Syria's Assad blames unrest on saboteurs, pledges reforms

 

  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday "saboteurs" were behind unrest against his rule and that political accommodation could not be reached with gunmen.

In just his third speech since the demonstrations began four months ago, Assad appeared tense as he pledged to pursue a national dialogue on reform and held out the prospect of expanding a recent amnesty.

But he said: "We have to distinguish between (protesters, and others who have legitimate demands) and saboteurs. The saboteurs are a small group that tried to exploit the kind majority of the Syrian people to carry out their many schemes."

No political solution was possible with people carrying weapons, he said.

As Syrian forces swept through the northwestern border region with Turkey, blocking refugees fleeing a military crackdown, Assad called on the 10,000 who have already crossed the frontier to come home.

"There are those who give them the impression that the state will exact revenge, I affirm that is not true. The army is there for security," he said in the speech at Damascus University.

A committee on national dialogue will meet in the next few days and invite more than 100 personalities to discuss the criteria and mechanism for constitutional reform, he said. He set a one-month target date for presenting recommendations.

Syria's military operation along the Turkish border follows the biggest protests in four months of anti-Assad unrest on Friday which a violent clampdown has failed to quash.

Security forces shot dead up to 19 protesters on Friday, rights groups said.

In addition to the more than 10,000 Syrian refugees now in Turkey, a further 10,000 are sheltering close to the border just inside Syria in the olive groves and rich farmland around the town of Jisr al-Shughour, Turkish officials said.

But Syrian human rights campaigner Ammar al-Qurabi said the army was now stopping those still inside Syria from leaving.

"The Syrian army has spread around the border area to prevent frightened residents from fleeing across the border to Turkey," he told.

Qurabi also accused pro-government forces of attacking people trying to aid the refugees as they fled.

The violence so close to its border challenges Turkey's foreign policy of "zero problems with neighbors" that has seen it befriend the Middle East's autocratic rulers while presenting itself as a champion of democracy.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has pledged to keep his borders open to refugees and has called the Syrian government crackdown "savagery," but beyond words, it is not clear whether Ankara's rapprochement with Damascus has earned Turkey any influence with Assad to halt the violence.

REFUGEES "FEAR GETTING SHOT"

Syrian troops and gunmen loyal to Assad seized the town of Bdama, only 2 km (1.2 miles) from Turkey on Saturday, burning houses and arresting dozens, witnesses said.

"There are roadblocks everywhere in Bdama to prevent people from fleeing but villagers are finding other routes through valleys to escape to the Turkish border," said Omar, a farmer from Bdama who managed to reach the border area.

"We received no bread today. There was one bakery operating in Bdama but it has been forced to shut. The 'shabbiha' (Assad's gunmen) are shooting randomly," one refugee, a carpenter who gave his name as Hammoud, told Reuters by telephone.

"One man in Bdama was injured today and we managed to smuggle him to hospital in Turkey. But many fear getting shot if they attempt to cross the border," the refugee added.

Faced with troops firing live ammunition, Syrian protesters have taken to venting their anger against Assad at night.

Demonstrations erupted overnight in the cities of Hama, Homs, Latakia, Deir al-Zor, the town of Madaya near the Lebanese border, several suburbs of the capital Damascus and in Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, witnesses and activists said.

Authorities blame the violence on armed groups and Islamists, backed by foreign powers. Syria has barred most international journalists from entering the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.

Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March.

The Syrian Observatory for human rights has said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed. Other rights campaigners said dozens of security personnel had been killed by loyalist troops for refusing to shoot at unarmed civilians.

Even so, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev practically ruled out supporting a UN resolution condemning Syria's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Read More

Western, Arab talks to focus on Libya 'endgame'

MISRATA - Western and Arab nations meet in Abu Dhabi on Thursday to focus on what one U.S. official called the "endgame" for Libya's Muammar Gaddafi as NATO once again stepped up the intensity of its air raids on Tripoli.

At the United Nations, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said its investigators had found evidence linking Gaddafi to a policy of raping opponents, while in the U.S. Congress a bipartisan group proposed that President Barack Obama use frozen Libyan government assets to pay for humanitarian aid for Libyan people caught up in the civil war.

NATO air strikes resumed in Tripoli on Wednesday night after a lull that followed the heaviest day of bombings since March.

Thousands of Gaddafi troops advanced on Misrata on Wednesday, shelling it from three sides and killing at least 12 rebels.

Ministers from the so-called Libya contact group, including the United States, France and Britain, as well as Arab allies Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan, agreed in May to set up a fund to help the rebels in the civil war.

They are expected to firm up this commitment in the United Arab Emirates capital and press the rebels to give a detailed plan on how they would run the country if Gaddafi stood down as leader of the oil producing North African desert state.

"The international community is beginning to talk about what could constitute end-game to this," one senior U.S. official told reporters aboard U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's plane which landed in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday night.

"That would obviously include some kind of ceasefire arrangement and some kind of political process... and of course the question of Gaddafi and perhaps his family is also a key part of that," the U.S. official said.

Both Libya's rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) and its Western allies have rejected Libyan government ceasefire offers that do not include Gaddafi's departure, saying he and his family must relinquish power before any talks can begin.

The U.S. official said there have been general discussions about what might happen to Gaddafi but nothing specific on "where he should go, or whether he should remain in Libya for
that matter."

U.S. officials on Wednesday announced delivery of the TNC's first U.S oil sale, part of a broader strategy they hope will get money flowing to the cash starved group.

U.S. oil refiner Tesoro announced in May it had purchased the 1.2 million barrel cargo, which U.S. officials said was due to arrive in Hawaii on Wednesday aboard a tanker chartered by Swiss oil trader Vitol.

'Pressure will increase'

British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt, who will be at the Abu Dhabi talks, said the group would be briefed by the International Stabilisation Response Team which is helping the rebel council plan for post-conflict rebuilding.

"The contact group will also reiterate the unequivocal message... that Gaddafi, his family and his regime have lost all legitimacy and must go so that the Libyan people can determine their own future," Burt said.

"Until Gaddafi does so, the pressure will increase across the board: economically, politically and militarily."

NATO defence ministers met in Brussels on Wednesday, but there were few signs of willingness to intensify their Libya mission, which after four months has failed to oust Gaddafi.

The alliance says the bombing aims to protect civilians from the Libyan leader's military, which crushed popular protests against his rule in February, leaving many dead. The conflict has now become a civil war.

Gaddafi says the rebels are a minority of Islamist militants and the NATO campaign is an attempt to grab Libya's oil.

At the United Nations, the ICC prosecutor said its investigators have evidence linking Gaddafi to a policy of raping opponents and may bring separate charges on the issue.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requested arrest warrants on May 16 against Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and the country's spy chief on charges of crimes against humanity committed during attempts to crush the country's rebellion.

At a U.N. news conference on Wednesday, he said the question until recently had been whether Gaddafi himself could be associated with the rapes "or is it something that happened in the barracks?"

"But now we are getting some information that Gaddafi himself decided" to authorize the rapes, "and this is new," Moreno-Ocampo said.

In Washington, a group of leading Senate Democrats and Republicans said they were sponsoring a bill under which President Obama could use frozen Libyan government assets to pay for humanitarian aid to Libyan people caught up in the conflict.

"The ongoing violence in Libya has disrupted the economy and left far too many innocent Libyan citizens struggling to simply put food on the table and to manage the daily necessities of life," Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson said in a joint statement with the committee's senior Republican, Richard Shelby.

The United States is holding more than $34 billion as part of sanctions imposed in late February against Gaddafi and his top officials.

Gaddfi push on Misrata

On the battlefront, forces loyal to Gaddafi were staging a big push on Misrata. "He has sent thousands of troops from all sides and they are trying to enter the city. They are still outside, though," rebel spokesman Hassan al-Misrati told Reuters from inside the besieged town.

Another rebel spokesman in Misrata, called Mohammed, told Reuters late on Wednesday they were still in control of the city despite the assault.

Spain joined other Western and Arab governments in recognizing the Benghazi-based council as the sole representative of the Libyan people.

Gaddafi troops and the rebels have been deadlocked for weeks, with neither side able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah in the east, which Gaddafi forces shelled on Monday, and the Gaddafi-held oil town of Brega further west.

Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of western mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi's better-equipped forces.

In Tripoli, a fire broke out early on Thursday morning at the hotel housing foreign journalists, a Reuters witness said.

About 100 people, most of them journalists, were evacuated to the parking lot just before 6 a.m. (0400 GMT). There were no reports of injuries and a government spokesman said hotel staff blamed the blaze on a fire in an electrical room.

Read More