http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Syrian_opposition_chooses_Saudi-backed_leader.html?cid=36384156
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Erika Solomon
ISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's fractious opposition elected a new leader on Saturday but rebel groups were reported to be fighting among themselves in a sign of growing divisions on the ground between factions trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian National Coalition chose Ahmad Jarba as its president after a close runoff vote that reinforced the influence of Saudi Arabia over a perpetually divided opposition movement that has struggled to convince its Western and Arab allies that its fighters are ready to be given sophisticated foreign weaponry.
Jarba is a tribal figure from the eastern Syrian province of Hasaka who has Saudi connections. He defeated businessman Mustafa Sabbagh, a point man for Qatar, which has seen its influence over the opposition overshadowed by the Saudis.
"A change was needed," Adib Shishakly, a senior official in the coalition, told Reuters after the vote held at an opposition meeting in Istanbul.
"The old leadership of the coalition had failed to offer the Syrian people anything substantial and was preoccupied with internal politics. Ahmad Jarba is willing to work with everybody."
The Muslim Brotherhood, the only organised faction in the Syrian political opposition, has seen its mother organisation in Egypt thrown out of power in Cairo this week along with President Mohamed Mursi.
But the Brotherhood representative, Farouq Tayfour, was elected one of two vice-presidents of the Syrian National Coalition in a sign the group still retains influence in Syrian opposition politics.
REBEL INFIGHTING
In northern Syria, rebels clashed with an opposition unit linked to al Qaeda, activists said, in a battle that signals rising tensions between local people and more radical Islamist factions.
Fighting between rebel groups and government forces was reported in Homs and around Damascus in a war whose casualty toll has now topped 100,000.
The rebel infighting comes as forces loyal to Assad have made gains on the battlefield and drawn comfort from the downfall the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a new al Qaeda franchise, has been working to cement power in rebel-held parts of northern Syria in recent months.
ISIS units have begun imposing stricter interpretations of Islamic law and have filmed themselves executing members of rival rebel groups whom they accuse of corruption, and beheading those they say are loyal to Assad.
As hostilities drag on and resources grow scarce, infighting has increased, both among opposition groups and the militias loyal to Assad, leaving civilians trapped in the middle.
The latest internecine clashes were in the town of al-Dana, near the Turkish border, on Friday, local activists said. An opposition group known as the Free Youths of Idlib said dozens of fighters were killed, wounded or imprisoned.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said that the bodies of a commander and his brother, from the local Islam Battalion, were found beheaded. Local activists working for the British-based group said the men's heads were found next to a trash bin in a main square.
The exact reasons for the clashes have been hard to pin down, but many rebel groups have been chafing at ISIS's rise in power. It has taken over the once dominant Nusra Front, a more localised group of al Qaeda-linked fighters that had resisted calls by foreign radicals to expand its scope beyond the Syrian revolt to a more regional Islamist mission.
ISLAMIC LAW
Residents of rebel-held territories in the north once welcomed hardline Islamist groups as better organised and less corrupt. But locals are now growing more wary of them as they impose their austere version of Islamic law.
Protests against radical Islamist groups are becoming more common. The Observatory said the al-Dana clashes were set off at an anti-ISIS protest when some Islamist militants fired at the demonstration.
But other activists said the clashes were more about local power struggles. ISIS units are believed to be buying up land and property, and they also have tried to control supplies of wheat and oil in rebel areas.
Islamist groups that support al Qaeda posted statements on social media saying that they had not started the clashes and had not tried to impose their will on locals.
In Homs, further south, fierce clashes raged as Assad's forces tried to advance in the city, the epicentre of the armed insurgency.
Activists in Homs described air strikes and artillery attacks as a "blitz" and said it was some of the fiercest fighting they had witnessed.
The United Nations estimates between 2,500 and 4,000 civilians are trapped inside Homs.
Some activists decried the National Coalition meetings as a petty power struggle while the battle in Homs raged and appeared to be swinging in favour of Assad's forces.
"How dare the NC have elections and go about its normal business as Homs gets pummelled? History won't be kind to you," said one activist on Twitter, called Nader.
Fighting also took place in two southern districts of the capital, where activists reported rocket and artillery attacks.
The Observatory said that two rockets hit the military's Airforce Intelligence offices in central Damascus. The Airforce Intelligence has long been one of the most feared branches of Assad's secret services.
Heavy air strikes hammered rebel strongholds in eastern suburbs of Damascus, where rebels say the army is imposing a blockade that is choking off their supply of weapons.
(Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
ISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's fractious opposition elected a new leader on Saturday but rebel groups were reported to be fighting among themselves in a sign of growing divisions on the ground between factions trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian National Coalition chose Ahmad Jarba as its president after a close runoff vote that reinforced the influence of Saudi Arabia over a perpetually divided opposition movement that has struggled to convince its Western and Arab allies that its fighters are ready to be given sophisticated foreign weaponry.
Jarba is a tribal figure from the eastern Syrian province of Hasaka who has Saudi connections. He defeated businessman Mustafa Sabbagh, a point man for Qatar, which has seen its influence over the opposition overshadowed by the Saudis.
"A change was needed," Adib Shishakly, a senior official in the coalition, told Reuters after the vote held at an opposition meeting in Istanbul.
"The old leadership of the coalition had failed to offer the Syrian people anything substantial and was preoccupied with internal politics. Ahmad Jarba is willing to work with everybody."
The Muslim Brotherhood, the only organised faction in the Syrian political opposition, has seen its mother organisation in Egypt thrown out of power in Cairo this week along with President Mohamed Mursi.
But the Brotherhood representative, Farouq Tayfour, was elected one of two vice-presidents of the Syrian National Coalition in a sign the group still retains influence in Syrian opposition politics.
REBEL INFIGHTING
In northern Syria, rebels clashed with an opposition unit linked to al Qaeda, activists said, in a battle that signals rising tensions between local people and more radical Islamist factions.
Fighting between rebel groups and government forces was reported in Homs and around Damascus in a war whose casualty toll has now topped 100,000.
The rebel infighting comes as forces loyal to Assad have made gains on the battlefield and drawn comfort from the downfall the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a new al Qaeda franchise, has been working to cement power in rebel-held parts of northern Syria in recent months.
ISIS units have begun imposing stricter interpretations of Islamic law and have filmed themselves executing members of rival rebel groups whom they accuse of corruption, and beheading those they say are loyal to Assad.
As hostilities drag on and resources grow scarce, infighting has increased, both among opposition groups and the militias loyal to Assad, leaving civilians trapped in the middle.
The latest internecine clashes were in the town of al-Dana, near the Turkish border, on Friday, local activists said. An opposition group known as the Free Youths of Idlib said dozens of fighters were killed, wounded or imprisoned.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said that the bodies of a commander and his brother, from the local Islam Battalion, were found beheaded. Local activists working for the British-based group said the men's heads were found next to a trash bin in a main square.
The exact reasons for the clashes have been hard to pin down, but many rebel groups have been chafing at ISIS's rise in power. It has taken over the once dominant Nusra Front, a more localised group of al Qaeda-linked fighters that had resisted calls by foreign radicals to expand its scope beyond the Syrian revolt to a more regional Islamist mission.
ISLAMIC LAW
Residents of rebel-held territories in the north once welcomed hardline Islamist groups as better organised and less corrupt. But locals are now growing more wary of them as they impose their austere version of Islamic law.
Protests against radical Islamist groups are becoming more common. The Observatory said the al-Dana clashes were set off at an anti-ISIS protest when some Islamist militants fired at the demonstration.
But other activists said the clashes were more about local power struggles. ISIS units are believed to be buying up land and property, and they also have tried to control supplies of wheat and oil in rebel areas.
Islamist groups that support al Qaeda posted statements on social media saying that they had not started the clashes and had not tried to impose their will on locals.
In Homs, further south, fierce clashes raged as Assad's forces tried to advance in the city, the epicentre of the armed insurgency.
Activists in Homs described air strikes and artillery attacks as a "blitz" and said it was some of the fiercest fighting they had witnessed.
The United Nations estimates between 2,500 and 4,000 civilians are trapped inside Homs.
Some activists decried the National Coalition meetings as a petty power struggle while the battle in Homs raged and appeared to be swinging in favour of Assad's forces.
"How dare the NC have elections and go about its normal business as Homs gets pummelled? History won't be kind to you," said one activist on Twitter, called Nader.
Fighting also took place in two southern districts of the capital, where activists reported rocket and artillery attacks.
The Observatory said that two rockets hit the military's Airforce Intelligence offices in central Damascus. The Airforce Intelligence has long been one of the most feared branches of Assad's secret services.
Heavy air strikes hammered rebel strongholds in eastern suburbs of Damascus, where rebels say the army is imposing a blockade that is choking off their supply of weapons.
(Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Reuters
http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/89483-explosions-rock-ammunition-depots-in-syria-s-latakia
Explosions Rock Ammunition Depots in Syria's Latakia
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Explosions rocked several army ammunition depots in the western Syrian province of Latakia on Friday, possibly after they were targeted with rockets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said there were reports of deaths and injuries in the blasts but he had no further details.
"Explosions around dawn today rocked an area... in the east of Latakia apparently as a result of blasts in ammunition depots near a brigade of regime forces," the Observatory said in an email.
Abdel Rahman said there were indications that the blasts were caused by rocket fire targeting the depots, but that there was uncertainty over who was behind the attack.
Elsewhere in the country, the Syrian air force carried out at least three raids on besieged sectors of the central city of Homs, where troops have been battling to roll back rebel forces.
The Observatory reported heavy shelling on Khaldiyeh district and the Old City of Homs, adding that regime forces backed by the National Defense Force militia and members of Lebanon's Hizbullah were fighting rebels on the outskirts of Khaldiyeh.
The group said eight regime forces were killed in fighting on Thursday in the two neighborhoods of Homs, which have been under siege by the army for more than a year.
At least 106 people were killed in fighting throughout Syria on Thursday, including 38 civilians, 46 rebels and 22 soldiers, according to the Observatory.
Mysterious explosion hits Assad munitions cache in Latakia
Explosion on unknown origin decimates munitions warehouse in northern Syrian city, while battles still rage on in Homs. Opposition fails to choose new leader, UN fails to agree on Homs
Roi Kais
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Related stories:
- Fierce fighting batters Syria's strategic city of Homs
- Syria opposition meets to find leader, show they're ready for arms
- Syria's Assad declares fall of 'political Islam'
The website for the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel group, has reported has stipulated a number of alternative theories regarding who and what caused the Latakia explosion. Among the explanations proposed was the presence of "enemy aircraft" as well as rebel operated missiles. However, both claims were purely speculative.
Battle of Homs
An activist and Syrian state media said regime troops were advancing in parts of the rebel-held city of Homs Saturday.
Homs (Photo: AP)
Badrakhan says troops began the move Friday night.
According to him, regime forces continued to pound the area with mortar shells and missiles Saturday, part a major offensive by President Bashar Assad's troops to seize control of territory they lost to rebels.
Political standstill
Amid the ongoing battle, the deeply divided UN Security Council failed to approve a statement calling on the Syrian government to allow immediate access to 2,500 civilians trapped in the besieged city of Homs.
Russia, Syria's closest ally, and Western nations, which support the opposition, were again at odds – as they have been since the Syrian conflict began over two years ago.
Austria and Luxembourg circulated a draft press statement earlier this week expressing "grave concern" at the plight of the trapped civilians and calling for Syria to allow "immediate, safe and unhindered access" to Homs for UN and other humanitarian workers so they could assist civilians in need, especially those requiring medical treatment.
Russia rejected compromise language proposed by the original statement's supporters which called for immediate access "to reach civilians in Homs and all areas of ongoing hostilities," the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were private.
Syrian opposition (Archive: MCT)
Syria's opposition also hit deadlock on Friday in talks in Istanbul to elect a new leader, as the toppling of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood dealt a blow to its most influential faction.
The stalemate is preventing the main players in the Syrian National Coalition from reaching a deal acceptable to their Saudi and Qatari backers, who want to strengthen the opposition to counter an onslaught by Assad's forces.
Sources in the Arab- and Western-backed coalition said the fate of an agreement hinges on the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the only organized group in the opposition, which holds a balance of votes between a Saudi-backed and a Qatari-backed candidate.
The coalition has been without a leader for months after its head quit over disagreement over potential talks with Assad's government.
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1491754
