AMMAN, Oct 26, (Agencies): At least 13 people died in clashes and strikes paralysed parts of Syria, as President Bashar al-Assad met Arab ministers seeking to end months of violence and his supporters held a mass rally.
State television said Assad met an Arab League ministerial team visiting Syria to press him to hold talks with the opposition. It gave no details.
In the central city of Homs, a hotbed of opposition to Assad, people held a general strike to protest against his crackdown on seven months of unrest, in which the United Nations says 3,000 people have been killed.
Residents and activists said most employees stayed at home and shops were closed in the city of one million. One resident said anti-Assad gunmen enforced the strike. Army gunfire, which killed four people on Wednesday, also kept people off the streets.
In the town of Hamrat, north of Homs, suspected army deserters killed nine soldiers in an attack on a bus with a rocket-propelled grenade, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It was the latest attack in an armed insurgency emerging alongside the campaign of street protests.
Assad faces international pressure over his crackdown, with the United States and the European Union slapping sanctions on Syrian oil exports and businesses, helping drive the economy into recession.
“This will end with the fall of the regime. It is nearly unavoidable,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday.
“But unfortunately it could take time because the situation is complex, because there is a risk of civil war between Syrian factions, because surrounding Arab countries do not want us to intervene,” he told French radio.
In Umayyad Square in central Damascus, tens of thousands of people gathered for what has become a weekly show of support for Assad organised by authorities.
State television showed them waving Syrian flags and portraits of the president, saying they were rallying under the slogan “Long live the homeland and its leader”.
The rally took place before envoys from six Arab nations arrived in Damascus for talks with Assad following their call on Oct. 16 for the opposition and government to hold a dialogue within 15 days at the League headquarters in Cairo.
“What is hoped is that the violence will end, a dialogue will start and reforms will be achieved,” Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said of the delegation, which is led by Qatar and also includes Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Sudan and Yemen.
Assad’s government says it is serious about political reform, which it asserts militants are trying to wreck. The opposition says Assad has no intention of relaxing his grip on power, pointing to an increase in killings, torture, arrests and assassinations.
Human Rights Watch said the Arab mission should demand that Syria allow in independent civilian monitors.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council should refer credible charges of crimes against humanity by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the International Criminal Court (ICC), US senators urged Tuesday.
In a letter to Washington’s UN envoy, Susan Rice, the lawmakers said it was time for the ICC to look into “deeply troubling and grave charges” against Assad amid his government’s bloody crackdown on protestors.
“It is paramount that the Security Council refers credible allegations of crimes against humanity by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to the International Criminal Court,” they wrote.
Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, his party’s number-two in the chamber, as well as Benjamin Cardin, Robert Menendez and Barbara Boxer signed the letter to Rice.
In another report, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will almost certainly fall under the pressure of protests and sanctions, but it will take time due to the complexity of internal and regional politics, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday.
With a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Syria now seven months old, Western powers including France are relying on a combination of sanctions and diplomatic pressure to weaken Assad’s hold on power.
The European Union widened sanctions against Assad and the Syrian state after China and Russia blocked an attempt by Western powers to bring about a UN Security Council resolution condemning violence against protesters.
“It’s true that in New York (at the United Nations) we were blocked, and that is a stain on the Security Council, which said almost nothing about this barbaric repression,” Juppe said on France Inter radio.
“This will end with the fall of the regime, it is nearly unavoidable, but unfortunately it could take time because the situation is complex, because there is a risk of civil war between Syrian factions, because surrounding Arab countries do not want us to intervene.”
Yemen
More than 20 Yemeni civilians, government troops and dissident soldiers were killed in overnight violence after President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s latest pledge to step down, medics said on Wednesday.
The deaths in the capital Sanaa and the country’s second largest city, Taez, came after Saleh told the US ambassador to Yemen he would sign a Gulf-brokered power transition plan to step down within 30 days.
The violence flared on Tuesday as the government’s declaration of a truce with rival forces failed to materialise.
A government statement released on the official state news agency said two civilians were killed Wednesday in shelling of residential areas in Sanaa, blaming anti-government forces for the deaths.
In a separate statement on the defence ministry website, the government said nine of its soldiers fighting tribesmen and rival forces loyal to dissident General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar were also killed.
Medical officials, meanwhile, said the overall death toll from violence from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning had reached 21, including a woman and her infant child who died in Taez when their house was struck by shells.
Residents said government troops had been bombarding the city since Tuesday.
In Sanaa, at least seven armed tribesman loyal to powerful Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar died in clashes overnight in the Hasaba district, home of the chief and his extended family who have been battling government troops for weeks.
In a protest over the recent deaths of at least three women and three children, hundreds of women burned a pile of headscarves in a message to the country’s tribes to step up their protection of civilians from Saleh loyalists.
“The killing of women is shameful and disgraceful,” the women chanted as they doused a pile of scarves with gasoline and set them on fire.
“To the Yemeni tribes we say: ‘Your sons and daughters are being killed in the streets and you stand on the sidelines silent, watching,’” they said.
In a separate protest across town, several hundred female pro-Saleh supporters marched on the United Nations building in Sanaa, waving pictures of Saleh and chanting “the people want Saleh.”
The women delivered a letter to UN delegates demanding an “end to the terrorist acts” they said were being carried out by Sadeq’s tribesmen and Mohsen’s forces.
On Tuesday, the government declared a truce with Sadeq and Mohsen’s forces, but within minutes of the announcement, gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the city.
The violence erupted as the US State Department said Saleh had pledged to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council initiative and step down. Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 33 years, has repeatedly failed to fulfil pledges to resign.
Yemen has witnessed one of the longest and bloodiest uprisings of the “Arab Spring,” with hundreds of Yemenis dead and thousands more wounded since January.
Saleh has for more than nine months refused, despite intensifying regional and international pressure, to heed the call of the tens of thousands of Yemenis who have held daily protests demanding his resignation.
The political stalemate has crippled the Yemeni economy, weakened the central government and prompted defections from Saleh’s staunchest allies.
Mohsen and Sadeq, once Saleh loyalists, are now his enemies having thrown their support behind the protest movement as their troops battle Saleh’s forces in increasingly deadly street clashes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of of Yemeni women on Wednesday set fire to traditional female veils to protest the government’s brutal crackdown against the country’s popular uprising, as overnight clashes in the capital and another city killed 25 people, officials said.
In the capital Sanaa, the women spread a black cloth across a main street and threw their full-body veils, known as makrama, onto a pile, sprayed it with oil and set it ablaze. As the flames rose, they chanted: “Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the thugs?”
The women in Yemen have taken a key role in the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s authoritarian rule that erupted in March, inspired by other Arab revolutions. Their role came into the limelight earlier in October, when Yemeni woman activist Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with two Liberian women, for their struggle for women’s rights.
Wednesday’s protest, however, was not related to women’s rights or issues surrounding the Islamic veils ‚Äî rather, the act of women burning their clothing is a symbolic Bedouin tribal gesture signifying an appeal for help to tribesmen, in this case to stop the attacks on the protesters.
The women who burned clothing in the capital were wearing traditional veils at the time, many covered in black from head to toe.
The women’s protest came as clashes have intensified between Saleh’s forces and renegade fighters who have sided with the protesters and the opposition in demands that the president step down.
Medical and local officials said up to 25 civilians, tribal fighters and government soldiers died overnight in Sanaa and the city of Taiz despite a cease-fire announcement by Saleh late Tuesday. Scores of others were wounded.
A medical official said seven tribal fighters were among those killed in Sanaa’s Hassaba district. Another medical official said four residents and nine soldiers also died in the fighting there.
Libya
Qatar revealed for the first time on Wednesday that hundreds of its soldiers had joined Libyan rebel forces on the ground as they battled troops of veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi.
“We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on the ground were hundreds in every region,” said Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali Al-Atiya.
The announcement marks the first time that Qatar has acknowledged it had military boots on the ground in Libya.
Previously the gas-rich country said it had only lent the support of its air force to NATO-led operations to protect civilians during the eight-month uprising, which ended when Gaddafi was captured and killed last week.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting in Doha of military allies of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), Atiya said the Qataris had been “running the training and communication operations.”
“Qatar had supervised the rebels’ plans because they are civilians and did not have enough military experience. We acted as the link between the rebels and NATO forces,” he said.
Libya’s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told the meeting that Qatar had been “a major partner in all the battles we fought.”
Meanwhile, Libya’s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Wednesday urged NATO to continue its Libya campaign until year’s end, saying loyalists of slain despot Muammar Gaddafi still pose a threat to the country.
Abdel Jalil’s comments, made at a Doha conference of military allies of his National Transitional Council (NTC), came a day after Gaddafi’s body was buried in secret under cover of darkness after being displayed in public for four days.
“We hope (NATO) will continue its campaign until at least the end of this year to serve us and neighbouring countries,” Abdel Jalil, NTC chairman, told the Conference of Friends Committee.
This request is aimed at “ensuring that no arms are infiltrated into those countries and to ensure the security of Libyans from some remnants of Gaddafi’s forces who have fled to nearby countries,” he added.
The NTC is also seeking help from NATO in “developing Libya’s defence and security systems,” Abdel Jalil told the conference.
In New York, Libya’s deputy envoy to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said the NTC may formally ask the Security Council to extend the mandate because a national army has yet to be activated.
However, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country said the original mandate was abused to bring down the Gaddafi regime rather than protect civilians, said an extension past Oct 31 would be “unrealistic.”
Dabbashi also told the Security Council that preliminary reports from the inquiry into Gaddafi’s controversial death indicated he was not shot after his detention but died of injuries sustained before capture.
“According to initial reports, none of the revolutionaries fired at him after arresting him,” he said.
“According to the initial inquiries and information we have, Gaddafi was injured in the course of the clashes between his loyalists and the revolutionaries,” Dabbashi told the council.
After his detention, “he was bleeding from his abdomen and head and he passed away on his arrival at hospital” in the city of Misrata, the envoy said.
Diplomats in Brussels, meanwhile, said NATO had decided to delay a formal decision to end Libyan air operations until Friday after the NTC’s request for an extension and a Russian demand for UN consultations.
In the wake of Gaddafi’s capture and death last week, NATO’s decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), had been expected to agree formally on Wednesday to set Oct 31 as the date to end the seven-month-old air war.
Meanwhile, the United Nations urged Libya’s new rulers to respect the rights of all detainees, amid the controversy over the circumstances of Gaddafi’s death.
In Paris on Wednesday, Marcel Ceccaldi, a French lawyer who previously worked for Gaddafi’s regime and now represents his family, told AFP that a war crimes complaint would be filed with the Hague-based ICC because a NATO attack on his convoy had led directly to his death.
Disquiet has grown internationally over how Gaddafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.
Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.
The former strongman was buried overnight Monday in a religious ceremony, along with one of his sons, Mutassim, and former defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber.
Their bodies had been displayed in a market freezer in the city of Misrata for four days as thousands of Libyans queued to view and photograph the man who had ruled their lives for 42 years.
Meantime, Flamboyant and grandiose in life, Muammar Gaddafi was buried in secrecy and anonymity, laid to rest in an unmarked grave before dawn in the Libyan desert that was home to his Bedouin tribal ancestors.
The burial ended the gruesome spectacle of Gaddafi’s decaying corpse on public display in a cold storage locker at a Misrata warehouse for four days after he was killed in his hometown of Sirte on Oct 20.
The location of the brutal dictator’s grave site was not disclosed by the interim government for fear of vandalism by his foes and veneration by his die-hard supporters.
Gaddafi, 69, was buried Tuesday along with his son Muatassim and former Defense Minister Abu Bakr Younis after the military council in the city of Misrata ordered a reluctant Muslim cleric to say the required prayers.
Libya’s new leaders hope the funeral will allow the country to turn the page on the four-decade Gaddafi era and the bloody eight-month rebellion against him. Still, the book cannot be closed completely, with unanswered questions remaining about his slaying, and his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, still at large.
Under international pressure to investigate the circumstances of Gaddafi’s death, the interim leaders of the National Transitional Council issued a statement late Tuesday saying they “disapprove” of any prisoner being hurt, let alone killed. It was the first time the new leadership spoke out against Gaddafi’s killing.
Preliminary reports from the inquiry into the death of Gaddafi indicate he was not shot after his detention last week, a Libyan envoy told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
“According to initial reports, none of the revolutionaries fired at him after arresting him,” said Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s deputy UN ambassador.
Dabbashi spoke at a Security Council meeting on Libya where concern about human rights was again raised. Gaddafi died last Thursday in mysterious circumstances and his body was buried at a secret desert location on Monday.
“According to the initial inquiries and information we have, Gaddafi was injured in the course of the clashes between his loyalists and the revolutionaries,” Dabbashi told the 15-member council.
After his detention, “he was bleeding from his abdomen and head and he passed away on his arrival at hospital at Misrata,” the envoy added.
Libya’s National Transitional Council has set up an independent commission into the death and Dabbashi said the findings would be made public when the investigation is completed.
“All of you know the extent of the abomination which gripped Libyans during Gaddafi’s regime as a result of the horrendous acts he perpetrated against our people,” Dabbashi said.
“However if we come across a breach of the rights of Gaddafi, or any other person, the perpetrators will be punished.”
International concern has been raised over the way Gaddafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of concrete sewage pipes where he was found hiding. Mobile phone videos showed him still alive at that point.
In another reports, Muammar Gaddafi’s fugitive son Saif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi are proposing to hand themselves into the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a senior Libyan military official with the National Transitional Council said on Wednesday.
“They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,” Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters from Libya.
Saif al-Islam is wanted by the war crimes court, as was his late father. There is also a warrant out for Senussi.
Saif al-Islam has been on the run since Libyan forces overran his father’s home town of Sirte at the weekend. He is thought to be somewhere near Libya’s southern border with Niger.
Mlegta said his information came from intelligence sources who told him that Saif al-Islam and Senussi were trying to broker a deal to surrender to the court through a neighbouring country, which he did not name.
They had concluded that it was not safe for them to remain in Libya, or to go to Algeria or Niger, two countries where Gaddafi family members are already sheltering.
“They feel that it is not safe for them to stay where they are or to go anywhere,” Mlegta said.
In any case, they said that Niger was asking for too much money for them to stay.
Egypt
Hundreds of posters calling on Egypt’s military ruler to run for president have appeared in several districts of Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, sparking fears that the armed forces may try to cling to power.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi chairs the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which took over the reins of power when a popular uprising ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Tantawi was Mubarak’s defense minister for 20 years. He was described in a leaked US diplomatic cable as Mubarak’s “poodle,” a reference to his staunch loyalty to the 83-year-old former leader who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years.
The posters, whose appearance was reported Wednesday by several newspapers, show Tantawi smiling in his military uniform with the red, white and black Egyptian flag in the background. The campaign is led by a previously unknown group called “Egypt Above All.” They argue that Tantawi as president amounts to “a popular demand for stability.”
Tantawi’s military council has floated a timetable for the transfer of power to an elected civilian government that provide for a presidential election late next year or in early 2013. That would be about 18 months longer than the six-month deadline the military initially set when they came to power to hand over power.
The military council has been criticized by rights activists and politicians for its handling of Egypt’s transitional period. Activists who engineered the anti-Mubarak uprising have accused it of not being serious about reform and the dismantling of the old regime.
Most recently, Human Rights Watch warned that Egypt’s ruling generals may try to cover up the circumstances surrounding the killing earlier this month of at least 20 Christian demonstrators when the military broke up their central Cairo protest by force.
Moreover, activists are angered by the abuse of detainees at the hands of the military police and the trial of thousands of civilians before military tribunals.
Last month, state television broadcast footage of Tantawi walking around central Cairo in civilian attire. It was the first time since the military took power that Egyptians have seen him without his military uniform. The footage instantly sparked a debate about whether Tantawi may be planning to run for president. The military, however, promptly denied that it has any intention to field its own candidate, although many suspect it’s likely to back a a candidate with military background. All four of Egypt’s presidents have military backgrounds.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian court jailed two policemen on Wednesday for seven years for their “cruel” treatment of an activist whose death helped kindle the popular revolt against Hosni Mubarak.
Khaled Said, 28, died in the port city of Alexandria in June last year after two plainclothes policemen dragged him out of an Internet cafe and beat him, witnesses and rights groups say. Authorities said he died choking on drugs.
“The court sentences the defendants to seven years in jail for using cruelty against the victim,” Judge Moussa al-Nahrawy said in a statement read out in court at the end of a case that began before the uprising erupted.
In the courtroom, families of the two policemen shouted angrily at the judge over guilty verdict, while activists and Said’s family complained men had got off lightly.
“Inside the court, the military police locked the doors of the court and the families of the two defendants literally beat up four lawyers in protest. Justice has not been done to Khaled Said and we will not budge,” Said’s uncle Ali Qassem told Reuters. He said he had expected a tougher sentence.
“The response to the verdict will be on the street and not inside the court,” he added.
“The rights for Khaled Said and Egyptians who have been tortured, humiliated and killed must be reclaimed,” Wael Ghonim, one of the founders of the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said” said on the page.