebels.

If Assad fails to keep his word, Annan would have to decide whether to call time and tell the United Nations he has failed to make peace through a “Syrian-led process”.

The issue would then return to the U.N. Security Council, with increased pressure on Assad’s allies Russia and China, which have endorsed Annan’s mission, to get tough with Damascus.

Posted: 17 March 2012 0148 hrs

DAMASCUS: Thousands of anti-regime protesters called on Friday for foreign military intervention to bring down a Syrian government whose brutal crackdown on dissent monitors say has cost more than 9,100 lives.

The protests, held after weekly Muslim prayers, were called by activists on their Facebook page, Syrian Revolution 2011, to demand “immediate military intervention by the Arabs and Muslims, followed by the rest of the world.”

“The people want military intervention, the Free Syrian Army to be armed, and the fall of the regime,” several thousand demonstrators chanted in Aleppo in northern Syria, an activist at the scene told AFP in Beirut by telephone.

Thousands of others took part in protests in the flashpoint provinces of Homs and across Daraa in the south as well as several districts of Damascus and the region, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On the day after the first anniversary of the outbreak of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, the Britain-based monitoring group said at least 15 people were killed in violence across Syria on Friday.

Huge rallies in support of Assad were held in Damascus and other major cities on Thursday to mark the anniversary. But numbers have fallen at anti-regime demonstrations as security forces seize protest centres.

With the opposition divided, Western countries have been opposed to military intervention although Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Assad’s fiercest critics in the Arab world, have come out in favour of arming the rebels.

In a breakdown of 9,113 deaths in the past 12 months, not including the latest fatalities, the Syrian Observatory said the toll comprised 6,645 civilians, 1,997 members of the security forces and 471 rebels.

Activists said rebels clashed with troops between Artuz and Muadhamiya in the Damascus region on Thursday night, as Abdel Rahman said seven people were killed in overnight fighting in Dmeir and Qatana, in the same region.

The Observatory said at least 34 other people were killed in violence on Thursday, mostly in Idlib province bordering Turkey, where authorities said they were making contingency plans for a major refugee exodus.

The United Nations and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are this weekend to send experts on a Syrian government-led humanitarian mission to the protest cities of Homs, Daraa and Hama where thousands have reportedly been killed.

Homs-based activist Hadi Abdullah of the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution told AFP that hundreds of families were displaced from the Khaldiyeh district of the city in central Syria.

They have fled in the face of insecurity and looting by Shabiha pro-regime militia, said Abdel Rahman.

The United Nations estimates more than 30,000 Syrians have escaped to neighbouring states and another 200,000 have been displaced within the country by the violence.

- AFP/wk