Turkey asks NATO to deploy Patriot missiles, citing threats from Syria crisis
(From Ivan Watson, CNN, November 21, 2012)
In a potential escalation of the Syrian conflict, Turkey asked NATO on Wednesday for Patriot missiles to bolster its air defenses against its southern neighbor.
A letter to NATO included the "formal request" that the alliance send "air defense elements," according to a Turkish government statement that cited "the threats and risks posed by the continuing crisis in Syria to our national security."
The statement added that the NATO Council would convene "shortly" to consider the matter.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a Twitter post that the request would be considered without delay.
In a statement on Wednesday, Rasmussen said the letter from Turkey requested Patriot missiles that would "contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along NATO's south-eastern border" and serve as "a concrete demonstration of alliance solidarity and resolve."
Rasmussen's statement said three NATO countries have available Patriot missiles -- Germany, the Netherlands and the United States -- and it would be up to them to decide if they can deploy them and for how long.
A NATO team will visit Turkey next week to survey possible deployment sites for the Patriot missiles, Rasmussen's statement said.
Sources told CNN that Germany would be the likely source for a deployment. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that any decision involving her country would need the approval of Parliament.
In Turkey, Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said NATO forces under the command of the alliance would come to Turkey as part of the missile deployment. He noted that NATO-supplied Patriot missiles previously were deployed in Turkey in 1991 and 2003.
"It's not as if they are going to come tomorrow to be deployed," Unal said, calling the move a precautionary measure that will deter escalation along the Syrian border.
International and Turkish media reported earlier this month that Turkey planned to ask NATO to station Patriot missiles along the border with Syria, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied it at the time.
Turkey has been careful to make clear it plans no offensive action and does not want a war with Syria, which shares a more than 500-mile border.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul told reporters on November 8 that while going to war with Syria was "out of the question," precautions were needed against "ballistic missiles as well as mid-range and near-range missiles."
The U.S.-made Patriot missile system -- which became well known during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s when it protected American allies against Iraqi Scud missiles -- works well against short- and medium-range missiles.
Two decades later, reports about the possible deployment of Patriots have emerged as tensions steadily escalate between Syria and Turkey.
On Wednesday, at least 32 people were killed across the country as government forces attacked some areas with jet fighters and artillery batteries, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria. The government-owned Syrian Arab News Agency reported a series of clashes between security forces and armed terrorist groups -- its euphemism for opposition fighters.
Intense fighting near the border in recent weeks pitted loyalist Syrian forces and fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Last month, Syrian artillery shells hit the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five Turkish citizens. Soon after, the Turkish Parliament approved a resolution that would allow the military to carry out cross-border incursions.
Since then, Turkish forces have retaliated with artillery swiftly after more than a dozen cross-border artillery strikes believed to have been carried out by the Syrian military.
Once cozy relations between Syria and Turkey have all but collapsed since the Syrian uprising began last year.
Turkey is officially hosting more than 111,000 refugees, but the Turkish government says tens of thousands of unofficial refugees also live in Turkish cities and towns near the Syrian border.
Meanwhile, Damascus has repeatedly accused its former ally of meddling in internal Syrian affairs by funding and arming the Syrian opposition, as well as providing sanctuary and medical care to Syrian rebels.
Patriot missiles
U.S. Warns Syria Against Using Chemical Weapons
(Peter Baker, The New York Times, December 3, 2012)
President Obama warned Syria’s government on Monday that it would be “totally unacceptable” to use chemical weapons against its own people and vowed to hold accountable anyone who did, as American intelligence officials picked up signs that such arms might be deployed in the ongoing insurgency.
The White House said that some recent actions by the government of President Bashar al-Assad were indicators that Syrian forces were preparing to use such weapons, following earlier reports that intelligence agencies had noticed signs of activity at chemical weapons sites. Mr. Obama’s spokesman said the administration had “an increased concern” of possible use of chemical weapons.
In a speech later in the day that echoed earlier comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama sternly asserted again that he would punish Syria for using chemical weapons, although he did not say how. The administration has been preparing contingency plans that include the dispatch of tens of thousands of troops to secure such weapons, although it is not clear whether Mr. Obama would go that far.
“Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”
During an earlier briefing at the White House, Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, hinted at possible military action in response, although he declined to specify what options Mr. Obama would consider. “We think it is important to prepare for all scenarios,” Mr. Carney said. “Contingency planning is the responsible thing to do.”
The president’s statements on Syria amplified similar warnings issued by Mrs. Clinton earlier in the day in Prague, the Czech capital, where she was stopping on her way to meetings in Brussels.
“This is a red line for the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said, using the same language that the White House later would use. “I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”
There have been signs in recent days of heightened activity at some of Syria’s chemical weapons sites, according to American and Israeli officials familiar with intelligence reports. Mrs. Clinton did not confirm the intelligence reports or say what sort of activity was occurring.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry, in a swift response, said the government “would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.” The statement was reported on Syrian state television and on the Lebanese channel LBC.
The crisis has been worsening in Syria, where about 40,000 people have been killed in 20 months of conflict that has also spilled into neighboring countries. The warning from the White House came as developments elsewhere suggested the political terrain could be shifting.
The spokesman for Syria’s foreign ministry, Jihad Makdissi, was reported by the Hezbollah-run television station, Al Manar, as having been fired, although Lebanese news Web sites reported the departure as a defection. Mr. Makdissi, one of the highest ranking Christians to defect, had been one of the most accessible Syrian officials for foreign journalists. Al Manar reported that he was fired for making statements that did not reflect the government’s point of view, though it was unclear what those statements might have been.
But in recent months he had not taken phone calls and had not made public statements, leading some to speculate that he had either fallen out of favor or had doubts about the government. A security source said Mr. Makdissi flew to London from Beirut on Monday morning with his family.
“If he defected or didn’t defect, we don’t know,” Rami Abdulrahman, the director of the British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a wide network of contacts in Syria, said.
Mr. Abdulrahman, who uses a pseudonym for safety, said Mr. Makdissi had angered some in the Syrian government by saying Syria would use chemical weapons only against a foreign invasion and not its own people; however, the government does not acknowledge that it has such weapons. Mr. Abdulrahman also said that some figures had become irritated with Mr. Makdissi’s prominence.
Also on Monday, government officials in Turkey held talks in Istanbul with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, centered on the Syrian crisis.
Though he remained oblique in his statements at a joint news conference, Mr. Putin appeared to signal that Russia was easing away from its insistence in supporting Mr. Assad and that it was moving toward the position of Turkey and some other Western nations who have called for the Syrian leader to step aside.
“Our positions regarding what’s happening in Syria and what should be done regarding its future are the same,” Mr. Putin said at a news conference. “We have different viewpoints about how to reach to that point, so during our talks new ideas came up, which we will work on in near future.”
One senior Turkish official noted a definite shift in the Russian attitude toward Mr. Assad’s government. “There is definitely a softening of Russian political tone when they no longer insist on a resolution under the Assad rule,” said the official, who declined to be named, following diplomatic protocol. “We agreed on common premises that democracy should be structured in Syria through legitimate elections, but the question is how to come to that point, especially when Assad doesn’t seem to be willing to quit, which Putin also acknowledges.”
In Syria, government warplanes launched airstrikes in rebel-held towns near the border with Turkey, including Ras al-Ayn. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group, said at least 10 people had been killed there.
On Monday, the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Radhouane Nouicer, said that they were pulling nonessential international staff out of the country because of the security situation, The Associated Press reported.
Mrs. Clinton, who made her comments after meeting with Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic, indicated that they had discussed the situation in Syria, including the potential chemical weapons threat. She later flew to Brussels for a NATO foreign ministers meeting.
Mr. Schwarzenberg described the situation in Syria as “rather chaotic” and “highly dangerous.” He said that Czech troops who specialize in the detection of chemical weapons and decontamination were in Jordan training with forces there.
An American task force has been deployed to Jordan and has been helping the Jordanians deal with an escalating humanitarian crisis centered on Syria, including an exodus of more than 200,000 refugees from Syria to Jordan. The force is also planning how to respond, if necessary, to any chemical weapons threat.
NATO: Syria Chemical Weapons Warrant Immediate International Reaction
(by VOA News, Al Pessin, December 4, 2012)
The NATO secretary-general says the alliance will authorize Tuesday the deployment of a missile defense system to Turkey "within weeks" in response to the continuing violence in Syria and concern its government might resort to using chemical weapons. Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the prediction as he went into a series of meetings with alliance foreign ministers, as well as partner nations and Russia.
Secretary-General Rasmussen says the NATO ministers will “demonstrate our determination to deter against any threats” to the alliance's southeastern border. That border is the Turkish-Syrian frontier, with Syria's more than year-long civil war raging on the other side.
Turkey asked for NATO help after Syrian government shelling near the border hit some areas inside Turkey.
The alliance is expected to deploy American Patriot missile defense batteries in southeastern Turkey, but Rasmussen said specific decisions will be left to individual countries. The Patriot system is designed to intercept incoming missiles, not to strike targets on the ground.
But Russia is concerned about any NATO missile deployment, even if the missiles are only defensive. Rasmussen says he has tried to reassure visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and will do so again when Lavrov meets with the NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday.
"This is a purely defensive measure," he said. "We have no intention to prepare offensive operations. So the purpose of this possible deployment is to ensure effective defense and protection of Turkey."
Secretary-General Rasmussen called Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons “a matter of great concern,” which adds to the urgency of deploying the missile defense system to Turkey. He called any use of chemical weapons “completely unacceptable,” and said it would result in “an immediate reaction.”
The NATO ministers are also expected to discuss the ongoing mission in Afghanistan. On Monday, the secretary general told visiting Afghan reporters the alliance's commitment to Afghanistan will continue even after its combat role ends in two years. But he said the Afghan government must also fulfill its commitments to the international community to improve governance, fight corruption, protect human rights, including women's rights, and to hold transparent and credible elections in 2014 and 2015.
Secretary-General Rasmussen said he expects the Afghan security forces to be able to take full responsibility for the country by the end of 2014 as planned, and he repeated that the NATO role will change to support and training only at that time. He said that will be a focus of the foreign ministers' meeting, along with ways to ensure continued foreign funding for the Afghan forces.
Report: Syria arming chemical weapons
(United Press International, December 5, 2012)
Syria's army has loaded bombs with chemical weapons and is awaiting President Bashar Assad's order to use them on his own people, NBC News reported Wednesday.
The military is prepared to deploy the bombs, which contain the precursor chemicals for the deadly sarin nerve gas, from dozens of fighter-bombers as soon as Assad gives the order.
Sarin is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations, and its production and stockpiling is outlawed under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other world leaders have warned Assad the use of chemical weapons is a red line that would bring strong consequences.
But a U.S. official speaking to NBC News on condition of anonymity said the nerve agents are now locked and loaded inside the bombs and "there's little the outside world can do to stop it" if Assad gives the go-ahead.
Clinton, speaking Wednesday at NATO's Brussels headquarters, called Assad "increasingly desperate."
"Ultimately, what we should be thinking about is a political transition in Syria and one that should start as soon as possible," Clinton said. "We believe their fall is inevitable. It is just a question of how many people have to die before that occurs."
Syrian forces earlier Wednesday pressed a counteroffensive against rebels near Damascus as a report indicated the regime army was weakening against rebel gains.
Western officials and military analysts told The Washington Post the Syrian army was showing serious cracks as emboldened rebels notched new victories and regime forces retrenched.
Opposition troop successes stem, in part, from funding and weapons from wealthy Arab Persian Gulf donors and Syrian businessmen outside the country, the Post said.
With war shifting, US, Russia talk Syria's future
(By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press, December 06. 2012)
Diplomatic efforts to end Syria's civil war moved forward Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joining Russia's foreign minister and the U.N. peace envoy to the Arab country for extraordinary three-way talks that suggested Washington and Moscow might finally unite behind a strategy as the Assad regime weakens.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said intelligence reports raise fears that an increasingly desperate Syrian President Bashar Assad is considering using his chemical weapons arsenal — which the U.S. and Russia agree is unacceptable. It was unclear whether he might target rebels within Syria or bordering countries, but growing concern over such a scenario was clearly adding urgency to discussions an ocean away in Ireland's capital.
On the sidelines of a human rights conference, Clinton gathered with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and mediator Lakhdar Brahimi for about 40 minutes to look for a strategy the international community could rally around to end Syria's 21-month civil war.
"We have talked a little bit about how we can work out hopefully a process that will get Syria back from the brink," Brahimi said after the meeting ended.
The experienced Algerian diplomat, representing the global body and the Arab League, said he would put together a peace process based on a political transition strategy the U.S. and Russia agreed on in Geneva in June. Then, the process quickly became bogged down over how the international community might enforce its conditions.
"We haven't taken any sensational decisions," Brahimi said. "But I think we have agreed that the situation is bad and we have agreed that we must continue to work together to see how we can find creative ways of bringing this problem under control and hopefully starting to solve it."
The former Cold War foes have fought bitterly over how to address the conflict, but Clinton stressed before the meeting that they shared a common goal.
"We have been trying hard to work with Russia to try to stop the bloodshed in Syria and start a political transition for a post-Assad Syrian future," Clinton told reporters in Dublin.
"Events on the ground in Syria are accelerating and we see that in many different ways," she said. "The pressure against the regime in and around Damascus seems to be increasing. We've made it very clear what our position is with respect to chemical weapons, and I think we will discuss that and many other aspects of what is needed to end the violence."
Earlier Thursday, Clinton and Lavrov met separately for about 25 minutes. They agreed to hear Brahimi out on a path forward, a senior U.S. official said. The two also discussed issues ranging from Egypt to North Korea, as well as new congressional action aimed at Russian officials accused of complicity in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Washington and Moscow have more often publicly chastised each other than cooperated on an international strategy for Syria. The U.S. has criticized Russia for shielding its Arab ally. The Russians have accused the U.S. of meddling by demanding Assad's downfall and ultimately seeking an armed intervention such as the one last year against the late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
But the gathering of the three key international figures suggested possible compromise in the offing. At a minimum, it confirmed what officials described as an easing of some of the acrimony that has raged between Moscow and Washington over the future of Syria, an ethnically diverse nation whose stability is critical given its geographic position in between powder kegs Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.
Panetta said Thursday that the U.S. fears Syria is thinking of using its chemical weapons.
"The intelligence that we have raises serious concern that this is being considered," he told reporters. Other administration officials in recent days have spoken about Syrians preparing weapon components of sarin gas. The new activity, coupled with fears that rebel advances are making Assad more desperate, have led to the fear that he is deploying the weapons.
On Capitol Hill, some senators even suggested military action against Assad.
Sen. John McCain told reporters the U.S. should "be ready to do whatever is necessary to prevent" the use of chemical weapons, "including the option of military intervention."
Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad on Thursday accused the United States and Europe of using the issue of chemical weapons to justify a future military intervention against Syria. He warned that any such intervention would be "catastrophic."
Brahimi is hoping to resuscitate something akin to the plan crafted earlier this year by his predecessor as Syria peace envoy, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan's plan never got off the ground, and he resigned his post in frustration.
Annan's plan demanded several steps by the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It then required Syria's opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.
If anything resembling that plan progresses, it would surely mean the end of more than four decades of an Assad family member at Syria's helm. The opposition has demanded Assad's departure and has rejected any talk of him staying in power. Yet it also would grant regime representatives the opportunity to block Sunni extremists and others in the opposition that they reject.
The United States blamed the collapse on Russia for vetoing a third resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would have applied world sanctions against Assad's government for failing to live by the deal's provisions.
Russia insisted that the Americans unfairly sought Assad's departure as a precondition and worried about opening the door to military action, even as Washington offered to include language in any U.N. resolution that would have expressly forbidden outside armed intervention.
The same pitfalls threaten Brahimi's process. The Obama administration is likely to insist anew that it be internationally enforceable — a step Moscow may still be reluctant to commit to.
But with the war turning against Assad, U.S. officials are hoping that Russia will be prepared to drop its support for him.
In Syria, government forces on Thursday shelled rebellious suburbs around Damascus and clashed with rebels in the capital itself and in Aleppo, Syria's largest city.
Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador in Damascus until his recall earlier this year, pointed to the closure of Syria's main airport and the rebel capture of defense sites inside the Damascus beltway as key indicators of the conflict's direction. "The writing is on the wall," he said at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies forum in Washington.
Also Thursday, NATO advanced its plan to place Patriot missiles and troops along Syria's border with Turkey to protect against potential attacks. Assad's regime blasted the move as "psychological warfare," saying the new deployment would not deter it from seeking victory over rebels it views as terrorists.
But a U.S. official speaking to NBC News on condition of anonymity said the nerve agents are now locked and loaded inside the bombs and "there's little the outside world can do to stop it" if Assad gives the go-ahead.
France funding Syrian rebels in new push to oust Assad
(Martin Chulov, The Guardian, 7 December 2012)
France has emerged as the most prominent backer of Syria's armed opposition and is now directly funding rebel groups around Aleppo as part of a new push to oust the embattled Assad regime.
Large sums of cash have been delivered by French government proxies across the Turkish border to rebel commanders in the past month, diplomatic sources have confirmed. The money has been used to buy weapons inside Syria and to fund armed operations against loyalist forces.
The French moves have stopped short of direct supply of weapons – a bridge that no western state has yet been willing to cross in Syria. But, according to western and Turkish officials as well as rebel leaders, the influx of money has made a difference in recent weeks as momentum on the battlefields of the north steadily shifts towards the opposition.
Some of the French cash has reached Islamist groups who were desperately short of ammunition and who had increasingly turned for help towards al-Qaida aligned jihadist groups in and around Aleppo.
One such group, Liwa al-Tawhid, an 8,000-strong militia that fights under the Free Syria Army banner, said it had been able to buy ammunition for the first time since late in the summer, a development that would help it resume military operations without the support of implacable jihadi organisations, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which is now playing a lead role in northern Syria.
The French newspaper le Figaro reported this week that French military advisers had recently met with rebel groups inside Syria, in an area between Lebanon and Damascus, in further evidence of efforts by Paris to step up pressure on president Assad.
France has suggested that rebels should be given "defensive weapons" to use against the regime and was the first country to recognise a recalibrated political body as the legitimate voice of he Syrian people.
France has given a steady flow of humanitarian aid in recent months, including funds to rebel-held parts of Syria so that these "liberated zones" could begin to restore infrastructure and services for civilians. In September, the French defence minister stressed France was not providing weapons.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has added impetus to the new push to arm the opposition, again suggesting Britain would support moves to lift an arms embargo on the rebels.
A flurry of diplomatic moves this week, after months of political torpor, appear to have revitalised opposition efforts throughout Syria. The frantic diplomacy has been driven by fears that Syrian officials might use their stocks of chemical weapons as a last resort on battlefields that are no longer under their control.
A rebel siege of Damascus has now entered its second week. And although loyalist army divisions appear at no immediate risk of losing the capital, military units elsewhere in the country have lost influence over large swathes of land and are under increasing pressure over supply lines.
Rebels have been under pressure from the US, Britain, France and Turkey to fight under a joint command and control structure rather than as an assortment of militias, which often work at cross purposes.
At a meeting in Istanbul on Friday, commanders of the Free Syria Army – more of a brand than a fighting force throughout the civil war – agreed to establish a 30-member unified leadership.
After 21 months of crumbling state control in Syria, western diplomats in Ankara and elsewhere in the Arab world appear to be shifting their thinking from trying to manage the consequences to planning the future course.
"Assad won't be here next December," a senior Turkish official predicted. "Even the Russians have moderated on this. When we used to talk to them about Assad going, it was point-blank refusal. Now they are looking for common ground and wanting to exchange ideas."
The official said the US has also recently stepped up its efforts to oust Assad, but was not yet talking about arming the opposition and was refusing to deal with Islamist groups, such as Liwa al-Tawhid.
"What has happened with Jabhat al-Nusra (gaining influence), I would say is a product of (US) attitudes," he said. "They have a template by which they operate. And if a group fits perfectly into that, well that's fine. And if they don't it's a problem for them.
"Some of these groups have been forced to pretend that they are jihadists in order to get what they want."
US officials this week said that Turkey, for its part, was not prepared to directly lead the international response to Syria and was expecting Washington to fill that void.
President Barack Obama's warning during the week to Assad not to use chemical weapons was seen as his most strident stance yet, but it signalled no shift from an official wariness of the opposition, which had become more pronounced as jihadist groups gained prominence around Aleppo from late in the summer.
Turkey also remains wary of a potential threat from chemical weapons. However, officials said they were not convinced that even cornered regime leaders would use them.
Ankara will soon to take delivery of several patriot missile batteries, along with 400 German troops who will operate them along the southern border with Syria.
Officials say the increased Nato presence in Turkey makes it likely that Turkish air space and military bases would be used in the event of a decision being made by the US to seize Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
"That would have to be dealt with through existing mechanisms of Nato," the official said. "There is now a framework in place."
Editorial: Stalemate in Syria drawing West towards intervention
(The New Zealand Herald, December 11, 2012)
The situation in Syria is "bad and getting worse", according to a joint statement released yesterday after talks in Geneva between the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the Arab League. This much is obvious, given that the civil war has claimed the lives of 40,000 people in close to three years of fighting, and that, as the killing continues and the refugee problem escalates, no end is in sight. The conflict has become a stalemate. President Bashar al-Assad has been unable to suppress the uprising, while the rebels, who remain divided, do not have the weaponry to oust him from Damascus.
The parties assembled in Switzerland concluded that a political process to end the conflict was "still necessary and still possible". That said as much about Russia's ongoing support for the Syrian regime as any deepseated conviction. In the present situation, it is difficult to see either side opting to negotiate. President Assad has ceded vast swathes of the countryside to the rebels, concentrating his forces in the major cities. The result has been that the rebels have failed to make inroads into his hold on Damascus and have been unable to claim the centre of Aleppo.
In the past few weeks, there has, however, been a subtle hardening of attitude by the West. President Barack Obama has warned of intervention if the regime resorts to using chemical weapons. Nato foreign ministers have also decided to deploy Patriot missiles in Turkey, ostensibly for the purposes of defence. Both moves suggest a greater Western involvement is not out of the question, particularly if certain trends begin to predominate.
One of these is the growing strength of Muslim fundamentalists in the opposition. In rebel-held parts of Aleppo, there have been demonstrations in favour of the Jihadi militia Jabhat al-Nusra and against the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, which is accused of corruption and an inability to help a civilian population struggling with high prices, a lack of jobs and a spasmodic power supply.
This threat has been exacerbated by the manner in which efforts to establish a unified opposition have customarily descended into bickering. For the most recent talks in Turkey, which led to the establishment of a 30-member Supreme Council, no invitations were extended to Jabhat al-Nusra and another fundamentalist group, Ahrar al-Sham, even though they are playing an increasing role in the fighting.
The forces arrayed against President Assad mean he will be defeated in the end. At some point, his supporters will see the writing on the wall and join the rebels. But that process may take many months. Its imminence has certainly not been helped by the Sunni-dominated rebels' failure to promise protection to the minorities, especially the Alawites who dominate the Assad regime. The absence of such a pledge heightens the prospect of Iraqi-type sectarian violence when the rebels finally seize control.
The question for the West is whether it can afford to stand by while the potential for such developments increases. It will not want much of a post-Assad Syria to be controlled by fundamentalist forces. Its options include arming the more moderate rebel forces. A more palatable alternative would be setting up a no-fly zone along the lines of the one that tipped the balance in Libya.
As it is, the emphasis will remain on the application of diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire and a political solution, as well as efforts to reduce the humanitarian toll. That could change relatively quickly, however.
As much as the fighting is stalemated, the tide of war appears to be running against Western interests.
What Should U.S. Policy Be in Syria?
(Andrew J. Tabler, Opinion Essay, Council on Foreign Relations, December 11, 2012)
For nearly a year, Washington has found new and creative ways of not dealing directly with armed groups in Syria, preferring instead to engage with civilians in exile in the Syrian National Council and its larger successor, the Syrian Opposition Coalition. But with the rapid advances of the various groups comprising the Free Syrian Army, it is now clear that those who are taking the shots at Assad will be calling the shots as he exits the scene.
The only way to help ensure that civilians play a leading role in post-Assad Syria -- to reverse growing anti-American sentiment due to the perception that Washington stood by and did very little while Syrians were slaughtered, and to help the United States shape the political outcome -- is for Washington to transform its covert "light footprint" policy of engaging armed groups through Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey into an overt political outreach to non-extremist groups in the Free Syrian Army.
Once written off as a cyber-opposition force, the groups comprising the Free Syrian Army have made dramatic gains against the Assad regime's forces, driving them out of large swaths of now disputed territory in the east and north of the country. FSA groups, as well as jihadist groups that fight alongside the FSA but are not a part of it, have overrun regime weapons depots from which they have acquired SA-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons. The Syrian armed opposition is now shooting down regime combat aircraft in greater numbers, leading to concerns that an Assad regime desperate to halt the rebels' advance may resort to chemical weapons. Regardless, the armed opposition is likely to soon transform this disputed territory into "liberated" territory: areas of the country where the regime can no longer project its power in any form.
Given the fragmented nature of the Syrian armed and civilian opposition alike, Washington will soon have to deal with a Syria, or perhaps Syrias, ruled by multiple groups with multiple leaders. The best way to influence this emerging leadership is to abandon the dream of dealing only with civilians and to engage armed groups as well. To accomplish this, Washington needs to determine clear criteria for targeting the groups -- such as extremists -- the United States will not deal with, engage the remainder to find out their immediate needs, and develop a method for providing this assistance.
Although this would naturally include the provision of weapons in some cases, there are other opportunities as well. Armed groups in the country are already struggling to deal with demands from civilians in areas ravaged by war, and Syrians will need extensive humanitarian and economic assistance as the longer battle begins to build a viable and democratic post-Assad Syria at peace with the region and the world.
What Should U.S. Policy Be in Syria?
Questions and Answers
1. Does the U.S. oppose aggression? No.
Aggression is fine if it's in U.S. interests. It's bad only if it's opposed to U.S. interests. The U.S. invaded Panama and imposed a puppet regime still under U.S. control. The world objected so we vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions.
Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, broke it up, killed two thousand people, tried to destroy relics of Greek civilization, drove out 200,000 people. That was fine. Turkey is our ally.
Israel attacked Lebanon, killed about 20,000 people, bombarded the capital, and still occupies southern Lebanon. The U.S. vetoed a series of UN Security Council resolutions to terminate that aggression. Israel holds on to the occupied territories. It has annexed some of them. Fine. The U.S. supports Israel.
Morocco invaded the Western Sahara, annexed it. The U.S. thinks that's fine.
Indonesia invaded East Timor. Two hundred thousand killed. The worst slaughter relative to the population since the Holocaust. The U.S. gives them aid.
Iraq attacked Iran. The U.S. assisted them. Iraq gassed the Kurds in the north of Iraq. Fine. After all, the Turks are having problems with the Kurds too and the Turks are our ally.
Iraq invades Kuwait. Outrage. Cries of Hitler reborn. Send 400,000 troops. Bomb Baghdad.
The United States can claim it's opposed to aggression on ABC News without ridicule because we have a disciplined intellectual class who look the other way and/or lie as a matter of course. Remind you of anyone, JW? In the Third World, however, the claim is seen as ludicrous. People there consider the U.S. the major violator of the principle that aggression is wrong.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199102--.htm
Syria fires Scud missiles on its own people
(By Damien McElroy, The Telegraph, 12 Dec 2012)
In a significant escalation, Western officials said forces loyal to the regime had fired at least six of the Russian-designed ballistic missiles on rebel targets.
It means that President Bashar al-Assad has now used every weapon in his arsenal, short of a chemical attack, in an attempt to end the 21-month uprising.
A Foreign Office spokesman said reports indicated that the first Scud was launched on Monday and that more had been fired since.
“The trajectory and distance travelled suggest these were Scud-type missiles,” the spokesman said. “We condemn this in the strongest possible terms. It demonstrates the appalling brutality of the regime and its desperation to go to any lengths to deny his people their legitimate aspiration.”
Nato confirmed Wednesday night that surveillance had detected the launch of a number of missiles in Syria this week.
“Allied intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets have detected the launch of a number of unguided, short-range ballistic missiles inside Syria this week. Trajectory and distance travelled indicate they were Scud-type missiles,” the Nato official said.
Scud missiles are medium-range weapons and notoriously inaccurate. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, used a Scud missile against rebels in Benghazi last year.
The last significant use in warfare was by Saddam Hussein in the Gulf conflict of 1991, including an attack on Tel Aviv.
Explanations for the deployment of the weapons varied from “ranging shots” for future chemical weapons attacks, to targeted acts of terror to quell the advancing insurgency. “The most likely explanation is that it indicates the diminishing capability of the regime’s air force to hit rebel areas, either because they are running out of pilots or the rebel air defences are doing too much damage,” said Benjamin Barry, a weapons expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London think tank.
Western officials have warned the Syrian regime that a chemical weapons attack could provoke military intervention to remove Mr Assad.
It is believed Syria had at least 48 Scud missiles at the outset of the crisis, meaning more than 10 per cent of its entire arsenal has now been used.
“The total [fired] is is probably north of six now,” a US official told the New York Times.
The targets were in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed insurgent group. Adam Holloway, a Conservative MP, said the attacks were a demonstration that the regime was cornered. “Assad must be getting desperate,” he said. “He put himself on a par with Saddam Hussein and, given the losses he’s suffered, it makes you think there is nothing he wouldn’t do.”
The news emerged as 114 countries held a summit in Morocco on Wednesday to recognise the Syrian Opposition Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, a move that could pave the way for arming the rebels. The coalition won the recognition of more than 100 countries.
Speaking at the meeting, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, demanded greater “practical” support for the Syrian opposition.
He said Britain still wanted to see a negotiated transition of power from Mr Assad but for the first time declared that the UK would not limit the scope of its efforts to ensure Syrians were defended from government attack.
Intelligence reports indicating that the regime was prepared to use chemical weapons would provoke a tough response, he indicated.
“We do not rule out any option to save lives. The Assad regime should not doubt our resolve, or miscalculate how we would react to any use of chemical or biological weapons against the Syrian people,” he said.
“The next few months will determine whether a peaceful political transition can be agreed, or if Syria is to face more bloodshed.”
Mr Hague said British aid was being stepped up to provide equipment to sustain opposition areas, including communications equipment, electricity generator and water purification systems.
Technical experts from a stabilisation team had been deployed to nearby countries.
Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, said the opposition would need to build a military framework to safeguard against the rise of extremists linked to al-Qaeda before it was granted military aid.
In the final communiqué, more than 100 countries recognised a new Syrian opposition coalition, opening the way for greater humanitarian assistance to the forces fighting Bashar Assad and possibly even military aid, Mr Fabius said.
Qatar has called for opposition allies to provide surface-to-air missiles to rebels to stop aerial attacks by the regime.
Casualties were reported on Wednesday night at the Syrian ministry of interior after a series of car bombs exploded at the entrance to its building in Damascus.
Two separate explosions were also heard in the capital on Wednesday as a rebel advance moved towards the heart of the regime stronghold.
Russian minister admits for the first time: Assad may lose Syria
(Mark Wilkinson, London Evening Standard, December 13, 2012)
A Russian minister said today that President Bashar al-Assad is losing control over Syria and his opponents may win.
The comments by deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov are the first acknowledgement by Mr Assad’s main ally that he could be defeated. “We must look at the facts: there is a trend for the government to progressively lose control over an increasing part of the territory,” said Mr Bogdanov.
“The opposition victory can’t be excluded.”
In recent weeks rebels have made gains across a swathe of Syrian territory and are entrenched in suburbs around central Damascus.
Moscow has continued to provide the regime with weapons despite its bloody crackdown on the uprising that began in March last year. Russia has joined China at the UN Security Council to veto three resolutions that would have imposed sanctions on Syria. While Mr Bogdanov’s remarks do not automatically mean Moscow is about to change its stance, analysts say they do appear to indicate it is positioning itself for regime change.
Mr Bogdanov spoke after claims that the Assad regime had fired “Scud-type missiles” on its own people for the first time. Western officials said at least six of the Russian-designed missiles, which have a range of 180-300 kilometres and are notoriously inaccurate, were fired into Free Syrian Army-controlled areas.
Mr Bogdanov called for talks between the two sides, predicting the violence would intensify and hundreds of thousands could die. “If such a price for ousting the president seems acceptable to you, then what can we do? We consider it unacceptable,” he said. He also raised fears about “extremists” seizing the regime’s chemical weapons.
“The opposition victory can’t be excluded.”
Pentagon to send missiles, 400 troops to Turkey
(By ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press, December 14, 2012)
The U.S. will send two batteries of Patriot missiles and 400 troops to Turkey as part of a NATO force meant to protect Turkish territory from potential Syrian missile attack, the Pentagon said Friday.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed a deployment order en route to Turkey from Afghanistan calling for 400 U.S. soldiers to operate two batteries of Patriots at undisclosed locations in Turkey, Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters flying with Panetta.
Germany and the Netherlands have already agreed to provide two batteries of the U.S.-built defense systems and send up to 400 German and 360 Dutch troops to man them, bringing the total number of Patriot batteries slated for Turkey to six.
German lawmakers voted 461-86 Friday to approve the deployment of two Patriot missile batteries. The mandate allows Germany to deploy a maximum 400 soldiers through January 2014. NATO foreign ministers endorsed Turkey's request for the Patriots on Nov. 30.
A number of Syrian shells have landed in Turkish territory since the conflict in the Arab state began in March 2011. Turkey has condemned the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad, supported Syrian rebels and provided shelter to Syrian refugees. Ankara is particularly worried that Assad may get desperate enough to use chemical weapons.
During a brief stop at Incirlik Air Base, Panetta told U.S. troops that Turkey might need the Patriots, which are capable of shooting down shorter-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.
He said he approved the deployment "so that we can help Turkey have the kind of missile defense it may very well need to deal with the threats coming out of Syria," he said.
The U.S., Germany and the Netherlands are the only NATO members who have the upgraded PAC-3 missiles, capable of missile interception. Each battery has an average of 12 missile launchers, a NATO official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because alliance regulations do not allow him to speak on the record.
In a statement issued Friday NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said "the deployment will be defensive only."
"It will not support a no-fly zone or any offensive operation. Its aim is to deter any threats to Turkey, to defend Turkey's population and territory and to de-escalate the crisis on NATO's south-eastern border," Lungescu said.
Panetta did not mention how soon the two Patriot batteries will head to Turkey or how long they might stay.
Earlier this week in Berlin, German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Link told lawmakers that current plans call for the missile sites to be stationed at Kahramanmaras, about 60 miles north of Turkey's border with Syria. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday that the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S. are working closely with Turkey "to ensure that the Patriots are deployed as soon as possible." But he predicted they would not become operational before the end of January. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, three years after the alliance was formed.
At Incirlik Air Base, about 60 miles north of the Syrian border, an Air Force member asked Panetta what the US would do if Syria used chemical or biological weapons against the rebels. Panetta said he could not be specific in a public setting, but added, "we have drawn up plans" that give President Barack Obama a set of options in the event that U.S. intelligence shows that Syria intends to use such weapons.
Asked by another Air Force member whether he thought Syria would "react negatively" to the Patriot deployments, Panetta said, "I don't think they have the damn time to worry" about the Patriots since the regime's leaders are struggling to stay in power.
He indicated that Syria's reaction to the Patriots was not a major concern to him.
Separately, NATO will deploy its Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft, or AWACS, to Turkey on a training exercise this month, the NATO said.
He said the exercise was not connected to the deployment of the Patriots.
The aircraft, which can detect launches of ground-to-ground missiles, will exercise command and control procedures as well as test the connectivity of various NATO and Turkish communications and data sharing systems, the official said.
Syria again using Scud missiles on foes
(Associated Press, 21 Dec 2012)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says the Syrian government is continuing to fire Scud missiles at rebels and regime opponents as they make territorial gains.
A State Department official said Thursday that Washington was aware that the regime had used Scud missiles within the last few days, despite warnings from the U.S. and other nations not to escalate the crisis.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified. NATO and the Pentagon have previously confirmed that Scud missiles have been fired at the opposition.
Last week, defense officials said the regime fired the missiles from the Damascus area into northern Syria. At the time, one official estimated that the number of Scuds fired was more than a half-dozen.
Patriot missiles
UN envoy, Moscow call for revival of Syria plan
(The Associated Press, December 27, 2012)
Russia and the U.N envoy for Syria both said Thursday that they want to revive a long-shelved peace initiative that would call for a transitional government to run the country until elections can be held.
But it was unclear whether Lakhdar Brahimi's proposals would block top members of President Bashar Assad's regime from participating, an omission which helped doom the plan this summer. Russia said it not will endorse plans that call for Assad's ouster.
Much has changed in Syria in the past half-year. Rebels have seized more territory and a number of military installations in the country's north and are expanding their control in suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
This makes it increasingly unlikely that they will accept any plan that does not bar most members of Assad's regime from a future government.
The original Geneva plan called for the establishment of a national unity government with full executive powers that could include members of Assad's government, the opposition and other groups. It was to oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.
Because of Russian objections, that plan did not call specifically for Assad's ouster, nor did it ban him from participation in the new government — making it a non-starter with the opposition.
"The Syrian people seek genuine change," Brahimi told reporters in Damascus, adding that the transitional period "must not lead to the collapse of the state or the state's institutions."
Brahimi said that original plan could undergo some amendments, but did not specify what those could be. Nor did he specify how his plan would treat Assad. He said it still needed to be determined whether the called-for elections would be for president or parliament.
The Syrian government did not immediately comment on Brahimi's suggestion.
Russia has been Assad's strongest backer throughout the conflict, selling arms to his forces and, along with China, protecting him from censure by the U.N. Security Council for his violent crackdown on the opposition.
Top Russian officials have recently signaled a new resignation to the idea that Assad could fall. Still, they have said they will not call for his ouster or offer him refuge should he decide to flee.
In Moscow on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevic said Russia is trying to revive the June plan. He also reaffirmed Moscow's objection to calls for Assad's ouster.
"We continue to believe that there is no alternative to that document in trying to find a settlement in Syria," Lukashevich said.
Brahimi is due to visit Russia this weekend. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad met Thursday with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to pave the way for Brahimi's visit.
Mekdad is expected to hold talks with other top Russian diplomats later.
Violence continued around Syria on Thursday, with rebels attacking a police academy and military airport in the northern province of Aleppo while clashing with government forces near the Wadi Deif military base in Idlib.
A car bomb blew up Thursday morning in the Damascus suburb of Sbeineh, killing four people and wounding ten others, the state news agency said.
Anti-regime activists say more than 40,000 people have been killed since crisis began in March 2011.
France to Inform UN on Military Intervention in Mali
(Prensa Latina, January 14, 2013)
France will inform the United Nations Security Council on Monday about the military intervention and bombings that it started four days ago against Islamic groups occupying northern Mali.
According to French President Francois Hollande, Mali's head of State, Dioncounda Traoré, requested the operation, which is being carried out in the context of legality.
France requested the session of the Security Council to explain the situation to its member countries and to exchange opinions in that regard, a spokesperson for the French representation at the UN told reporters in New York.
In a resolution adopted on December 20, the Security Council authorized the deployment of an international force with African leadership to support the Malian government to recover the northern territories, occupied by terrorist and fundamentalist groups.
The resolution established the creation of a so-called international mission for Mali, and instructed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to confirm in advance the Council's approval of the military operation.
France, along with the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia and China, is a permanent member of the Security Council, which is responsible for international peace and security. All five countries enjoy the right to veto.
The temporary seats are occupied by Argentina, Guatemala, Rwanda, Australia, South Korea, Luxemburg, Morocco, Togo, Pakistan and Azerbaijan.
