RIYADH, Nov 13, (Agencies): The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Sunday strongly denounced yesterday’s attacks by Syrian protesters on the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Damascus, describing the incident as a violation of international diplomatic principles.
GCC Secretary General Abdullatif Al-Zayani, in a statement, called on Syrian authorities to take the necessary steps to protect diplomatic missions and to hold the assailants, who carried out the attacks, accountable for, in order for these incidents not to be repeated. The two Gulf-state embassies, along with several others, were attacked by Syrian protesters on Saturday, after the decision to suspend Syria’s Arab League membership.
Separately, Al-Zayani commended security cooperation between Qatar and Bahrain, after the two countries managed to uncover and apprehend a terrorist cell that was planning to attack several government buildings in Bahrain.
Arab League foreign ministers will meet in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Wednesday to discuss the Syrian crisis, Algerian foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani said.
“We have decided on a meeting of foreign ministers of the Arab League on Nov 16 at Rabat, on Syria...” on the sidelines of a forum between Turkey and the Arab nations, Belani told AFP on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the League said it was studying mechanisms it could implement to protect civilians in Syria, where according to rights activists security forces killed at least another eight people Sunday as they pressed their crackdown on dissent.
Arab League foreign ministers on Saturday voted 18-22 to suspend Syria with effect from Nov 16 over its failure to comply with an agreement to end the bloodshed, in which according to the United Nations at least 3,500 people have died since mid-March.
The League also recommended the withdrawal of Arab envoys from Damascus and agreed on sanctions, while inviting “all currents in the Syrian opposition” to meet at its headquarters in Cairo to map out a transitional period.
The move won widespread praise from the international community and was hailed by the opposition Syrian National Council, which said the decision was a “step in the right direction.”
Syria, Yemen and Lebanon voted against the measure while Iraq abstained.
Two League members need to back Syria’s request before a summit can be held.
Syria’s representative at the Arab League, Yussef Ahmad told reporters that he will officially present the request for an Arab summit “today or tomorrow.” A League official told AFP late Sunday that Syria had yet to make a formal request.
The League’s decision prompted an outpouring of anger among Assad’s supporters who surged in their tens of thousands into central Damascus on Sunday to show their support for the president.
“The Syrian people are filling the squares of the nation and announce their rejection of the Arab League decision,” state television said, showing more protests in the commercial hub of Aleppo and other cities.
Late Saturday, hundreds of angry demonstrators attacked the embassies of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which were among the countries that voted to suspend Syria.
“The Saudi government strongly condemns this incident and holds the Syrian authorities responsible for the security and protection of all Saudi interests in Syria,” SPA quoted a foreign ministry as saying on Sunday.
Anatolia news agency said thousands of protesters also attacked Turkey’s diplomatic missions in Syria, furious over Ankara’s support for the Arab League decision.
In response, Turkey ordered the evacuation of non-essential diplomatic personnel from Syria, Anatolia news agency reported.
“The attitude of the Syrian government... demonstrates the need for the international community to respond with a united voice to the serious developments in Syria,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Syria’s failure to fulfil its commitments to the Arab League is a “disappointment” for Turkey, the statement said.
France condemned protesters’ attacks on diplomatic missions in Syria and summoned the Syrian ambassador, the foreign ministry said.
“These attacks are an attempt to intimidate the international community after the Arab League’s courageous decision because of ongoing repression in Syria,” a ministry statement said.
Summit
Syria called on Sunday for an emergency summit of Arab League heads of state, in an apparent attempt to thwart its decision to suspend Damascus for violently cracking down on protests.
But a day after the League suspended Syria and said it would impose sanctions, its secretary general said officials from the 22-member organisation of Arab states would also meet Syrian opposition representatives, a further blow to Damascus.
Syrian state television said the objective of its proposed summit would be to discuss the “negative repercussions on the Arab situation.”
The Arab League’s suspension of Syria’s membership takes effect on Nov 16. Syria’s call for an emergency summit appears to be an attempt to avert that decision.
It was the Arab League’s decision to suspend Libya’s membership of the group that helped persuade the UN Security Council to back a NATO air campaign aiding revolutionaries who eventually ousted and killed Muammar Gaddafi.
The United Nations says 3,500 people have been killed in the pro-democracy protests which began in March. Syria blames the unrest on “terrorists” and foreign-backed Islamist militants. It says 1,100 soldiers and police have been killed.
Syrian security forces shot dead eight people who shouted slogans against President Bashar al-Assad at a rally that had been organised by authorities in the city of Hama on Sunday, to show popular anger at an Arab League decision, activists said.
“Security forces were leading public workers and students into Orontes Square when groups broke away and started shouting ‘the people want the fall of the regime’. They escaped into the alleyways but were followed and four were killed,” said one of the activists in Hama, 240 kms (150 miles) north of Damascus.
Iraq on Sunday slammed the Arab League’s decision to suspend Syria as unacceptable while also calling on Damascus to open dialogue with the opposition.
“Suspending Syria’s membership in the Arab League came in an unacceptable way,” Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Iraqiya television.
Iraq was the only country to abstain from the Saturday vote to suspend Syria’s membership in the Arab League over its crackdown on dissent which has left more than 3,500 people dead, according to UN figures.
Eighteen countries voted in favour of Syria’s suspension from the pan-Arab body while Yemen, Lebanon and Syria voted against the decision.
“This decision was was not taken against other countries that have bigger crisis than the Syrian crisis,” said Dabbagh.
Elsewhere, Lebanon’s former prime minister Saad Hariri on Sunday slammed his country’s decision to vote against Arab League punitive measures on Syria.
“It is shameful and I hope the Syrian people know that this government doesn’t represent the Lebanese will,” Hariri said in a message posted on Twitter.
“This is not the Lebanese will that voted, it is the Hezbollah government headed by (Najib) Mikati,” added Hariri, who leads the pro-Western opposition camp in Lebanon.
Egypt
Egypt’s military ordered a prominent blogger held in custody for another 15 days Sunday in move likely to galvanize mounting criticism of the country’s ruling generals.
Alaa Abdel-Fattah is among the most prominent of some 12,000 Egyptians who have faced military trials since Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces took control of the country from President Hosni Mubarak when an 18-day popular uprising pushed him from power in February.
Abdel-Fattah has not been formally charged, though his family says he has been accused of stealing a military weapon, vandalizing military property, and violently assaulting security officers.
Abdel-Fattah denies all the allegations. He is being held for refusing to answer questions from military interrogators, who he says should not play a role in trying civilians.
The trials, along with other issues, have caused many uprising activists to lose faith in the armed forces. Many say they run the country no more fairly than Mubarak did and fear they will not hand over power to civilian authorities as promised.
Military prosecutors detained Abdel-Fattah on Oct 30 after he refused to answer questions over his alleged role in sectarian clashes last month that killed 27 people, most of them Christians.
His family, which includes other prominent activists, has used his case to highlight the issue of military trials. His mother, Laila Soueif, said Sunday she was on her eighth day of a hunger strike and would hold out until he is freed.
“I’m going to continue with my hunger strike, and I think that the reaction of everybody, including myself, will be anger,” said Soueif, 55. “We’ll continue our campaign.”
Many view Abdel-Fattah’s detention as an effort to smear activists who helped lead the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak and have become harsh critics of the military council now governing the country.
Libya
Rival militias clashed on the outskirts of the Libyan capital for a fourth day Sunday in the deadliest and most sustained violence since the capture and killing of Muammar Gaddafi last month.
The fighting, which has killed at least 13 people since late last week, raised new concerns about the ability of Libya’s transitional government to disarm thousands of fighters and restore order after an eight-month civil war.
Libya’s interim leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said his National Transitional Council brought together elders from the feuding areas — the coastal city of Zawiya and the nearby tribal lands of Warshefana — over the weekend and that the dispute has been resolved. “I want to assure the Libyan people that everything is under control,” he said Sunday.
However, as he spoke, fighting continued.
Heavy gunfire and explosions of rocket-propelled grenades were heard over hours Sunday in the area between the Warshefana lands, about 18 miles (30 kms) west of Tripoli, and Zawiya, another 10 miles (15 kms) to the west. White smoke rose into the air.
At one point, the two sides were battling for control of a major military camp of the ousted regime, said a fighter from Tripoli. The camp, once a base of elite forces commanded by one of Gaddafi’s sons, Khamis, is located on a highway midway between Tripoli and Zawiya.
In all, at least 13 people were killed in the fighting, including four from Zawiya and nine from Warshefana, according to gunmen and a hospital doctor in Warshefana. More than 100 people from Warshefana were wounded since Saturday, said Dr Mohammed Sawan, adding that casualties stemmed from gunshots as well as shrapnel from rockets and mortar shells.
The reason for the initial clash remains unclear, though accusations have been flying, including that some of the Warshefana had links to the old regime. At one point last week, fighters from Zawiya entered Warshefana and seized weapons. In retaliation, Warshefana fighters set up random checkpoints and fired at the main highway.
Yemen
 Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh is refusing to hand over power and resisting a UN-backed plan to end months of political paralysis that has brought the impoverished state to its knees, opposition sources said on Sunday.
Saleh has withstood nine months of protests against his rule and international pressure on him to quit, three times agreeing to a Gulf-brokered power transition plan only to back out of signing it at the very last minute.
Mediators, diplomats and Saleh’s deputy had said in recent weeks they were close to clinching a deal, but a senior member of the opposition told Reuters the veteran leader was stalling once again.
“Saleh wants to preserve all his powers until the election of a new president and that is rejected by the opposition and because of this the UN envoy’s mission is going to fail,” said a senior figure in the opposition who declined to be identified.
United Nations envoy Jamal Benomar, who left Yemen empty-handed in September after two weeks of shuttle diplomacy between the opposition and the ruling party, returned to Sanaa last week in a fresh push to persuade Saleh to leave office.
Under an “operational mechanism” proposed by Benomar to implement the Gulf initiative, Saleh would step down immediately, triggering the formation of a national unity government ahead of early presidential elections. A body would also be set up to restructure the armed forces.
Deputy information minister Abdo al-Janadi said in a news conference on Sunday Saleh had agreed to entrust his deputy with forming the national unity government, but made no mention of Saleh resigning.
Janadi also blamed violence that has killed at least 17 people over the past two days in Yemen’s commercial capital Taiz on a “dangerous escalation” instigated by armed members of the opposition. Witnesses, residents and medical staff blamed shelling by government forces.
The UN Security Council last month issued a resolution urging Saleh to follow through with the Gulf initiative and deploring the bloodshed.
Neighbouring oil-giant Saudi Arabia and Western powers are anxious that the upheaval in Yemen is weakening already loose central government control over whole swathes of territory, giving militants space to thrive.