Syria's Assad rebuffs Annan; troops attack Idlib

[mindyrbusiness]

http://www.reuters.com/article/slidesho ... 120310#a=1
By Alistair Lyon

BEIRUT | Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:06pm EST

(Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad told U.N./Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday no political solution was possible in Syria while "terrorist" groups were destabilizing the country.

"Syria is ready to make a success of any honest effort to find a solution for the events it is witnessing," state news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling his guest.

"No political dialogue or political activity can succeed while there are armed terrorist groups operating and spreading chaos and instability," the Syrian leader said after about two hours of talks with the former U.N. secretary-general.

A UN spokesman said Annan had made proposals on stopping the violence and the killing, access for humanitarian agencies, release of detainees and the start of political dialogue.

The talks were "candid and comprehensive", Annan was quoted as saying. He will meet President Assad again on Sunday before leaving Syria for Qatar.

Later on Saturday Annan met opposition leaders, young activists and business people.

Thousands have been killed in Syria since a popular uprising against Assad erupted a year ago.

While Annan and Assad discussed the crisis, Syrian troops were assaulting the northwestern city of Idlib, a rebel bastion.

"Regime forces have just stormed into Idlib with tanks and heavy shelling is now taking place," said an activist contacted by telephone, the sound of explosions punctuating the call.

Sixteen rebel fighters, seven soldiers and four civilians were killed in the Idlib fighting, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said 15 other people, including three soldiers, had been killed in violence elsewhere.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Annan in Cairo earlier in the day, told the Arab League his country was "not protecting any regime", but did not believe the Syrian crisis could be blamed on one side alone.

He called for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid access, but Qatar and Saudi Arabia sharply criticized Moscow's stance.

"TRUCE NOT ENOUGH"

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who has led calls for Assad to be isolated and for Syrian rebels to be armed, said a ceasefire was not enough. Syrian leaders must be held to account and political prisoners freed, he declared.

"We must send a message to the Syrian regime that the world's patience and our patience has run out, as has the time for silence about its practices," Sheikh Hamad said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said shortcomings in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia and China have twice vetoed resolutions on Syria, had allowed the killing to go on.

Their position, he said, "gave the Syrian regime a license to extend its brutal practices against the Syrian people".

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are both ruled by autocrats and espouse a strict version of Sunni Islam, are improbable champions of democracy in Syria. Riyadh has an interest in seeing Assad fall because this could weaken its Shi'ite regional rival Iran, which has been allied with Syria since 1980.

International rifts have paralyzed action on Syria, with Russia and China opposing Western and Arab calls for Assad, who inherited power from his father nearly 12 years ago, to quit.

Lavrov told Arab ministers a new U.N. Security Council resolution had a chance of being approved if it was not driven by a desire to let armed rebels take over Syria's streets.

The United States has drafted a fresh resolution, but the State Department said on Friday it was not optimistic its text would be accepted by the Council.

France says it will oppose any measure that holds the Syrian government and its foes equally responsible for the bloodshed.

Despite their differences, Lavrov and Arab ministers said they had agreed on the need for an end to violence in Syria.

They also called for unbiased monitoring of events there, opposition to foreign intervention, delivery of humanitarian aid and support for Annan's peace efforts.

DISSIDENTS SCEPTICAL

Annan, who later met Hassan Abdulazim, a veteran opponent of Assad, has called for a political solution, but many opposition leaders say the time for dialogue is long past.

"Violence should stop and detainees should be released in order to negotiate a transitional period," Abdulazim said after the meeting. "In the light of violence, killings, arrests and threats there will not be any solution for the crisis."

The exiled opposition Syrian National Council, in a statement on its website, ruled out talks while Assad remains in power.

"Negotiations can never take place between the victim and torturer: Assad and his entourage must step down as a condition before starting any serious negotiations," it said.

Annan's trip to Damascus followed a violent day in which activists said Assad's forces killed at least 72 people as they bombarded parts of the rebellious city of Homs and sought to deter demonstrators and crush insurgents elsewhere.

Decisive victory has eluded both sides in an increasingly deadly struggle that began as a mainly peaceful protest movement a year ago and now appears to be sliding into civil war.

The United Nations estimates Syrian security forces have killed well over 7,500 people. Syria said in December that "terrorists" had killed more than 2,000 soldiers and police.

Russia, one of Syria's few foreign friends and its main arms supplier, could play a pivotal role in any negotiated solution.

Chinese and Russian reluctance to approve any U.N. resolution on Syria stems partly from their fear it could be used to justify a Libya-style military intervention, although Western powers deny any intention to go to war again in Syria.

A Russian diplomat said this week Assad was battling al Qaeda-backed militants, including 15,000 foreign fighters who would seize cities if Syrian troops withdrew.

The Syrian opposition denies any al Qaeda role in the uprising, but Islamists are among rebels who have taken up arms against Assad under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

Qatar's Sheikh Hamad chided Russia for accepting the Syrian government's portrayal of insurgents as armed gangs.

"There are no armed gangs, the systematic killing came from the Syrian government side for many months. After that the people were forced to defend themselves so the regime labeled them armed gangs," he told the Arab League meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Lavrov in New York on Monday when the Security Council holds a special meeting on Arab revolts, with Syria likely to be in focus.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Edmund Blair, Shaimaa Fayed, Ayman Samir and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Editing by Andrew Roche)

[RedDog]

Satellite Images of Syrian damage

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/10/middleeas ... ?hpt=hp_t2

[RedDog]

One thing that needs to be done immediately is to destroy the Syrian air force on the ground and in the hangers at night, not that they haven't always been easy to destroy in combat. Eliminate no contest in the skies and take this to the people in the streets in a fair fight for starters - as was done in Libya where the sudden absence of regime air power turned the tide.

Depending on what lies ahead concerning Israel-Iran, the complete absence of a Syrian air wing couldn't hurt under the auspices of sparing Syrian civilians now.

[mindyrbusiness]

Dozens of Syrian civilians killed in Homs
http://www.reuters.com/article/slidesho ... 120312#a=1

By Oliver Holmes and Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT | Mon Mar 12, 2012 9:47am EDT

(Reuters) - Dozens of civilians were killed in cold blood in Homs, the Syrian government and opposition said on Monday, although they disputed responsibility for what both sides called a massacre.

The carnage in Homs, as well as an army assault on Idlib city in the northwest, coincided with a weekend visit to Syria by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who was seeking agreement on a ceasefire, humanitarian access and a political dialogue.

"This is the beginning of a process and the joint special envoy feels the process is on the right track," Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said from Qatar on Monday.

He said the former United Nations chief, who held two rounds of talks with President Bashar al-Assad, was concerned that violence was raging on, despite the start of his mediation.

The government and opposition each said the other side was to blame for the killings in Homs, where Syrian forces retook a rebel-held district on March 1 after a 26-day siege.

"The terrorist armed groups have kidnapped scores of civilians in Homs, killed and mutilated their corpses and filmed them to be shown by media outlets," state news agency SANA said.

Footage posted by opposition activists on YouTube showed men, women and children lying dead in a blood-drenched room.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a grassroots opposition network, said at least 45 women and children had been stabbed and burned in the Homs district of Karm al-Zeitoun.

It said another seven people were slain in the city's Jobar district, which adjoins the former rebel bastion of Baba Amr.

Activists contacted in Homs accused pro-Assad Alawite "shabbiha" militiamen of carrying out the killings.

Waleed Fares, an activist in Homs's Khalidiyah district, which is about one km from Karm al-Zeitoun, said that 30 to 40 tanks had arrived in Karm al-Zeitoun on Sunday night.

"We know now that four families have been killed by shabbiha. We have 21 names and we are trying to confirm the names of the rest," he told Reuters via Skype, adding that the victims were all from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.

"It's quiet now but I have been hearing gunfire all night."

Fares said most of the killings occurred in Karm al-Zeitoun, but some took place in other districts. "The Free Syrian Army helped move the bodies to one place. Otherwise the regime forces would have hidden the evidence," he said.

Syrian government restrictions on the media have made it hard to assess conflicting reports by the authorities and their opponents since an uprising against Assad began a year ago.

In the rebellious southern city of Deraa, a car bomb planted outside a girls' school killed one schoolgirl and wounded 25 others, opposition activist Maher Abdelhaq said, adding that pupils there had taken part in anti-Assad protests.

U.N. MEETS ON ARAB REVOLTS

The Security Council holds a special meeting on Arab revolts later on Monday and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines.

Russia and China have blocked attempts to pass a Security Council resolution condemning Damascus for its attempts to crush the rebellion, in which the United Nations says well over 7,500 people have been killed. Syrian authorities said in December insurgents had killed more than 2,000 soldiers and police.

The United States has drafted a new resolution, but Washington and Paris say they doubt it will be accepted.

China sounded an optimistic note, but gave no details.

"China has actively participated in discussion about this draft resolution, and raised its ideas about revising it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said on Monday.

"We also support the international community playing an active role in a political solution to the Syria issue."

China and Russia, as well as Western and Arab nations, have voiced support for Annan's peace mission, but no common ground has emerged between Assad, who is bent on crushing dissent, and his opponents, who are determined to overthrow him.

"The situation is so bad and so dangerous that all of us cannot afford to fail," Annan said in Damascus on Sunday.

Fawzi, his spokesman, said Annan had met the emir and prime minister of Qatar in Doha on Monday and was heading for Ankara for talks with Turkey's prime minister and foreign minister.

Annan has said he wants a ceasefire and access for humanitarian aid agencies to civilians in strife-hit areas as a first step before a political dialogue among all parties.

Moscow and Beijing want any international blame for the violence to be apportioned evenly and say both sides should be encouraged to stop fighting. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have taken a hawkish line, calling for the rebels to be armed.

Annan plans to pursue contacts with opposition factions, including the Syrian National Council, the National Coordination Body, the Free Syrian Army and others, Fawzi said.

"We have to get the opposition parties to unify under one umbrella and then we have to convince the government to come and meet them in whichever venue he (Annan) proposes," he added.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing and Yasmine Saleh in Cairo; Writing by Alistair Lyon; editing by Peter Millership)