Egypt Independent: World-Main news

Qusayr battle rages as Syria regime presses assault

AFP — Sat, 25 May 2013 09:41:00 +0000

Intense clashes rocked the central Syrian town of Qusayr on Saturday, a watchdog reported, as regime forces backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah pressed an assault they launched almost nearly a week ago.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog, told AFP that "the fighting and shelling, which took place on Saturday on the main roads inside and outside of Qusayr, are the most intense since the beginning of the offensive."

"The town of Qusayr, and the rebel areas north of the town like Hamdiyeh, the former military airport at Dabaa and Arjuneh have been subjected to heavy bombardment by regime forces who are using surface-to-surface missiles," he added.

Qusayr is a key prize for the rebels, a conduit through which weapons and fighters can be channelled from Lebanon.

It is also important for Bashar al-Assad's forces because of its strategic location between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, the Alawite heartland of the embattled president's regime.

The Syrian army, backed by fighters from the Shiite Hezbollah, began their assault on Qusayr last Sunday.

Rahman said "the intensification of the fighting can be explained by Hezbollah's desire to score points before the speech their leader Hassan Nasrallah is due to deliver this evening," marking the 13th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.

Anti-regime demonstrators across Syria on Friday denounced the Hezbollah chief, waving placards reading "Nasrallah, impostor of the resistance," and "Homs is not Jerusalem," a reference to the group's slogan about liberating Jerusalem.

Tunisia 'making progress' against terror groups

AFP — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:35:00 +0000

Prime Minister Ali Larayedh said on Thursday that Tunisia is making progress in its bid to dismantle "terrorist" cells despite the presence in the country of armed groups and recent clashes with Islamists.

"There is progress in dismantling the terrorist networks. We are confronted by small groups who practise terrorism and have links to terrorist parties," Larayedh told a news conference.

"We will continue to pursue them and all people who practise violence or have links with the terrorists."

But Larayedh acknowledged that the hunt for an armed group linked to Al-Qaeda along the Algerian border, which began in late April, was still taking place.

"Our units continue their search operations at Mount Chaambi and there is nothing new about this," he said.

Larayedh declined to label as "terrorists" the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia that has been linked with Al-Qaeda and with which police clashed last week.

"This is an illegal organisation, and some of its leaders are involved in terrorism," said the premier, a member of Tunisia's moderate Islamist party Ennahda.

"I have not yet said that Ansar al-Sharia is a terrorist organisation... it must quickly issue a statement clearly condemning violence and terrorism," he added.

Police and supporters of Ansar al-Sharia clashed on Sunday after the authorities banned the Islamist group from staging its annual congress.

Ansar al-Sharia had called for all Muslims to demonstrate on Friday in front of Ennahda's offices in the central city of Kairouan because of the arrest of its spokesman, Seifeddine Rais.

But it called off the protest after Rais was released.

Ansar al-Sharia is considered to be the most radical of the extremist groups to have emerged in Tunisia since the country's 2011 revolution kick-started the Arab Spring.

Syria-linked clashes kill six in Lebanese city: security

AFP — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Fighting in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli killed at least six people overnight, as supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad clashed, a security source said on Thursday.

"Very violent fighting took place last night until 5:00 am (0200 GMT) that killed six people and wounded 40. The clashes and shelling affected several areas of the city, including the centre," the source told AFP.

Violence has regularly broken out in the city since the beginning of Syria's uprising, pitting residents of the Sunni district of Bab el-Tebbaneh against those from the neighbouring Alawite area of Jabal Mohsen.

But since Sunday, shelling and clashes have spread to other mostly Sunni areas of the city, killing 17 people including two soldiers and wounding 150 others.

Amin al-Qabbut, mukhtar (municipal official) of the Sunni Al-Qobba area, said areas of the city last attacked during the Syrian army's bombardment of the city in 1985 were being shelled again.

"This war is the continuation of the 1985 war that Syria waged against us," Qabbut said.

In 1985, the Syrian army clashed with Sunni groups in Tripoli, and bombarded areas of the city.

"The political tool used to wage the war is the same, it is the Arab Democratic Party," Qabbut said, referring to the party linked to Tripoli's Alawite community.

The ADP has, in return, accused Sunni groups of starting the fighting.

The largely Sunni city is home to a small community of Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

The latest violence began as the Assad regime launched a withering assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon.

Syria opposition to mull peace talks

AFP — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:41:00 +0000

Syria's main opposition group gathers Thursday for a landmark conference in Istanbul, Turkey, to discuss peace talks with the regime, as rebels on the ground suffer a massive army onslaught.

The National Coalition's fresh round of talks is set to run for three days.

It is the opposition group's first meeting since the United States and Russia announced a peace initiative dubbed Geneva 2 to end the two-year conflict that has killed more than 90,000 people.

The meeting comes a day after backers of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad gathered in Amman to push forward Geneva 2, which would bring rebels and regime representatives in mid-June to the negotiating table.

In their closing statement early Thursday, the Friends of Syria group told Assad to commit to peace, warning that they would boost their backing of the opposition if he failed to negotiate a political transition.

The opposition's agenda for Istanbul is packed with controversial questions, and whether the group can make a final decision on Geneva 2 remains doubtful, opponents say.

It is under pressure from its international backers to enter talks with the Assad regime, but if it complies risks losing what little legitimacy it has left on the ground.

"The Coalition and (key opposition movement) the Syrian National Council have made clear their condition to any talks is the resignation of Bashar al-Assad," Coalition member Samir Nashar told AFP.

"I think the revolutionaries would turn their back totally on the political opposition" should this condition remain unfulfilled, he added.

Former opposition leader and prominent Coalition member Abdel Basset Sayda insisted Assad's departure was still a precondition for any talks.

"All political crises end with a political solution, but the question for us is what kind of solution is acceptable," Sayda told AFP.

Opponents "maintain our position that there will be no negotiation with the regime that does not come with the fall of Assad".

Assad appears as far as ever from giving up, however: in an interview with an Argentinian newspaper this month, he implied that he would stay until the next scheduled election in 2014.

The Istanbul meeting comes as rebels in the central Syrian town of Qusayr face a massive onslaught by the army and elite Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah troops.

"The regime and its backers are trying to change the situation on the ground militarily, in order to gain the upper hand in negotiations," Nashar said.

"That's why Hezbollah and Iran are intervening in such an open way. Again, this is costing the Syrians blood."

On Wednesday, acting Coalition chief George Sabra called on rebels across Syria to "rush to the rescue" of Qusayr, and appealed to the international community to set up a humanitarian corridor to the embattled town.

At the Amman meeting, US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Assad to commit to peace ahead of talks.

Kerry said that "in the event that we can't find that way forward, in the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate... in good faith, we will also talk about our continued support and our growing support for the opposition".

His British counterpart William Hague said that only Assad's departure could clear the way for a settlement.

The aim of Geneva 2, Hague stressed, would be to agree on the formation of "a transitional government with full executive authority, formed on the basis of mutual consent."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius agreed.

"There are some conditions and in particular conditions about participation, which must be representative and which must not include countries which are against success," he said, an apparent allusion to Assad ally Iran.

Sabra, for the Coalition, only received a last-minute invitation to Amman. He was due back in Istanbul in time for Thursday's talks.

The opposition has other difficult issues on its agenda. Dissidents aim to name a new Coalition president to replace Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned in March, as well as three new vice-presidents and a new secretary-general, a Coalition official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The opposition is seeking to establish a rebel government under interim prime minister Ghassan Hitto, while discussing the group's expansion to include 31 new members, the source added.

That expansion comes after pressures for a more inclusive opposition from Coalition backers, he added.

Hitto has pulled together a list of ministries and representatives for all but the interior and defence portfolios -- but his proposals may not even see the light as he too may end up being replaced, the official said.