Tag: Bashar Assad regime

Syrian Anti-Assad Rebel Groups Funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Syrian rebels take position during clashes with regime forces in the northern city of Aleppo on Sept. 14, 2012

Vast swaths of northern Syria, especially in the province of Idlib, have slipped out of the hands of President Bashar Assad, if not quite out of his reach. The area is now a de facto liberated zone, though the daily attacks by Damascus’ air force and the shelling from the handful of checkpoints and bases regime forces have fallen back to are reminders that the rebel hold on the territory remains fluid and fragile.

What is remarkable is that this substantial strip of “free” Syria has been patched together in the past 18 months by military defectors, students, tradesmen, farmers and pharmacists who have not only withstood the Syrian army’s withering fire but in some instances repelled it using a hodgepodge of limited, light weaponry. The feat is even more amazing when one considers the disarray among the outside powers supplying arms to the loosely allied band of rebels.

(PHOTOS: Syria’s Year of Chaos and Photos of a Slow-Motion War)

As TIME reports here, disorder and distrust plague two of the rebels’ international patrons: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two Gulf powerhouses are no longer on the same page when it comes to determining who among the plethora of mushrooming Syrian rebel groups should be armed. The rift surfaced in August, with the alleged Saudi and Qatari representatives in charge of funneling free weaponry to the rebels clearly backing different factions among the groups — including various shades of secular and Islamist militias — under the broad umbrella that is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The middlemen of the two countries operate out of Turkey, the regional military power. Ankara has been quite public with its denunciation of Assad even as it denies any involvement in shuffling weapons across the border to Syrian rebels. It claims its territory is not being used to do so. And yet, as TIME reported in June, a secretive group operates something like a command center in Istanbul, directing the distribution of vital military supplies believed to be provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and transported with the help of Turkish intelligence to the Syrian border and then to the rebels. Further reporting has revealed more details of the operation, the politics and favoritism that undermine the task of creating a unified rebel force out of the wide array of groups trying to topple the Assad regime.

(The FSA is nominally headed by Riad al-As’aad, who is based in Turkey. Neither As’aad nor his chief FSA rival General Mustafa Sheikh are party to the Istanbul control room that supplies and arms rebels who operate under the FSA banner. The two men each have their own sources of funding and are independently distributing money and weapons to selected FSA units.)

via Syrian Anti-Assad Rebel Groups Funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar | World | TIME.com.

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September 20, 2012
Why Turkey is increasing pressure on Assad
By Fadi Hakura, Special to CNN

February 10, 2012 — Updated 1023 GMT (1823 HKT)

A member of the Free Syrian Army takes position in Al-Qsair, southwest of the flashpoint city Homs, on January 27.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Fadi Hakura says Turkey has abandoned its friendship with Syria in wake of violence

He says the change in position is unsurprising, given Turkey’s lack of strategic links to Syria

He says Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan lost no time in siding with Syria’s anti-Assad masses
Editor’s note: Fadi Hakura is the associate fellow and manager of the Turkey Project at the London-based think-tank Chatham House. He has written and lectured extensively on Turkey’s political, economic and foreign policy and the relationship between the European Union and Turkey.

(CNN) — Syria is heading to an “intolerable situation” according to Turkey’s hyperactive Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country is at the forefront of global efforts to engineer the downfall of the Bashar Al-Assad leadership.

Less than two years ago, relations were diametrically different.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered Assad a close friend and paraded Syria as the epitome of its much vaunted but now defunct “zero problems with the neighbors” policy to encourage rapprochement with Middle Eastern nations. Trade across their 850-kilometer border blossomed tenfold, security cooperation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — a militant Kurdish group conducting a violent separatist campaign in Turkey — flourished and mutual visa restrictions were lifted.

Fadi Hakura

This transformation in ties should not be surprising in retrospect. For Turkey and Syria never enjoyed a strategic relationship as much as a convergence of interests triggered by the Iraq war in 2003 to stymie an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq. Similarly, both leaderships found common cause against Israel. Their relationship was merely tactical and psychological bereft of common values.

Then the eruption of the Arab awakening upended the stability in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and eventually Syria thereby unleashing long simmering sectarian tensions to the surface. Assad’s security and intelligence forces dominated by fellow minority Alawites (a syncretic and mystical offshoot of Shia Islam) confronted a largely Sunni popular revolt.

Syria’s declining circle of friends

Men, women and children trapped in Syria

Syria’s accidental President al-Assad

Erdogan, a devout Sunni Muslim, did not hesitate to side with the anti-Assad masses. Gone are the days where Turkey defended Iranian nuclear endeavors and cooperated closely with it on Iraq. In its stead, Turkey patched once frosty relations with Washington jointly calling on Assad to resign, solidified the partnership with Gulf Arab countries and adopted a more muscular and robust approach towards Iran.

Washington’s cooperation with regional players such as Turkey is a good example of what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined “smart power” in play to avoid committing scarce resources in money and soldiers as it disengages from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turkey’s anti-Assad inclination stems from its sectarian sympathies with the Syrian protesters, its desire to project Turkish influence in the Middle East and to restrain the regional ambitions of rival Iran. On the other hand, the U.S. seeks to degrade the Iranian nuclear program and to guarantee the security of Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

Despite the toughening rhetoric against Damascus, there is no hiding the fact that Turkey’s choices are severely limited. Russia and China will thwart further U.N. initiatives, the Arab League looks exhausted, and the positions of the pro-Assad and anti-Assad alliances are entrenched.

At the heart of stalemate is the future of the Assad dynasty. Turkey and its friends strongly favor regime change while Assad and his allies demand regime stability. How to square this conundrum is testing the limits of Turkish diplomacy.

One possibility — which is most favored by Turkey — is a negotiated solution. Ankara proposed on Wednesday an international conference to end the violence in Syria. Yet, it seems highly unlikely that procedural fixes will paper over clashing objectives. Negotiations require an abundance of goodwill and a willingness to compromise, two commodities in short supply.

That leaves the most risky option of a slippery slope to further escalation on the ground. Turkey is already hosting the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army of breakaway Syrian military personnel. Further measures could include unifying the hopelessly fragmented Syrian opposition and providing additional logistical and other support to Syrian armed groups.

Direct military intervention will pit Turkey against an angry Russia and a hostile Iran supplying collectively two-thirds of Turkey’s energy needs.
Fadi Hakura, Turkey analyst

Most perilous of all is Turkey unilaterally establishing a security zone or a safe haven on Syrian territory with the backing of the U.S., European powers and the Gulf Arabs but outside the U.N. purview. This would drag Turkey ever deeper into the Syrian quagmire that is descending into a sectarian civil war. After all, the turmoil in Syria can easily spill over into an ethnically and religiously diverse Turkey.

Direct military intervention will also pit Turkey against an angry Russia and a hostile Iran supplying collectively two-thirds of Turkey’s energy needs. Tehran is seething after Ankara agreed to host in September last year a sophisticated US early warning radar system under the NATO umbrella to neutralize the threat of long-range Iranian missiles.

Turkey is undoubtedly in a precarious and unenviable spot at the mercy of unpredictable and deteriorating regional circumstances. It is not in control of events but is being controlled by events. What the ultimate outcome will be is anyone’s guess.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Fadi Hakura
February 10, 2012
Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Group, the Free Syrian Army

By LIAM STACK

Ed Ou for The New York Times Col. Riad al-As'aad defected from the Syrian military.

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.

On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.

Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group’s commander, Col. Riad al-As’aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the “officers’ camp” as purely humanitarian. Turkey’s primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.

“At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads ‘I am a soldier’ or ‘I am an opposition member,’ ” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue.”

At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.

“We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria,” Colonel As’aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. “We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people.”

The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As’aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.

The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.

Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad’s repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.

“This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria,” said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey’s apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army “completely new territory.”

via Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Group, the Free Syrian Army – NYTimes.com.

October 28, 2011
“Inside the country, the job has been done – the regime has been destroyed”

The Kurdish Globe

Dr. Radwan Badini/ GLOBE PHOTO / Qassim Khidhir

Turkey plays a dual game with Syrian Kurds. What we want from Turkey is to look at the Syrian opposition parties equally.

Dr. Radwan Badini, an independent Syrian Kurdish politician and intellectual, participated in both of the Syrian opposition meetings in Turkey, as the representative of Kurdish opposition. He was in Antalya on June 1 and in Istanbul on July 16. In an interview with the Globe, Dr. Badini discusses issues regarding Syria and its future.

Globe: You participated in both of the Syrian opposition meetings in Turkey, what was the difference between the Istanbul and Antalya meeting?

Dr. Badini: At the Istanbul meeting, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Party had a larger presence; they wanted to show their power and be recognized inside Syria and internationally. As Kurds, we don’t mind sitting with the Muslim Brotherhood, but we have conditions and limits. We insist that Kurds in Syria are not a minority, they are one of the main nations, and we want the Kurdish rights to be written in the new Syrian constitution. Right now, the level of understanding between Kurds and the Muslim Brotherhood is positive.

Globe: Is the Muslim Brotherhood considered the most powerful Syrian opposition party?

Dr. Badini: No, but among the traditional Syrian opposition parties, the Muslim Brotherhood is considered the strongest. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most experienced Syrian opposition.

Globe: Which opposition parties are strong?

Dr. Badini: There are no strong Syrian opposition parties because for more than 45 years the Syrian regime has monopolized power in the country and never let any political party beside Baath Party (the ruling party) practice or even breathe. In the meantime, the Kurdish opposition is the most organized opposition in Syria.

Globe: There were reports that Turkey did not invite Kurdish parities to participate in the opposition meetings. Is this true?

Dr. Badini: Turkey plays a dual game with Syrian Kurds. What we want from Turkey is to look at the Syrian opposition parties equally. We respect what (Turkish Prime Minister) Erdogan has done recently to improve the Kurdish rights in Turkish Kurdistan. Turkey is a neighbor to Syrian Kurdistan, and Syrian Kurdistan has a strategic place for Turkey because it is one of the main gateways to Arab countries. With Turkey, we can be strategic partners based on bilateral interests. Around 15 percent of Syria’s population is Kurdish, and the size of Syrian Kurdistan is more than 30,000 square kilometers — the same size as Israel.

Globe: What was the level of Turkey’s role in the Syrian opposition meetings?

Dr. Badini: Well, only the blind people cannot see Turkey’s role. The meetings were organized by Turkey and behind the curtain; they (Turkey) were playing an important role. As the Syrian opposition, we visited Germany, Russia and the United States, but everybody showing us the route to Turkey.

Globe: Do you think the European countries and the U.S. are slow in supporting the Syrian opposition?

Dr. Badini: The U.S. is busy with other countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Regarding European countries, among them there are different points of view regarding how to deal with Syria, as you can see their different opinions on Libya. However, the European countries told us: “If you want us to interfere, first go and convince the Arab countries.”

Globe: How do you describe the situation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?

Dr. Badini: I see him as a sick man, dying in bed. He and his regime are over. His regime sent a telegram to the meeting, asking the Syrian opposition for dialogue. We rejected it because we believe what the regime is asking is only monologue, not dialogue.

Globe: Four months of violent protests and the international community still has not made any move to support the protesters. Do you think the Syrian protestors are becoming impatient?

Dr. Badini: I believe the job inside the country has been done — the regime has been destroyed. Now it is the international community’s turn to take a step.

Globe: The Syrian regime is talking about possible civil war in Syria, civil war among ethnic groups. Is it true or it is just the regime’s propaganda?

Dr. Badini: it is just the regime’s propaganda. In Homs, the regime made a rouse by killing Allawis (Shiite ethnic group), blamed it on the Sunnis and then killed some Sunnis and blamed it on the Allawi.

Globe: How do you describe the current situation of Kurdish areas in Syria?

Dr. Badini: They are living in extreme poverty. For several years there have been droughts in the Kurdish areas, and many Kurdish families moved to the big cities, leaving their villages. No Kurd has faith in the Syrian regime; they believe the only solution is to topple the regime. They are hopeful and enthusiastic; they believe the regime will be over soon.

All Kurdish Syrian parties need to hold a conference soon to better organize ourselves and have one voice when it comes to the Kurdish issue in Syria.

via KurdishGlobe- “Inside the country, the job has been done – the regime has been destroyed”.

July 24, 2011
Assad regime confirms attacks on its military, accuses Turkey of arming rebels

Assad regime confirms attacks on its military, accuses Turkey of arming rebels

NICOSIA — The regime of President Bashar Assad has acknowledged increasing attacks on its military believed aided by neighboring Turkey.

Syrian officials said a rebel force of up to 500 fighters attacked a Syrian Army position on June 4 in northern Syria. They said the target, a garrison of Military Intelligence, was captured in a 36-hour assault in which 72 soldiers were killed in Jisr Al Shoughour, near the border with Turkey.

“We found that the criminals [rebel fighters] were using weapons from Turkey, and this is very worrisome,” an official said.

This marked the first time that the Assad regime has accused Turkey of helping the revolt. The Ankara government has become increasingly critical of Assad and said the president has one week to end his crackdown against the opposition.

Officials said the rebels drove the Syrian Army from Jisr Al Shoughour and then took over the town. They said government buildings were looted and torched before another Assad force arrived.

At one point, the Assad regime conducted a tour for journalists of Jisr Al Shoughour. Officials showed journalists a mass grave that was said to contain the bodies of soldiers.

A Syrian officer who conducted the tour said the rebels in Jisr Al Shoughour consisted of Al Qaida-aligned fighters. He said the rebels employed a range of Turkish weapons and ammunition but did not accuse the Ankara government of supplying the equipment.

Western diplomatic sources said rebel fighters have been attacking Assad’s military in both northern and southern Syria. They said the rebels were being supplied by Sunnis from neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

“With every passing day, the Sunnis in the Syrian military are growing more uneasy,” a diplomat said. “The Sunni senior commanders are still loyal, but the field commanders, particularly on the level of squad and companies, are feeling the pressure to defect.”

Opposition sources have reported a breakdown in law and order throughout Syria. The Kurdish opposition Democratic Union Party has reported a rebellion in Hasaka prison, which resulted in a fire in the facility.

“The prison may be under the control of the prisoners, but the building is surrounded by security forces,” the party said.

via Assad regime confirms attacks on its military, accuses Turkey of arming rebels.

June 26, 2011
Syrian opposition meet in Turkey to discuss increasing pressure on Assad

Thomas Seibert

May 31, 2011

ISTANBUL // Members of the Syrian opposition in exile gathered for a conference in southern Turkey yesterday to discuss ways of raising the pressure on the regime of President Bashar al Assad.

The meeting comes at a time when the government in Ankara is showing increasing signs of impatience with Damascus after weeks of fruitless efforts to push the Assad government to implement political reforms. The Assad regime has been trying to crush a popular uprising against the government.

Rights activists say more than 1,000 people have been killed in the crackdown that started in March and has been condemned by the United Nations and triggered western sanctions against the Assad government.

Ammar Qurabi, the president of the Egypt-based National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, or Nohr, one of the groups behind the two-day meeting in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya, said he expected about 300 participants at the “Syrian Conference for Change”.

In a first reaction to the general amnesty declared by the Assad regime yesterday, Mr Qurabi stressed that important details about the scope of the amnesty were not known.

“As a start, we welcome any step that gets people out of jail,” he said. But he added it was unclear if people that were still in police custody after their arrest by Syrian security forces would also be released.

Mr Qurabi and other opposition representatives said one aim of the meeting was to create a body that could represent the Syrian opposition internationally, but not to form some kind of government in exile.

“Maybe we will establish a small committee” to coordinate communication between exile groups and to support the resistance to the Assad regime within Syria,” Mr Qurabi said.
As for political demands, Mr Qurabi pointed to the so-called Damascus Declaration of 2005, a five-page document calling for democracy in Syria and supported by a broad range of opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful Sunni group banned in Syria.

Mr Qurabi said yesterday that the Muslim Brotherhood would also be represented in Antalya. The opposition should “unite under the roof of a revolution of freedom and dignity for the construction of the new Syria”, he said earlier in a Nohr statement released in the run-up to the conference.

“This regime cannot be reformed,” Anas Abda, secretary of the Damascus Declaration General Council, another opposition group, told the semi-official Turkish news agency Anadolu in Antalya. “The main demand of the conference is this: We want real change in Syria.”

But even before the meeting got under way, cracks appeared between opposition groups. Some reports said Kurdish organisations had not been invited to the meeting.
In London, Ribal al Assad, the director of the Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria and a cousin of the Syrian president, said in a statement it was “very clear that some of these individuals [in Antalya] are not genuine representatives of the Syrian people. Moreover they are individuals who promote extremism or sectarianism, which has no place in the path to freedom and democracy.”

The Turkish government did not embrace the Antalya meeting officially. Mr Qurabi said the organisers had had no contact with Turkish government representatives. “We sent them the files about the conference, and they allowed it to go ahead,” he said, adding there had been no other Turkish involvement in the event.

A visit to Istanbul in April by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood triggered an angry statement by Nidal Kabalan, the Syrian ambassador in Ankara. “For us, the Muslim Brotherhood is like the PKK is for Turkey,” Mr Kabalan told a Turkish newspaper at the time, in reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a rebel group fighting for Kurdish self-rule and regarded as a terrorist organisation by Ankara.

The fact that Turkey, one of the closest international partners of the Assad regime in recent years, is once again playing host to a meeting of the Syrian opposition despite reservations in Damascus is no coincidence, said Oytun Orhan, an expert on Syria at the Centre for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, a think tank in Ankara.

“Turkey is disappointed by Assad,” Mr Orhan said. The government in Ankara has been calling on Mr Assad to implement what Turkish officials have described as “shock reforms” for more democracy, but Ankara’s pleas have been ignored by Damascus. “So Turkey is keeping up the pressure for reform on one hand and trying to sharpen the profile on the opposition on the other.”

According to Turkish news reports, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, renewed his demands for reforms when he spoke to Mr Assad by telephone last Friday. “Radical steps that stun everyone are needed now,” Mr Erdogan reportedly told the Syrian leader.

Mr Orhan said Turkey had invested a considerable amount of international credibility by telling the increasingly sceptical West that the Assad regime was willing to reform the country. But as Syria keeps ignoring Ankara’s advice and moves closer to Iran, Turkey has started to change tack, Mr Orhan said.

“This is not the first meeting of the Syrian opposition in Turkey,” he said about the conference in Antalya. “It can be read as a message to Syria.”

Mr Orhan said Turkey was also concerned about a perceived increase of Iranian influence in Syria. “I think there is a Turkish-Iranian competition in Syria, just like in Lebanon and in Iraq,” he said.
In a recent analysis posted on the website of the Centre for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, Mr Orhan argued that Iran saw a potential regime change in Syria as a threat. “Right now, the Syrian government does not trust any player, including Turkey, as much as it trusts Iran,” he wrote.

In Antalya, the conference triggered a short confrontation between Syrians opposed to the Assad regime and supporters of the government in Damascus.

Government opponents and supporters arrived in Antalya on the same flight from Istanbul, Turkish media reported. The government supporters protested when the opposition representatives unveiled signs with anti-Assad slogans after their arrival, the report said. Turkish police intervened to prevent the situation from escalating. The Assad supporters were gathering for a counter-conference in another hotel in Antalya, the reports said.

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June 1, 2011