Syrian refugees are fearing rebels, not Assad!

Syrian forces battle rebels in Aleppo, families flee

(Reuters) – Syrian troops and armored vehicles pushed into a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Saturday and struck back in Damascus against fighters emboldened by a bomb attack against President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.

Opposition activists in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and a northern commercial hub, said hundreds of families were fleeing residential areas after the military swept into the Saladin district, which had been in rebel hands for two days.

Fighting was also reported in the densely-populated, poor neighborhood of al-Sakhour.

“The sound of bombardment has been non-stop since last night. For the first time we feel Aleppo has turned into a battle zone,” a housewife, who declined to be named, said by phone from the city.

The Syrian army’s push in Aleppo occurred after rebels assassinated four of his top security officials this week and mounted a six-day attack in the capital that they dubbed “Damascus Volcano”.

Rebels also captured three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, and on Saturday an Iraqi security source said gunmen appeared to be taking over a fourth at Yarubiyah in Syria’s Kurdish northeast.

Assad, battling a 16-month uprising against his family’s four decades of autocratic rule, has not spoken in public since the assassinations, and failed to attend funeral ceremonies for his brother-in-law and two other slain officials on Friday.

A bloody crackdown on what began as a peaceful revolt has increasingly become an armed conflict between an establishment dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and rebels drawn largely from the Sunni majority.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was sending his peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and top military adviser Gen. Babacar Gaye to Syria to assess the situation.

In Damascus, Assad’s forces hit back overnight. Using helicopters and tanks, they aimed rockets, machineguns and mortars at pockets of lightly armed rebels moving about on foot and attacking security installations and roadblocks.

Residents said the city was quiet on Saturday morning but that heavy mortar shelling in the northeastern neighborhood of Barzeh resumed at around 2.30 p.m. (1130 GMT). Explosions could also be heard near the southern district of Tadamon.

Most shops were closed and there was only light traffic – although more than in the past few days. Some police checkpoints, abandoned earlier in the week, were manned again.

Most petrol stations were closed, having run out of fuel, and the few that were open had huge lines of cars waiting to fill up. Residents also reported long queues at bakeries and said vegetable prices had doubled.

“EVERYONE IS DEPRESSED”

“I feel depressed and lonely because I have to stay indoors as there is nothing good outside. Everyone else is depressed as well,” said a woman in her 50s in west Damascus who supports Assad’s opponents. She declined to be identified.

An opposition activist said he had sneaked back into the Midan district, which Assad’s forces seized back from rebel control on Friday, only to find his house looted.

“The doors were broken and I walked into several houses which were in the same condition,” said Fadi al-Wahed. “Safes were broken into, drawers broken and furniture and television screens missing. Three army trucks were parked under the ring road flyover with loot.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group which monitors the violence in the country, said 240 people were killed across Syria on Friday, including 43 troops.

The Observatory’s combined death toll over the past 48 hours stood at 550, making it the bloodiest two days of the 16-month-old uprising against Assad.

On the Iraqi-Syrian border, a security source and a separate witness said they saw gunmen in a civilian car enter the Yarubiya crossing point on the Syrian side of the frontier.

“When we contacted the Syrians there, they told us the Syrian security elements are gradually withdrawing from the place,” said the security source, who works for the Iraqi customs department.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reports on the border post, but Syrian opposition activists said several towns in Syria’s Kurdish northeast had passed – without a fight – into local hands in recent days as central authority eroded.

A Turkish regional governor said on Saturday Syrian rebels and “independent groups” linked to smuggling were still holding the Bab al-Hawa commercial crossing point.

Mehmet Celalettin Lekesiz said nine Turkish trucks on the Syrian side had been set on fire by the Syrian groups, contradicting statements by the rebels that they were torched by the Syrian army because of Turkey’s support for the rebels.

FLEEING REFUGEES

The surge in violence has trapped millions of Syrians, turned sections of Damascus into ghost areas, and sent tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to neighboring Lebanon.

The U.N. Security Council has approved a 30-day extension for a ceasefire observer mission, but Ban has recommended changing its focus to pursuing prospects for a political solution – effectively accepting there was no truce to monitor.

Diplomats said only half of the 300 unarmed observers would be needed for Ban’s suggested plan, and several monitors were seen departing from Damascus on Saturday.

Speaking two days after Russia and China vetoed a resolution to impose further sanctions on Assad’s government, Ban called on the Security Council to “redouble efforts to forge a united way forward and exercise its collective responsibility”.

“The Syrian government has manifestly failed to protect civilians and the international community has collective responsibility to live up to the U.N. Charter and act on its principles,” he said.

Regional and Western powers have voiced concern the conflict might become a full-blown sectarian war that could spill across borders. But Assad’s opponents remain outgunned and divided.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking after contacts with the head of the Arab League and Qatar’s prime minister, said all three agreed that it was time for Syria’s fractured opposition to prepare to take charge of the country.

“We would like to see the rapid formation of a provisional government representing the diversity of Syrian society,” said Fabius. Syria’s main political opposition group, the Syrian National Council, operating in exile, has so far failed to unite Assad’s disparate foes on a united political platform.

On the military front, a senior Syrian defector said Assad could now rely only on an inner core of loyal army regiments, adding “the collapse of the regime is accelerating like a snowball”.

General Mustafa Sheikh said Assad’s forces were transporting chemical arms across Syria for possible use against the rebels.

“The regime has started moving its chemical stockpile and redistributing it to prepare for its use,” said Sheikh, citing rebel intelligence obtained in recent days.

The White House said on Saturday it was concerned about what might happen to chemical weapons in Syria but believed Damascus’s stockpile “remains under government control”.

(Additional reporting by Igor Ilic in Brijuni, Croatia; Suleiman al-Khalidi in Hacipasa, Turkey; Leigh Thomas in Paris; Jamal al-Badrani in Mosul, Ira; and Jonathan Burch in Cilvegozu, Turkey; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

Mali rebel groups join forces, vowing an Islamic state

The unrest in Mali has displaced thousands of people.

(CNN) — Two key rebel movements in Mali have agreed to join forces, saying together they will rule an independent Islamic state.

The Tuareg group MNLA and the Islamist group Ansar Dine occupying northern Mali reached the deal after a series of talks, according to both groups.

“The Ansar Dine movement and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, MNLA, have proclaimed an independent state, Azawad,” MNLA Col. Abdou Haidara announced.

Gunfire was heard in two major towns in the region — Gao and Timbuktu — as militants celebrated their decision to form a body to oversee Azawad. Several weeks ago, rebels declared independence for the region, the cradle of their nomadic civilization.

“It’s time for its independence,” said Moussa Ag Assarid, spokesperson for MNLA.

But not everyone celebrated the news Sunday.

The government in the capital, Bamako immediately rejected the new state.

And some who come from the region occupied by rebels said the separatist and Islamist movements do not have the people’s support.

The rebels reached their agreement in Gao, a town in the north where leaders have been meeting.

Hassan Ag Mohamad, a former Ansar Dine official, said the two groups are now one. “Before we were Ansar Dine and MNLA. Now it’s all the same.”

As gunfire rang out Saturday evening, people afraid of clashes between the two movements immediately returned to their homes.

“I was very afraid when they started shooting, and it was only later I realized the militants were celebrating,” said Gao resident Haraji Baber.

An hour later came reports of shooting from Timbuktu, one of the three major towns in what the rebels call Azawad.

The agreement between the secular Tuareg and the Islamists comes after weeks of sometimes heated discussions between two movements, separated both in their objectives and ideologies. While the MNLA is fighting for an independent Azawad, Ansar Dine’s main objective is to impose Sharia law in all of Mali.

In the besieged towns, drinking, smoking, listening to music, watching soccer on TV and playing video games have been banned in what now seems to be a preparation for the creation of an Islamic state.

“We are all in favor of the independence of Azawad. We accept Islam as the religion but other religious views will be accepted,” said MNLA’s Haidara.

“In Azawad 99% are Muslim. Therefore the religion is Islam,” Assarid said.

The U.S. government’s CIA World Factbook says Mali’s population is 90% Muslim, and 1% Christian, while 9% hold “indigenous beliefs.” It does not give a religious breakdown for just the northern section.

“People are very happy, they have waited a long time for this,” said Mohamad.

Some former officials in the region disagreed.

“Nobody in Gao can accept this convention. I can’t accept it,” said Sadou Diallo, the mayor of Gao.

Since MNLA took his town, the mayor is a refugee in Bamako.

“This declaration marks a major turning point for northern Mali. Since the March coup, the area has slipped out of the government’s control. Now there’s no turning back. People have no choice but to accept the rebels and the Islamist decision. They have no way of defending themselves. I believe Gao is lost.”

Diallo added that he is very disappointed by the government’s inability to free the region from occupiers.

All neighboring countries and international bodies have previously denounced the rebels’ call for independence.

“We reiterate our support for the territorial integrity of Mali,” U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said last month. “We stand by the African Union, France, and others in their statements rejecting the MNLA’s announcement and calling for the unwavering commitment to the national unity of Mali. A separate Azawad state will only exacerbate the grave problems challenging the Malian state. We also call on the MNLA to cease all military operations.”

But Assarid said rebels plan to see recognition. “Next week I expect more people to recognize Azawad, which does exist without the recognition of the Bamako government and ECOWAS,” the Economic Community Of West African States.

On Saturday the prime minister and leader of Mali’s transitional government, Cheick Modibo Diarra, arrived in Abidjan for talks with ECOWAS head Alassane Ouattara, the president of Ivory Coast.

In January, the Tuareg rebels launched an offensive against the Malian army. The fight intensified with the arrival of Ansar Dine and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

On March 22, Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo and a group of low-ranking officers ousted the government in Bamako, saying it was incompetent in handling the Tuareg rebellion.

The coup and power vacuum which followed enabled the Tuaregs, Ansar Dine, led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, and backed by AQIM and criminal groups, to occupy the vast north of Mali, an area larger than France.

Together, they pushed back the army. On April 6, in a statement posted on its website, the MNLA declared the independence of Azawad.

The new agreement between the MNLA and Ansar Dine leaves AQIM’s position unclear.

“AQIM left Gao this morning. They are not a problem anymore,” said MNLA’s Haidara. The information could not be confirmed immediately.

The declaration of the Republic of Azawad adds to the long list of issues to be solved by the transitional government in Bamako and ECOWAS.

Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traore is in France for medical treatment after the 70-year-old was assaulted by protesters in his office in the presidential palace on Monday. He is expected to return to Bamako next week.

Traore was appointed in April to lead the long-term transition after ECOWAS mediators managed to form a deal with coup leader Sanogo, stating he will step aside with all the benefits of a former head of state and allow the leaders in Bamako to prepare for elections, as well as find a solution for the north.

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