Arab and Western leaders are scheduled to meet with Syrian opposition leaders in London this week in an attempt to get them to the bargaining table.
A key group in the Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council, is refusing to attend the next round of formal peace talks scheduled to take place in Geneva next month.
Foreign ministers of 11 nations are trying to lay the groundwork for what is being called the Geneva II conference. The leaders, which include representatives from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are reaffirming their position that any peace process should be political in nature and move away from the current Syrian regime.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sent a strong message to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad that he would have to step down if he wants peace to come to his country.
“I don’t know anybody who believes the opposition will ever consent to Bashar al-Assad being part of the government,” Kerry said after talks with Arab officials. “He has bombed and gassed people in his country.”
Assad recently told a Lebanese television station he saw no reason why he could not stand for re-election in 2014.
More than 100,000 people have died since the civil war began in 2011.
International monitors reported over the weekend that destruction of chemical weapons in Syria is underway.
The team of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that weapon destruction is taking place according to the terms of their United Nations mandate. The U.N. approved a joint U.S.-Russia resolution that would remove all chemical weapons from Syrian storehouses.
“The first day of destruction and disabling is over and missile warheads, aerial bombs, along with mobile and static mixing and filling units, were dealt with. Work continues tomorrow and in the next few days,” an official with OPCW reported to the BBC.
The U.N. resolution calls for the total destruction of Syria’s chemical weapon stockpiles by mid-2014.
The Free Syrian Army, who have been fighting to overthrow the al-Assad government, is claiming that the Syrian regime has moved most of their chemical stockpile to their associates in the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashir al-Assad reportedly told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine he would welcome German negotiators in an attempt to end the 30-month-old civil war.
In a not so subtle message to the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s military chief has asked the public to give troops a mandate to stop “violence and terrorism.”
The move is seen both as a warning and an attempt to gain public backing for a removal of protest camps set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi supporters outside military complexes and government buildings. Continue reading →
Gunmen stormed the Pakistan Intelligence Agency headquarters throwing bombs and firing automatic weapons injuring more than 30 people according to local police.
The heavily guarded complex in the southern Sindh province had buildings collapse in the wake of the attack. Police say the offices of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency were the main targets within the compound. Continue reading →
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has said that laboratory tests have confirmed use of the nerve agent Sarin in the Syrian Civil War.
The White House again said that more proof was needed because the French scientists did not indicate where the gas was used or who used it. The U.N. stated earlier that “reasonable grounds” have been established for claiming the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. Continue reading →
In light of reports that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on civilians and that military troops are carrying out summary executions of suspected rebels without trial, the U.S. is considering supplying arms to the Syrian rebels.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters that for the first time the U.S. is no longer ruling out the possibility of arming the rebels. Last year, President Obama had rejected a similar proposal from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Arming the rebels, that’s an option,” Hagel said during a press conference. “You look at and rethink all options. It doesn’t mean you do or you will. These are options that must be considered with the international community.”
A European Union ban on arming the rebels expires in a few weeks and Hagel’s British counterpart, Philip Hammond, said Britain would be looking at their options after the ban’s expiration.
Sources within the defense department told a BBC reporter that because the U.S. does not want to directly get involved militarily in Syria, arming the rebels is now considered the “least worst option.”
Both Hagel and Hammond stated that despite multiple reports and photographic proof of the Syrian government using chemical weapons, there is still not enough hard evidence to act. Hammond said that because much of the public clearly remembers the weapons of mass destruction claims in 2003 which led to the Iraq invasion, any evidence of chemical weapons would have to come from “very clear, very high quality evidence.”
More than 70,000 have died in the Syrian civil war.
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent relief organization has released figures with the United Nations showing that over 2.5 million civilians have been displaced in the country since the start of the nation’s civil war.
UN refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the group’s estimate was “very conservative” and said because of people on the run or in hiding it’s impossible to guess the actual number of people displaced by the war. Continue reading →
Human Rights Watch has reported that Syrian government forces are dropping Russian-made cluster bombs on populated areas in an attempt to destroy rebel forces.
Cluster bombs are banned by 77 countries because of the threat they pose to civilian populations in war zones. For example, if a cluster bomb does not completely detonate upon impact, the remaining bombs can act as land mines and explode when picked up or stepped on. Continue reading →
In what the BBC described as rebel forces “aiming to cause the biggest psychological as well as physical blow to state presence in” Aleppo, many buildings in the city’s main square were leveled in bomb attacks Wednesday.
At least 33 people were killed in the assault. Continue reading →
The Syrian army is moving their chemical weapons for what is being called “security reasons” by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Panetta believes all the weapons caches are still under military control.
“We’ve continued to monitor,” Panetta told CNN. “We are working with countries in the region to ensure that we have the best information possible.” Continue reading →
