World powers to provide ‘urgent aid’ to Syria rebels

DOHA, Qatar – World powers supporting Syria’s rebels decided on Saturday, June 22, to provide them with urgent military aid, some of it secretly, so that they can counter “brutal attacks” by the regime and protect the Syrian people.

Yet even as they prepared to step up their own involvement in a war that has killed nearly 100,000 people, they demanded that Iran and Lebanese movement Hezbollah stop supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Speaking in Doha, top Qatari diplomat Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said a meeting there of foreign ministers of the “Friends of Syria” had taken “secret decisions about practical measures to change the situation on the ground in Syria”.

They agreed to provide rebels “urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment… each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people,” a final communique said.

Ministers from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States attended the talks.

Washington and Doha had called for increasing aid to end what US Secretary of State John Kerry called an “imbalance” in Assad’s favor.

Kerry said the United States remained committed to a peace plan that includes a conference in Geneva and a transitional government picked both by Assad and the opposition.

But he said the rebels need more support “for the purpose of being able to get to Geneva and to be able to address the imbalance on the ground”.

Sheikh Hamad echoed Kerry’s remarks, saying a peaceful end “cannot be reached unless a balance on the ground is achieved, in order to force the regime to sit down to talks.”

On Thursday, the rebel Free Syrian Army said it was already receiving unspecified new types of arms that could change the course of the battle, while also saying it needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

The ministers agreed that all military aid provided would be channeled through the FSA’s Supreme Military Council.

Later on Saturday, French President Francois Hollande arrived in Qatar for talks with the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

He was expected to highlight the “need for trust, clarity and coordination” in backing the rebels, as Qatar is accused of “supporting Syrian opposition groups it does not know,” a French diplomat said.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the ministers demanded that predominantly Shiite Iran and Hezbollah stop meddling in the war by supporting Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

“We have demanded that Iran and Hezbollah end their intervention in the conflict,” said Fabius.

“Hezbollah has played a terribly negative role, mainly in the attack on Qusayr,” a strategic town recaptured from rebels this month with the group’s help.

“We are fully against the internationalization of the conflict,” he told reporters.

Kerry also accused Assad of an “internationalization” of the conflict by bringing in Iran and Hezbollah.

And the final communique said that the entry into Syria of militia and fighters that support the regime, a clear reference to Hezbollah, “must be prevented.”

The ministers also warned of the “increasing presence and growing radicalism” and “terrorist elements in Syria.”

It is “a matter that deepens the concerns for the future of Syria, threatens the security of neighboring countries and risks destabilizing the wider region and the world,” they said.

Western powers have hesitated to arm the rebels for fear weapons would fall into the hands of radical elements among them, such as the powerful Al-Nusra Front, which wants to establish an Islamic state in Syria.

Sheikh Hamad also voiced support for a peace conference but insisted there could be no role in the future government for “Assad and aides with bloodstained hands”.

He accused Assad’s regime of wanting to block the Geneva conference in order to stay in power, “even if that costs one million dead, millions of displaced and refugees and the destruction of Syria and its partition”.

And the final communique stated that Assad “has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter”.

On the ground, loyalist forces pressed a fierce four-day assault on rebel-held parts of Damascus, while insurgents launched a new attack on regime-controlled neighborhoods of second city Aleppo.

Saturday’s developments come as the military pushed on with its bid to end the insurgency in and around Homs in central Syria, said the Observatory.

They also come a day after at least 100 people were killed nationwide, it added. – Rappler.com