AMMAN, Sept 1, (Agencies): Syrian forces raided houses in Hama on Thursday, residents said, hours after the city’s attorney general declared on YouTube he had resigned in protest against the suppression of street demonstrations.
Five months of protests have failed to unseat President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited power from his father and retains the loyalty of the core of his armed forces comprised mostly of members of the Alawite minority, the same sect as the president.
But demonstrators have been encouraged by the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and rising international pressure on Syria, including a planned European Union embargo on the oil industry which would disrupt a vital source of income.
Residents of Hama said security police and state militiamen, known as shabbiha, raided houses overnight in the al-Sabouniya and al-Marabet districts, after troops backed by tanks arrested dozens in two other neighbourhoods of the city the night before.
“The inhabitants are responding by shouting ‘God is greatest’ from windows and rooftops. Tonight there are more random raids as opposed to what the army did yesterday, which was go into specific houses looking for suspected activists on a list,” Haidar, a local activist, told Reuters by phone.
Syrian forces mounted a 10-day operation in the city at the beginning of August and arrested hundreds of people.
The attorney-general of Hama — who authorities reported on Monday had been kidnapped by gunmen — said he had resigned because security forces killed 72 jailed protesters and activists at Hama’s central jail on the eve of the military assault on the city on July 31.
He said at least another 420 people were killed in the operation and were buried in mass graves in public parks.
“I, Judge Adnan Mohammad al-Bakkour, Hama province Attorney-General, declare that I have resigned in protest of the savage regime’s practices against peaceful demonstrators,” Bakkour said in a YouTube video released by activists.
An independent lawyer said the person in the video was Bakkour, who also denied reports by state media that he had been kidnapped by armed groups this week.
The official state news agency said television news channels that broadcast the Bakkour video “proved their professional bankruptcy” because they had ignored earlier official Syrian statements that Bakkour had been kidnapped.
“The kidnappers forced the attorney general to present false information. The channels have become a partner in the terrorist crimes against innocent Syrian citizens,” the agency quoted Hama governor Anas Naem as saying.
Assad appointed Naem after he sacked the previous governor following large pro-democracy protests in Hama.
If confirmed, Bakkour’s resignation would be the first high profile defection in the uprising against Assad. The United Nations says more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since protests began in March.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that Assad had committed “irreparable” damage and that France and its partners would do everything possible to “help the Syrian people’s aspirations to freedom and democracy”.
The European Union is expected to impose sanctions on Syrian oil exports soon, but European oil companies appear to be betting that Assad will survive the growing economic pressures.
Several tankers are sailing to Syria this week to deliver fuel or pick up crude. In contrast, the same companies agreed months ago to supply opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the hope their support would be rewarded when he fell.
Assad has repeatedly said he is fighting agents of what he calls a foreign plot to divide Syria. Authorities blame “armed terrorist groups” for most of the bloodshed and say more than 500 soldiers and police have been also killed.
Syrian authorities have expelled most foreign media making it difficult to verify events in the country.
In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, local activists said a six year old girl, Rama Khilyawi, was killed and her mother wounded when shabbiha militiamen fired rifles in al-Joura neighbourhood to prevent protests after evening prayers.
In the northern Idlib province one person was killed and five were wounded when troops and security forces stormed the village of Ramla, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Several hundred women clad in black also marched in the southern city of Deraa, carrying placards calling for the downfall of Assad.
Killed
Syrian security forces carried out arrests and set fire to homes Wednesday, activists reported, at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan during which a rights group said 473 people were killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 people were arrested in Houle, 20 kms (12 miles) from Homs, where the authorities sparked anger on Monday as they returned the bodies of 13 people arrested in early August.
The Local Coordination Committees, grouping activists on the ground, said security forces set fire to the homes of two men in Houle and threatened to arrest their wives and children if they did not surrender.
In the village of Aqrab, security forces burned down another house and carried out searches and arrests, terrorising local residents at the start of the Eid holidays which follow Ramadan, according to the committees.
They said that in Hama province, central Syria, opposition figure Mustafa Rostom was arrested from his home by military intelligence agents who prevented him from taking medicines with him although he has health problems.
The Britain-based Observatory said 360 civilians and 113 members of the security forces and army were killed during protests during the just-ended Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
The civilians included 25 people aged under 18, 14 women, and 28 who died in detention or under torture, the Observatory said, mainly in the region of the central province of Homs.
The Observatory said at least five of the 13 people whose bodies were returned to their families at Houle were still alive when they had been taken away for questioning.
Sanctions
The United States on Wednesday forcefully defended its decision to hit Syria’s top diplomat with sanctions, ridiculing him as a “shameless tool and a mouthpiece” of President Bashar Assad and declaring him personally responsible for crimes committed in the Syrian government’s five-month crackdown on popular dissent.
Using uncharacteristically undiplomatic language, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem “remains unapologetic” even as he has played a key role in trying to hide his regime’s “murder and torture” of Syrian citizens.” She said he’s also been instrumental in securing the assistance of Syria’s ally Iran in the repression.
The harsh rhetoric came a day after the United States announced sanctions against al-Moallem and two other senior Syrian officials in an attempt to further pressure authorities to halt their crackdown on protesters. But whereas the explanation was general on Tuesday, with Nuland criticizing the trio for “propagating and advancing the reign of terror the Assad regime is exacting on its own people,” Wednesday’s remarks were different.
Some US officials suggested the harsh tone of the comments may partly reflect deep personal animus toward top Syrian officials at high levels of the Obama administration. For example, they believe the State Department’s top Mideast diplomat, Jeffrey Feltman, was the target of an assassination attempt while he was ambassador to Lebanon from 2004-2008, and that Syria may have been involved. The officials discussed sensitive intelligence on condition of anonymity.
Nuland said al-Moallem “has played a key role in trying to insulate the Assad regime from the implications of its own brutality by devoting himself strenuously to trying to hide the Assad regime’s capability and the murder and torture of Syrian citizens.”
Al-Moallem “bears personal responsibility as well for the crimes committed,” she said.
Comparing the situations in Syria and Libya, Nuland contrasted al-Moallem’s loyalty to Assad despite the widespread violence against Syrians with the numerous senior officials who deserted Muammar Gaddafi. In the case of Libya, the US slapped sanctions on then-Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa only to lift them when he defected and renounced his support for Gaddafi.
“We hope that those in Syria who are still clinging to an Assad future understand that there is a positive future for them in a democratic Syria, and they’ll get on the right side of history,” Nuland said.
But she lamented that al-Moallem “remains unapologetic. He remains as a shameless tool and a mouthpiece of Assad and his regime.”
Libya
Muammar Gaddafi, driven into hiding by his foes, on Thursday urged his supporters to fight on, even as Libya’s new interim rulers met world leaders to discuss reshaping a nation torn by 42 years of one-man rule and six months of war.
“Let it be a long battle. We will fight from place to place, from town to town, from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain,” Gaddafi said in a message broadcast on Arab satellite television channels.
“If Libya goes up in flames, who will be able to govern it? Let it burn. They don’t want to rule Libya. They cannot rule it as long as we are armed. We are still armed. We will fight in every valley, in every street, in every oasis, and every town.”
He added: “How can we give ourselves up again? Are we women surrendering ourselves to our husbands or what?”
He gave no indication of where he was in his audio remarks.
The fugitive leader was speaking on the anniversary of the military coup that toppled King Idris and brought him to power in 1969 when he was a 27-year-old army captain.
There have been conflicting reports about Gaddafi’s location since his Tripoli compound was overrun on Aug 23.
A senior military commander of the interim National Transitional Council (NTC) said Gaddafi was in a desert town outside Tripoli, along with his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, planning a fightback.
All three fugitives are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.
Abdel Majid Mlegta, coordinator of the Tripoli military operations room, told Reuters “someone we trust” had said Gaddafi had fled to Bani Walid, 150 kms (95 miles) southeast of the capital, three days after Tripoli fell.
An Algerian newspaper said Gaddafi was in the border town of Ghadamis and had tried to call Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to appeal for refuge. Bouteflika would not take the call, even though Algeria gave sanctuary to Gaddafi’s wife and three of his children when they crossed the border on Monday.
The NTC, trying to mop up pro-Gaddafi forces, extended by a week a Saturday deadline for the surrender of the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace, and other hold-out towns.
“That means there’s progress in the negotiations,” said Mohammed Zawawi, an NTC spokesman in the eastern city of Benghazi. “We’re not in a rush to get in to Sirte. It has no economic importance and we’re not going to lose casualties for it. We can cut supplies and wait, even more than a week.”
The extension follows a peace feeler from one of Gaddafi’s sons, Saadi, on Wednesday.
“We were talking about negotiations based on ending bloodshed,” Saadi told al-Arabiya TV, adding that his father had authorised him to parley with the NTC.
The head of Tripoli’s military council, Abdul Hakim Belhadj, told Reuters the same day he had spoken to Saadi by telephone and promised him decent treatment if he surrenders.
The war may not be over until Gaddafi is killed or captured, but Libyans are keen to move on.
Libya’s new leaders gathered with their foreign allies in Paris to coordinate political and economic reconstruction. Some participants will also be jostling for a share in postwar contracts in the wealthy North African oil and gas producer.
The major conference, dubbed “Friends of Libya,” opened here Thursday evening, with close to 20 world leaders and another 40 high-level officials attending from around the world, among them Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Dr Mohammed Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.
Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister is HH the Amir’s Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah’s special envoy to the Paris gathering
Sheikh Dr Mohammed is accompanied by acting Minister and Director of his office, Saleh Al-Loghani and Kuwaiti Ambassador to Libya, Mubarak Al-Adwani.
Russia recognised the NTC before the conference opened. It had abstained from a UN Security Council vote in March that allowed Western military intervention in Libya but then repeatedly accused NATO forces of overstepping their mandate to protect civilians and of siding with rebels in the civil war.
Some in Libya suggest that Tripoli may slight nations like Russia and China in favour of stalwarts of the intervention such as Britain, France, the United States and Qatar.
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper told the West to let the United Nations lead reconstruction in Libya and said Beijing would defend its economic stake there.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he sought a closer trade relationship between Libya and Europe and said Britain would not miss out on its share of contracts.
“We won’t be left behind,” he told reporters before the Paris talks.
Given sensitivities among Muslims after Western military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, British Prime Minister David Cameron was at pains to stress that Libyans were in charge of their own fate: “This is not being dropped out of a NATO aeroplane, this is being delivered by the Libyan people,” he said. “It is their revolution, it is their change.”
Eager to meet immediate civilian needs, the NTC is expected to push for rapid access to billions of dollars in foreign-held Libyan assets frozen under UN sanctions on Gaddafi.
The United Nations has already authorised the release of more than $5 billion in previously frozen assets held in the United States, Britain and France.
It may be hard to get reconstruction going and persuade foreign investors to return to Libya as long as Gaddafi remains at large and the NTC is not in full control of the country.
Mlegta, the NTC military leader, said Gaddafi wanted to set up a base in Bani Walid to orchestrate attacks. Appeals to notables in the town to hand him over had gone unanswered.
He said Ali al-Ahwal, Gaddafi’s coordinator for tribes, was also in Bani Walid, a stronghold of the powerful Warfalla tribe, Libya’s biggest at about a million strong among a population of six million, but by no means solidly pro-Gaddafi.
“We are capable of ending the crisis but military action is out of the question right now,” Mlegta said. “We cannot attack this tribe because many of our brigades in Benghazi and Zintan are from Bani Walid. The sons of Bani Walid hold the key.”
NTC fighters said on Tuesday they were 30 kms from Bani Walid. NATO air strikes hit several rocket launchers near Sirte on Wednesday, as well as an ammunition storage facility and a military command post near Bani Walid, a NATO spokesman said.
With Gaddafi driven from power, the Friends of Libya conference in Paris gives the NTC its first platform to address the world. Its chairman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, will outline plans for a new constitution, elections within 18 months and ways to avoid any descent into postwar Iraq-style bloodletting.
“We have to help the National Transitional Council because the country is devastated, the humanitarian situation is difficult and there’s a lack of water, electricity and fuel,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on RTL radio.
Tripoli has enough fuel for now and food is starting to get through, but there is no end in sight to its water shortage, according to the European Union’s humanitarian office (ECHO).
Britain flew 40 tonnes of freshly printed bank notes, many bearing Gaddafi’s image, into Libya on Wednesday to help pay public workers and replenish bank cash machines.
The 280 million Libyan dinars, officially worth about $234 million, is part of a consignment worth about $1.5 billion blocked by Britain in March after he cracked down on protests.
EU sanctions on six Libyan ports, several oil firms and banks will end on Friday, EU officials said.
Bahrain
It’s become a nightly duel in Bahrain: Security forces and anti-government protesters waging hit-and-run clashes in one of the simmering conflicts of the Arab Spring.
So far, the skirmishes have failed to gel into another serious challenge to the Gulf nation’s Western-backed monarchy after crushing a reform rebellion months ago. But there are sudden signs that Shiite-led demonstrators could be poised to raise the stakes again on the strategic island, which is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Hundreds of demonstrators Wednesday made their boldest attempt in months to reclaim control of a central square in the capital Manama, which was the symbolic hub of the protest movement after it began in February. Riot police used buses to block roads and flooded streets with tear gas to drive back the marchers before dawn.
Hours later, mourners gathered in a Shiite village in another part of Bahrain for a 14-year-old boy they claim was killed by security forces. Clashes flared until early Thursday across the oil hub area of Sitra before the boy’s burial.
“Down with the regime,” chanted some of hundreds of people in the funeral procession. “More protests.”
Some waved the flag of the Libyan rebels, who are closing in on the remnants of Gaddafi’s government.
Bahrain remains the outlier of the Arab revolts.
Its Sunni rulers have managed to hold their ground - and even tighten their grip with military help from neighboring Saudi Arabia - against majority Shiites demanding a greater political voice. Washington and Western allies have denounced the punishing crackdowns, but been mild when it comes to Bahrain’s ruling dynasty. The possible risks from a harder line appear too great. They include jeopardizing key Arab military relationships on Iran’s doorstep.
Washington’s Gulf Arab allies argue any gains for Bahrain’s Shiites could open the door for influence by Iran’s Shiite regime.
Bahrain’s Shiite leaders strongly deny any links to Iran. They note that their fight for greater rights goes back decades - and is now re-energized by the pro-democracy wave across the Arab world.
In July, the Shiite political bloc walked out of government-led reconciliation talks, claiming they failed to address key demands such as ending the monarchy’s ability to hand-pick the government. Shiites also appear ready to boycott parliament elections on Sept 24 - an act that state media has called treason.
Shiites account for about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being barred from top political and security posts. Last week, Bahrain’s most senior Shiite cleric, Sheik Isa Qassim, told worshippers that the country’s rulers can either embrace reforms or risk the same fate as Libya’s Gaddafi.
“Can’t they learn from the fall of dictatorships and see what happens to those who denied their people basic rights?” Qassim said as police helicopters patrolled over his mosque. “We now see what happens to the Libyan dictator, just as what happened to Tunisian and Egyptian despots.”
At least 32 people have been killed since the protests began more than six months ago. Activists claim Ali Jawad Ahmad, the 14-year-old buried Wednesday, should be added to the tally.
Opposition groups, including the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, cited witnesses saying the boy died after being hit by a tear gas canister fired at close range by police during the demonstration in the oil hub of Sitra, which has been a hotbed of Shiite protests.
A statement by the Interior Ministry said an investigation was ordered and officials posted a 10,000 dinar ($26,600) reward for information leading to a definitive finding on the death.
The official Bahrain News Agency said an autopsy showed a “neck injury” was the cause of death, and “fractures in that area causing bleeding around the spinal cord.” The report added that the boy had bruises on his chin, face, right hand, pelvic area and knees.
Isa Hassan, an uncle of the dead teen, claimed police overreacted when confronted by a small group of protesters after morning prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Hassan said the tear gas was fired from about 21 feet (seven meters) away directly at the protesters.
“They are supposed to lob the canisters of gas, not shoot them at people,” he said at a memorial gathering for the boy. “Police used it as a weapon.”
The death is almost certain to bring more protesters onto the streets.
Until nearly sunrise Wednesday, groups of demonstrators tried to break through police lines to reclaim control of Pearl Square, a main crossroads that was once a protest encampment modeled after Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Some streets in Manama were scenes of running battles.
Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi, founder of one of Bahrain’s leading opposition groups, died Thursday after more than four years in a coma, political leaders said. He was 67.
Al-Nuaimi spent more than three decades in self-exile because of tensions over efforts by Bahrain’s Shiite majority to challenge the vast powers of Bahrain’s ruling Sunni dynasty.
From abroad, he founded an underground resistance group known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain, which was inspired by Arab nationalist movements in the 1970s.
He returned in 2001 after a series of political reforms and established the Bahraini National Democratic Society, or Waad party, a liberal bloc that reached out to both Shiite and Sunni reformers.
In 2006, al-Nuaimi, a Sunni, was narrowly defeated by a pro-government candidate in a race for a parliament seat. His supporters claimed he was the victim of vote rigging.
Al-Nuaimi health deteriorated and he lapsed into a coma in April 2007.
Yemen
Ailing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused his opponents of being corrupt and arms dealers who are exploiting youthful protesters demanding his ouster, in a televised address.
“Those who went to the University Square to support the youth revolution that demands the ouster of the regime... have fed on corruption, and are dealers of arms and land,” Saleh said in the address aired late Tuesday on state television as he received well-wishers at his residence in Riyadh.
The veteran leader has been in the Saudi capital since early June for treatment after he was wounded in a bomb attack on his Sanaa compound.
“Our people know them well. They were a burden on the political system which was always blamed for protecting those corrupt... who are now (demonstrating) at the University Square,” Sanaa’s epicentre for anti-regime demonstrations, he said.
“Let them go away... corrupt, liars and deceivers. We do not mention names, but our people know them very well,” he added, in an apparent reference to the leaders of the opposition and tribal chiefs who have backed protests that began late January calling on him to quit after 32 years in office.
Saleh wore gloves and a headgear, just as he did in all his appearances after the attack, which could be covering unhealed wounds or scars. He refrained from the customary handshakes with visitors.
In an earlier address on Tuesday on the occasion of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr feast, which marks the end of the fasting month, Saleh called for a mechanism to implement a Gulf plan aimed at a peaceful transition of power.
He told his ruling General People’s Congress party to “make contact with the (opposition) Common Forum to develop a mechanism for implementing the Gulf plan without delay,” Saba state news agency reported.
The Gulf plan proposes that Saleh would transfer power to the vice president within 30 days in exchange for a promise of immunity from prosecution.
Saleh vowed earlier in August to return “soon” to his impoverished country.