Moderate face of Syrian uprising quits

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - The head of Syria's main opposition group resigned on Sunday, weakening the moderate wing of the two-year revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's rule and complicating Western efforts to back the rebels.

The resignation of Moaz Alkhatib, a former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus who had offered Assad a negotiated exit, could make the West more cautious in supporting the revolt. Alkhatib is seen as a moderate bulwark against the rising influence of al-Qaeda linked jihadist forces.

Syrian opposition leaders are due to attend an Arab League summit this week, Qatar said earlier on Sunday, looking for more support for their armed uprising.

Michael Stephens, researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in Doha, said Alkhatib's resignation throws a spanner into the summit.

"The premise of the summit is to determine whether the opposition has a legitimate right to sit with Arab states," Stephens said. "While Khatib may have blamed the EU summit, it is well known that the Arab League is meeting today, and his resignation will have a serious effect on the process."

Alkhatib was picked to head the Western and Gulf-backed National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which was formed in Qatar in November.

His resignation is seen as having been to some degree caused by Qatar, the main backer of his political foes in the coalition, and the country spearheading Arab support for the revolt as its geopolitical ramifications deepen.

The conflict pits Syria's Sunni Muslim majority against Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has controlled the country for almost five decades, deepening the Sunni-Shi'ite divide in the Middle East and raising tension between Gulf states and Iran.

Asked to comment on Alkhatib's resignation, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said in Doha: "We are very sorry for this, and I hope he reviews his resignation."

Alkhatib quit after the coalition berated him for offering Assad a deal and after the group went ahead, despite his objections, with steps to form a provisional government that would have further diminished his authority.

"I had promised the great Syrian people and promised God that I would resign if matters reached some red lines," Alkhatib said in a statement on his official Facebook page, without explaining exactly what had prompted his resignation.

"Now I am fulfilling my promise and announcing my resignation from the National Coalition in order to be able to work with freedom that cannot be available within the official institutions," he said.

A spokesman for Alkhatib confirmed his resignation, which U.S. Secretary John Kerry said did not come as a surprise.

"With respect to Moaz Alkhatib, I am personally sorry to see him go because I like him on a personal level and because I have appreciated his leadership but the notion that he might resign has frankly been expressed by him on many different occasions in many different places and it is not a surprise," Kerry said on a trip to Baghdad.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office said Alkhatib had "served the Syrian people well under the most difficult circumstances."

"It is vital now for the National Coalition to unite and choose a way forward that serves the aspirations of the Syrian people to build a better future for all Syrians."

Last week, the coalition chose Islamist-leaning technocrat Ghassan Hitto as a provisional prime minister to form a government to fill a power vacuum in Syria arising from the revolt that has killed more than 70,000 people.

Alkhatib, who had argued insufficient groundwork had been done to start forming a government, was weakened considerably, along with a moderate wing of the revolution as jihadist Salafists play a bigger role on the battlefield.

The rise of Salafists as the most effective fighting force, and their recent gains on the ground, have contributed to the coalition adopting a more hardline stance in recent weeks, rejecting dialogue with Assad except under strict conditions and ignoring promises to include more women and minorities.

Hitto, whose cabinet is supposed to govern rebel-held areas currently ruled by hundreds of brigades and emerging warlords, was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and coalition Secretary General Mustafa Sabbagh, who has strong links with Qatar.

"Basically Qatar and the Brotherhood forced Alkhatib out. In Alkhatib they had a figure who was gaining popularity inside Syria but he acted too independently for their taste," said Fawaz Tello, an independent opposition campaigner.

"They brought in Hitto. The position of Alkhatib as leader became untenable."

The appointment of Hitto prompted nine people to suspend their membership in the 62-member body, saying that promises to reform the coalition and respect consensus have been discarded.

Earlier this year, Alkhatib floated an initiative for the opposition to talk to Assad's administration about a political transition, but said the Damascus government did not respond.

In his statement, Alkhatib added: "We will follow the path with our brothers who aim for the freedom of our people."

He said official positions were "means to serve noble objectives" and not an aim in themselves.

Moaz al-Shami, a leading activist in Damascus, said Alkhatib's resignation deprived the coalition, which consists mostly of exiles, of the figure best-known inside Syria, but that Alkhatib still could still play a major role in the revolt.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy and Tom Perry in Cairo, Arshad Mohammed in Baghdad, Sami Abboudi, Bill Mclean and Regan Doherty in the Gulf; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Few protests on 2nd anniversary of Syrian uprising

BEIRUT (AP) — On the second anniversary of Syria's uprising, there were only small protests and a few firecrackers defiantly popping in the capital of Damascus — a grim contrast to the early days when crowds of demonstrators danced to the drums of rebellion against President Bashar Assad.

Syrians on Friday marked the start of the revolt by saying they feared for their country's future amid a grinding civil war that has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, wrecked whole neighborhoods in cities and towns, and turned neighbor against neighbor.

Assad has been digging in, mobilizing loyal forces for a protracted battle, while Western powers remain opposed to arming the Syrian opposition, even if Britain and France this week began pushing for lifting a European Union arms embargo.

Rebels have made slow progress in recent months, seizing large swaths of the countryside, particularly in the north and sparsely populated east, while Assad managed to protect his seat of power, Damascus, and keep control of parts of Aleppo and the city of Homs.

"Bashar Assad really does not feel that he is about to lose anytime soon," said Salman Shaikh, an analyst at the Brookings Doha Center. "He feels there is no Western resolve up to now. He feels he's got enough forces."

Many Syrians worry that their country won't recover from the growing sectarian hatred.

Most rebels are Sunni Muslims, the majority sect in Syria, while the country's Christian and Shiite Muslim minorities appear to have sided largely with Assad, a member of the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in what they view as a fight for survival.

"The country has forever changed," said an 18-year-old opposition activist speaking from Damascus via Skype and asking to be identified only as Abu Qais, for fear of regime reprisals. "There's too much hate. People have changed."

He said he dropped out of high school to join the uprising but now hopes to emigrate at the first opportunity, saying the fighting has set Syria back decades.

Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the main political opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, was more optimistic. He said those trying to bring down Assad have momentum on their side.

The 72-member leadership of the coalition meets next week in Istanbul to choose a prime minister, who would set up an interim government to run rebel-held areas, mainly in the north and east of the country, Saleh said. The government would operate from Turkey and the rebel-controlled areas, he added.

"Probably within the next six months, we will have the government in Damascus," Saleh said from Istanbul. After fighting ends, Syria will have to go through a healing process of several years, he said. "I am definitely optimistic," he added.

Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Supreme Military Council, urged Syrian soldiers to join the rebels in a "fight for freedom and democracy."

In a video address obtained by The Associated Press, he said from an undisclosed location in northern Syria: "Dear friends, the Free Syrian Army (fighters) will not give up."

The Syrian opposition has appealed to the West to send heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, to break the battlefield stalemate and protect civilians against the regime's airstrikes. In recent months, Assad has intensified those attacks, even firing ballistic missiles at Aleppo, the country's largest city.

The U.S. and several EU member states oppose arming the rebels, for fear of further inflaming the conflict and seeing weapons fall into the hands of Islamic extremists, who are increasingly dominant in key areas of battle.

However, the leaders of Britain and France this week began pushing for lifting the EU ban on sending weapons to Syria.

French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron argued at an EU summit Friday that Assad will only negotiate the terms of a political transition if he no longer feels he can win militarily.

Assad "is committing a crime against his own people," Hollande said. "It has been two years of a terrible situation and the number of victims is rising daily."

Many joined in grim predictions for Syria's future.

The Israeli military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Kochavi, warned Thursday that the regime is making advanced preparations for the use of chemical weapons, even if Assad has not yet given the orders to operate them.

He said Syria allies Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, have helped Assad set up a new force of about 50,000 fighters and plan to double it in size.

The U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres, used Friday's anniversary to say that Syria's humanitarian crisis is increasingly threatening regional stability and that "there will be an explosion in the Middle East" if the fighting does not stop.

About 4 million of Syria's 22 million people have already been displaced, and the pace is picking up sharply.

U.N. officials have said they need $1.5 billion for the first six months of 2013 to help Syrians in need, but that donor countries have only sent about 20 percent so far.

Easing Syrians' suffering is "one of the largest humanitarian aid efforts, in monetary terms, in the history of the United Nations," said one of the U.N. agencies, OCHA. "Without increased funding, some activities will not get off the ground or will simply stop."

The Syrian uprising began on March 15, 2011, with a small anti-regime protest in Damascus, inspired by the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement sweeping the region at the time.

The protests swelled quickly, and tens of thousands joined weekly Friday marches, singing and dancing to revolutionary tunes, including lyricist Ibrahim Qashoush's hugely popular and catchy song, "Come on Bashar, time to leave."

In July 2011, Qashoush's body was found dumped in the Orontes River, which runs through his hometown, Hama, with his throat cut out.

The regime cracked down hard, with troops opening fire on largely unarmed protesters and security agents rounding up dissidents. In response to the government's brutality, Assad opponents gradually took up arms, and their insurgency turned into a full-scale civil war last summer.

Shahad, a teenager from Zabadani, a battered Damascus suburb that witnesses daily shelling, recalled that she used to memorize the Qashoush songs and eagerly await the town's protests, where up to 5,000 people would take part every Friday.

"They were nice days," she said, declining to give her full name for security reasons. "Now there are no protests and no school, just shelling."

Few seemed to have the stamina to take to the streets Friday.

Some of the bigger rallies drew only 200 people. Some participants stomped to the beat of a drum and sang for freedom, but in a sign of the growing influence of Islamic groups, many protesters shouted chants laced with Quranic language.

In a march in the town of al-Hamidiyeh in Hama province, a teenager held a poster reading, "We are all Jabhat al-Nusra," a reference to the al-Qaida-affiliated group whose fighters are often at the front lines of battle.

A security clampdown in Damascus kept people largely confined to their homes, although some defied security measures by unleashing firecrackers from their roofs to mark the occasion.

Fighters from al-Nusra and other radical Islamic groups captured a military base near the village of Khan Touman, close to the city of Aleppo, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Elsewhere in Aleppo province, rebels battled regime forces at several smaller army bases and weapons depots, the Observatory said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Syrian exile who monitors the daily fighting at the Observatory, said he fears for his country and is especially concerned about the growing sectarian fragmentation.

"If we continue like that, we will have a new Somalia, a new Afghanistan," he said.

Yassin Abu Raed, a 24-year-old regime opponent, said he felt the world had abandoned Syria, expressing a widely held view.

But while the last two years were painful, the pre-uprising days of oppression were worse, the former law student said.

"In the old Syria, there were no freedoms, no rights. One faction had a monopoly over power," he said. "We want a new Syria based on freedom and dignity."

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Associated Press writer Don Melvin in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Prisoner's death stokes fears of third uprising

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The mysterious death of a 30-year-old Palestinian gas station attendant in Israeli custody stoked new West Bank clashes Sunday, along with Israeli fears of a third Palestinian uprising.

A senior Palestinian official alleged that Arafat Jaradat was tortured by Israel's Shin Bet security service, citing an autopsy he said revealed bruising and two broken ribs.

Israel's Health Ministry said the autopsy did not conclusively determine the cause of death, but that the bruising and broken ribs were likely the result of attempts to revive the detainee.

Jaradat's death came at a time of rising West Bank tensions, including several days of Palestinian marches in support of four hunger-striking prisoners in Israeli lockups. In all, Israel holds nearly 4,600 Palestinians, including dozens who have never been formally charged or tried.

Frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the recent re-election of Israeli hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Palestinian cash crisis and the Palestinians' sense of being abandoned by the Arab world seem to have created fertile ground for a third Palestinian revolt.

Over the weekend, Israel's army chief convened senior commanders to discuss the growing unrest.

Jaradat's death "is liable to become the opening shot" in a third uprising, Israeli military commentator Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily Sunday, arguing that the "Palestinian street has been boiling with anger for a number of weeks now."

However, Israeli officials have previously expressed concern about a new uprising, only to see bursts of Palestinian protests fizzle.

The first uprising, marked by stone-throwing protests and commercial strikes, erupted in the late 1980s and led to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The second uprising broke out in 2000, after failed talks on a final peace deal, and was far deadlier, with Israel reoccupying the West Bank in response to bombings and shootings.

In recent years, the West Bank has been relatively calm. Despite recent tensions, the Palestinian self-rule government has not broken off security coordination with Israel in their joint campaign against Islamic militants.

Palestinian activists also say they learned from the mistakes of the armed revolt a decade ago and are turning to more creative protests against Israel's 45-year rule over lands they want for a future state.

Former Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub, speaking in Hebrew on Israel Radio, tried to reassure Israelis, declaring Sunday "on behalf of the entire Palestinian leadership that there is no plan to lead to bloodshed."

Jaradat, a father of two from the West Bank village of Saeer, died in Megiddo Prison in northern Israel on Saturday, six days after his arrest on suspicion of stone throwing.

Jaradat's attorney, Kamil Sabbagh, said his client told an Israeli military judge Thursday during a hearing that he was being forced to sit for long periods during interrogation. He also complained of back pain and seemed terrified to return to the Shin Bet lockup, although he did not have any apparent signs of physical abuse, Sabbagh said.

After the court hearing, the judge ordered Jaradat to be examined by a prison doctor.

The Shin Bet said that during interrogation, Jaradat was examined several times by a doctor who detected no health problems. On Saturday, he was in his cell and felt unwell after lunch, the agency said.

"Rescue services and a doctor were alerted and treated him," the statement said. But "they didn't succeed in saving his life."

On Sunday, Israel's forensics institute performed an autopsy attended by a physician from the Palestinian Authority.

After being briefed by the Palestinian physician, Issa Karake, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, told a news conference late Sunday that Jaradat had suffered two broken ribs on the right side of his chest. The autopsy also showed bruises on Jaradat's back and chest.

Israeli officials initially said Jaradat apparently died of a heart attack, but Karake said the Palestinian physician told him there was no evidence of that.

Later, Israel's Health Ministry said Jaradat did not suffer from disease and that it was not possible yet to determine his cause of death conclusively.

Jaradat "faced harsh torture, leading to his immediate, direct death. Israel is fully responsible for his killing," Karake said.

Protesting Jaradat's death, Palestinians threw stones at Israeli troops in several locations, including the West Bank city of Hebron and at a checkpoint near the military's Ofer prison on Sunday. In two locations, troops fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets.

In the clash near the checkpoint, troops fired live rounds, shooting the 15-year-old son of the commander of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in the chest and stomach, said Palestinian health official Dr. Ahmed Bitawi. The teen, Walid Hab al-Reeh, was in stable condition, while another man was wounded in the arm, Bitawi said.

The Preventive Security Service is key to security coordination with Israel. The Israeli military said it was aware of a report that a Palestinian youth was seriously hurt by gunfire, but could not confirm that soldiers used live rounds to disperse the protest.

Kadoura Fares, who heads a Palestinian group advocating for prisoners, urged Palestinians on Sunday to keep demonstrating. He also said that one of the four hunger-striking prisoners, Jafar Izzeldeen, was moved to a hospital Sunday because his condition was deteriorating.

Recent West Bank protests have focused on the fate of prisoners, an emotional Palestinian consensus issue.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967, meaning virtually every Palestinian family has had someone locked up.

The detainees are held on a range of charges, from stone-throwing to deadly attacks. Most Palestinians embrace them as heroes resisting occupation, while Israelis tend to view them as terrorists.

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Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid, Aron Heller and Dalia Nammari in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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