Clashes on Syria, spying mark debate on U.S. defense funding bill

(Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers clashed over Syria, Afghanistan and government spying on Tuesday as the House of Representatives began debating a $598 billion defense spending bill for 2014, including a Pentagon base budget of $512 billion and $86 billion for the Afghan war.
The confrontations began even before the measure made it to the floor of the House after Republican leaders moved to restrict the number of permitted amendments to 100, with no more than 20 minutes of debate on divisive issues like Syria policy and spying by the National Security Agency.
A final vote on the bill, which includes about $3 billion more than requested by President Barack Obama, is not expected until Wednesday at the earliest. Debate on the thorniest amendments, including on Syria, funding for Egypt and NSA spying, was not likely to begin until Wednesday.
The White House has threatened a presidential veto of the overall bill unless it is part of a broader budget that supports U.S. economic recovery efforts, saying current House proposals cut too much from education, infrastructure and innovation.
The White House joined senior House Republicans in urging lawmakers to oppose an amendment by Michigan Republican Justin Amash, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, that would bar the NSA from collecting telephone call records and other data from people in the United States not specifically under investigation.
The proposed amendment comes after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of an agency surveillance program that collects and stores vast amounts of electronic communications like phone call records and emails.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama welcomed a debate on safeguarding privacy, but opposed Amash's amendment, saying it would "hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community's counterterrorism tools."
Senior House Republicans, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, circulated a letter to colleagues urging them to oppose the amendment.
"While many members have legitimate questions about the NSA metadata program, including whether there are sufficient protections for Americans' civil liberties, eliminating this program altogether without careful deliberation would not reflect our duty ... to provide for the common defense," they said.
SYRIA SPLIT
As debate got under way, lawmakers expressed concern over the constraints placed on their ability to discuss contentious issues.
Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, accused Republican leaders of ignoring the "real split" in Congress over the Syrian civil war and denying "any real substantive debate" over whether the United States should intervene in a conflict that has already killed 100,000.
U.S. involvement in Syria so far has been limited to providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition. But Obama is moving ahead with lethal aid after determining the government of President Bashar al-Assad has sometimes used chemical weapons.
"The Republican leadership ducked a real important debate when it comes to Syria," McGovern said. "I hope that ... a few years down the road we don't look back ... and express regret that somehow we got sucked into this war without a real debate."
Lawmakers also strongly condemned the Afghan government for trying to charge the U.S. military customs duties to remove American equipment from the country.
They debated a series of amendments aimed at stripping funding from military programs for the Afghans. The bill sets Afghan war funding at $86 billion.
(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Beech)

Syria update 23.07.13

Rebels have seized the villages of Obeida and Hajireh southeast of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have said.
The takeover comes amid a rebel attempt to cut off the army's main supply route linking Hama in central Syria to Aleppo in the north.
Meanwhile in Damascus, the loyalist air force staged two strikes against the eastern district of Jobar, home to sizeable pockets of resistance to the army, the London-based Observatory said.
(Al-jazeera)

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported violence in southern Damascus and said the entrance to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp had been closed, a day after an army assault on rebel positions in the district.
More than 85 percent of Palestinians living in Yarmouk camp have been displaced due to the violence in the last two years, said Filippo Grandi, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), on Monday.
“Out of 150,000 Palestinians living in Yarmouk, 130,000 have been displaced,” Grandi told reporters in a press conference in New York.
Amateur video released by the Syrian opposition purports to show that government foreces shelled the camp on Monday.
You can read more on how Syrian war threatens Palestinian refugees by clicking here. 
 (Al-jazeera)

Egypt said on Monday it would cancel visa fees for Syrians, the latest effort to ease diplomatic tensions between the two Arab states after the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi this month.
Morsi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, had cut off diplomatic relations with Syria, led by President Bashar al-Assad, a follower of the Shia Alawite sect, last month at a rally packed with hardline Sunni Islamists calling for holy war in Syria.
[Reuters]

Turkey's deputy prime minister says his country supports Syria's territorial integrity and will not tolerate the creation of a "de facto" Syrian Kurdish entity on its frontiers.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Bulent Arinc would not spell out what Turkey would do prevent any such entity from coming about but said it would act carefully and in a cool-headed manner.
  (Al-jazeera)

Syrian Kurdish group aims for independent local administration

By Erika Solomon and Isabel Coles

BEIRUT/ARBIL, Iraq | Fri Jul 19, 2013 8:01am EDT

(Reuters) - A Syrian Kurdish group said on Friday it aims to set up an independent council to run Kurdish regions until Syria's civil war has ended, a move likely to alarm Syrian rebels and neighboring Turkey, both wary of a possible Kurdish state.

Kurdish militias have seized control of districts in northern Syria in the past year since President Bashar al-Assad's forces focused elsewhere, and are now seeking to consolidate those gains despite deep divisions in their ranks.

Syria's two-year conflict has pitted the Kurds against Assad's forces at times, and against the rebels seeking to oust him at others.

Divided between Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own. Kurdish militants and the government in Turkey have begun peace talks to end a conflict in the country's southeast that has claimed 40,000 lives.

The Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is proposing a local authority in northeastern Syria, is the strongest local Kurdish group due to its well armed and effective militias. It is believed to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group seeking autonomy in Turkey.

Saleh Muslim, the head of the PYD, said the proposals were under discussion by Kurdish groups.

"This is not a call for a separation it is just that for a year now we have been on our own in our own territories and people have needs, they want some kind of administration to run their issues, they cannot be left like that."

He said once an agreement is reached an election will be held within three to four months to chose administration officials. He expected a final decision in a week or two.

"This administration will be like a temporary government," PYD spokesman Nawaf Khalil told Reuters from his home in exile in Germany. "We need to protect our borders and our people, we need to do something to improve the economic situation.

"We also militarily have to face both Assad's regime and the rebels and the Turks. And we hope to try to improve our relationships with all of these neighbors."

KURDISH ENTITY

Rebels accuse the PYD of working with Assad and have sporadically fought the Kurds.

The rebels oppose a separate Kurdish entity, as does their ally and neighbor Turkey, which believes the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could embolden home-grown PKK militants. Mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey is strategically located on the country's borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The Kurdish militias, who have allowed both Assad's and rebel forces to move through their territories, insist they are anti-Assad but do not want their region to suffer the sort of military devastation that has leveled many opposition areas across Syria.

There have been talks since last month between the PYD and its main rival, the Syrian Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-S), under the auspices of Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region. But the two sides have yet to reach an agreement.

The PYD's opponents have played down the possibility of reaching an agreement but other political leaders have pushed for a deal, citing their concerns over intensifying clashes between the Kurds and the rebels in northeastern Syria.

"The recent fighting proved that the burden is on our shoulders," said Aldar Khalil of the Higher Kurdish Council, a group formed by Barzani to unite Syrian Kurdish parties,

"We are currently discussing a transitional administration. After that, we want to hold elections within three months. We must all take part," he said.

PYD militias have been engaged in fierce battles this week with al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels in northeastern Syria and seized the town of Ras al-Ain, which borders Turkey.

The PYD militias are also fighting the rebels for control of local oil fields, highlighting a struggle not only to establish dominance in the region but to assert control of the area's natural resources.

MILITIAS A STICKING POINT

A PYD source said that political leaders are already circulating a list of names to run the proposed administration.

Hamid Darbandi, a Kurdish Iraqi official, said that the PYD's proposal had still not been agreed by other parties. Another senior source, who asked not to be named, said a deal for governance in the area was necessary.

"The Syrian government is no longer capable of providing services and security," the source said. "It may be necessary for these Kurdish groups to develop arrangements and institutions to deliver basic services and security, and also prevent the extremist (rebel) groups from terrorizing the population."

PYD spokesman Khalil said his group also hoped to develop a draft for a transitional constitution in the region and put it to a referendum. But he denied this would lead to separation.

"It will be a framework for local administration. It is not uncommon for different regions in a country to have varying sets of laws and governance," he said.

The main sticking point between the PYD and its rivals, according to sources at the talks in Arbil, is the issue of who would run armed forces in the region.

The PYD says its militias should control armed protection, warning of a factional conflict within Syria's civil war if other parties are allowed to maintain their own militias. It has argued that other groups' fighters should be absorbed within its ranks, but other units have rejected this.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Kurdish-Islamist fighting spreads to Syrian oil fields

(Reuters) - Kurdish fighters have seized control of a Syrian town on the border with Turkey and are battling Islamist rebel groups linked to al Qaeda for control of oilfields in the northeast of the country.
The fighting is further evidence that the conflict between rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's forces that has engulfed Syria since early 2011 has splintered into turf wars that have little to do with ousting him.
In southern Syria, attacks by rebels on gas and fuel pipelines that supply power stations caused widespread electricity outages, Syria's official news agency said.
Across the border in Jordan, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited a refugee camp and was told by angry Syrians that the United States should set up a no-fly zone and safe havens in Syria to protect them.
The capture of Ras al-Ain by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish party with links to Kurdish militants in Turkey, rang alarm bells in Ankara.
The Turkish government fears the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could embolden home-grown militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
In a statement late on Wednesday, the Turkish military said Ras al-Ain had fallen under the control of the PYD, which it described as a "separatist terrorist organization". Fighting in the town had now stopped.
Turkish troops had shot at PYD fighters in Syria after two rocket-propelled grenades fired from Syria struck a border post on the Turkish side of the frontier.
It was the second time in as many days the military has answered in kind after several stray bullets from Syria struck the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar on Tuesday. The military has now strengthened security along that part of the border.
FIGHTING SPREADS
Clashes in Ras al-Ain between Kurdish militias, who broadly support an autonomous Kurdish region, and Islamist fighters of the Nusra Front broke out on Tuesday after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol and captured a gunman, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Observatory, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said fighting had now spread deeper into the largely Kurdish province of Hassakeh and battles were raging around the Rumeilan oil field, about 200 km (125 miles) east of Ras al-Ain.
The field had mostly been shut down, opposition activists said, but a few of its pipelines may still be supplying refineries in the government-held cities of Homs and Baniyas.
Since March 2011, when the uprising against Assad began, Syria's overall oil production has fallen by nearly 60 percent to 153,000 barrels per day last October, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates.
The Observatory said at least 29 people had been killed since fighting between Islamists and Kurds erupted on Tuesday.
Kurdish units have seized an oil field area called Suwaidiya 20 and there are clashes in Suwaidiya oil region 3, according to the Observatory.
It said the Nusra Front and others al Qaeda-linked fighters were shelling Ras al-Ain from nearby positions
"Part of the reason for the spread is just anger at the Kurdish consolidation of control in Ras al-Ain, it's like revenge and punishment," said one activist who works with the rebels and who asked not to be named.
GROWING STRUGGLE
"But I also believe there this is part of a growing struggle for control of oil and gas in the region and the rebels are using this as an opportunity."
Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish PYD, said the Kurds would fight back to maintain the autonomous zone they had set up in the area.
"We fought hard to drive out the repressive regime and its army and we liberated the area from oppression. We will not allow either regime control or these al Qaeda-linked groups.
"What is pushing them to fight us is their antagonism against our autonomous rule in Kurdish areas. I believe their other goal is Rumeilan because it is an important oil resource."
The fighting indicated the collapse of a deal, negotiated by prominent Syrian opposition leader Michel Kilo, under which both sides in the area had cooperated peacefully for months.
Visiting a camp that holds 115,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan near the Syrian border, Kerry heard refugees vent their anger at the world's failure to end a war that has claimed more than 90,000 lives.
He told them Washington was considering various options, including buffer zones for their protection, but that the situation was complex and much was still under consideration.
"What are you waiting for?" a Syrian woman, who did not give her name, asked Kerry at the United Nations' Zaatari refugee camp. "At least impose a no-fly zone or an embargo."
In London, sources told Reuters that Britain had abandoned plans to arm the rebels and now believed Assad might survive in office for years.
The sources also said a peace conference to try to end the conflict might not happen until next year if at all.
"Britain is clearly not going to arm the rebels in any way, shape or form," said one source.
The reason for the shift was the largely hostile public opinion and fears that any weapons supplied could fall into the hands of Islamists.
"It will train them, give them tactical advice and intelligence, teach them command and control. But public opinion, like it or not, is against intervention," the source said.
In southern Syria, the Observatory reported heavy shelling in the Damascus countryside. There were also further shelling of the city of Homs, where fighting has raged for the past three weeks. Clashes erupted in the towns of Deraa and Quneitra in southern Syria, the Observatory said.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Jordan; Anfrew Osborn, Guy Faulconbridge and Paul Taylor in London,; Writing by Giles Elgood, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/18/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE96H0IZ20130718

Kurds seize town on Syrian-Turkish border

(Reuters) - A Syrian Kurdish party with links to Kurdish militants in Turkey has seized control of a Syrian town on the Turkish border after days of clashes with Islamist fighters, the Turkish military said.
The capture of Ras al-Ain by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) will fuel Ankara's fears that the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could embolden homegrown militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
Turkey's foreign minister voiced concern at the spillover of violence from Syria and again urged the U.N. Security Council, which has yet to reach a consensus on the war, to take action.
In a statement late on Wednesday, the military said the town of Ras al-Ain in northeast Syria had fallen under the control of the PYD, which it described as a "separatist terrorist organization". Fighting in the town has stopped, it said.
Turkish troops shot at PYD fighters in Syria in line with their rules of engagement after two rocket-propelled grenades fired from Syria struck a border post on the Turkish side.
The return fire was the second time in as many days that the military had answered in kind. Stray bullets from Syria struck the police headquarters and several homes in the adjacent Turkish town of Ceylanpinar on Tuesday.
A Turkish citizen was killed and a 15-year-old boy seriously wounded by the stray fire, in the most serious spillover of violence into Turkey from Syria in weeks. Earlier, officials said the boy had died of his wounds, but later they said he was still in a critical condition and had been moved to Ankara.
The military said it had strengthened security along that part of the border with armored vehicles.
The clashes between Kurdish fighters, who want an autonomous region within Syria, and Islamist Arab fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front started on Tuesday after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol, according to an anti-government Syrian activist group.
Clashes between Kurds affiliated with the PYD and Syrian and foreign fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have erupted since Kurds began asserting control over parts of the northeast from late last year.
PEACE PROCESS
Turkey, with its own large Kurdish minority, has been watching closely, concerned that a Kurdish power grab to the south could strengthen PKK militants in Turkey with whom it has embarked on a peace process. Developments in Syria could threaten that process, which is already under pressure amid an increase in militant activity in Turkey.
On Thursday, the PKK accused Ankara of being behind the violence in Ras al-Ain.
"Turkey is directly behind the attacks, particularly in Serekaniye," the PKK said in a statement published by the Firat news agency which has close links to the militants. Serekaniye is the Kurdish name for Ras al-Ain.
"This fact alone shows how much the revolution in Rojava frightens those who are anti-Kurdish," it said, referring to the Kurdish region in northeastern Syria.
Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, the BDP, has accused Ankara of directly backing Nusra and affiliated groups. Turkey is one of the strongest backers of Syria's anti-Assad rebels, though it has tried to distance itself from groups like Nusra.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, an expert on the PKK and security at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) think-tank, said the events in Syria would likely embolden the PKK.
"Firstly, there will be a psychological effect, and as the PKK watches these developments they will make more maximalist demands from the government. They will sit down to negotiations with the government as a much stronger actor," Ozcan said.
"The PKK has gained an important resource in the area, it has gained depth and will also make economic gains. This is good news for the PKK," he said.
Turkey's foreign minister expressed concern over the events.
"This illustrates a striking picture of how much the crisis in Syria can affect us and our citizens," state-run broadcaster TRT quoted Ahmet Davutoglu as saying in Ankara on Wednesday.
Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, is reluctant to act unilaterally in Syria, although it has scrambled warplanes along the border as gunfire and shelling hit its soil. Turkey hosts around 500,000 Syrian refugees.
(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Jonathon Burch, Editing by Gareth Jones)
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/18/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE96H0TU20130718

Syria's Assad may cling on, Britain will not arm rebels: sources

(Reuters) - Britain has abandoned plans to arm Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and believes he might survive in office for years, sources familiar with government thinking say.
The sources also told Reuters that a peace conference to try to end the conflict - now in its third year - might not happen until next year if at all.
"Britain is clearly not going to arm the rebels in any way, shape or form," said one source, pointing to a parliamentary motion passed last week urging prior consultation of lawmakers.
The reasons for the shift were that British public opinion was largely opposed, and there were fears that any weapons Britain supplied could fall into the hands of Islamist militants.
"It will train them, give them tactical advice and intelligence, teach them command and control. But public opinion, like it or not, is against intervention."
The British position amounted to one of the gloomiest assessments of the rebels' prospects yet.
It was Prime Minister David Cameron who led the charge earlier this year for the European Union to drop an arms embargo on Syria, which London and Paris had argued was one-sidedly penalizing the anti-Assad opposition.
The involvement of Iran and Hezbollah had shifted the balance of power on the battlefield in Assad's favor, the sources said, giving him less incentive to negotiate, and the West had no strategy to end the conflict soon.
"The Western assessment has changed," said one source. "We thought Assad could only hold on for a few months. We now think he can last a few years."
Hobbled by debt and defense budget cuts at a time when the United States, Britain and NATO allies are withdrawing forces from Afghanistan, the West says it wants to help the rebels topple Assad.
But it finds its options limited.
Forces loyal to Assad have made gains in recent months, while rebel groups have been plagued by infighting between Islamist militants linked to Al Qaeda and the more moderate Free Syrian Army. The longer the conflict drags on, the greater the influence the West thinks the Islamists will have, the sources said.
U.S. efforts to arm the rebels have stalled in Congress. Britain publicly says it is not ruling out arming the opposition but has privately done so, the sources said.
Only a dramatic shift in the situation such as "widespread use of chemical weapons" might force a rethink, another source said, refusing to be drawn on whether a collapse in attempts to broker a political solution might also be a tipping point.
Britain has said it believes there has so far been only small-scale use of chemical weapons.
Political realities mean any British decision to arm the rebels would need to be endorsed by a vote in parliament anyway.
John Baron, a lawmaker from Cameron's ruling Conservatives who tabled the motion requiring the government to give parliament such a vote, said he thought a majority of lawmakers opposed sending weapons to the rebels. The government would lose such a vote if one were held today, he said.
He said the vote may have been one factor which persuaded the government to back away from arming the opposition.
"The foreign secretary has formally said that no options are off the table," he said. "But what we do know is that Number 10 (the prime minister's office) has been keen to explore the possibility of arming the rebels."
Any move to arm the rebels would increase the violence and suffering, he said, adding the government had not adequately explained how it would stop arms from falling into the hands of extremists on the rebel side.
While Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia might be willing to supply arms to the rebels, and France might quietly channel some weapons, the first source said they were unlikely to provide "game-changing" weapons.
"If you give arms to General (Salim) Idriss, how sure can you be that they won't end up in the wrong hands and be used to shoot down a Western civilian airliner?" the source said.
France's foreign minister said on Thursday Paris had still not decided whether to arm the rebels.
"There are certain conditions that need to be met before eventually sending weapons," Laurent Fabius told reporters. "For now France has not modified its position. We have the ability to do it, but we haven't delivered any lethal weapons."
The newly-elected president of the Syrian National Coalition Ahmad Jarba is due in Paris for talks over the next week.
NO SILVER BULLET
The West's efforts to end the conflict were being pursued "on different tracks", added another source.
But nothing was happening on any of them.
"If there is a silver bullet we don't know what it is," the source said. "All the options are horrific."
Sources said Britain was unwilling to publicly disavow the option of arming the rebels because keeping the option open might help persuade Assad to sit down for peace talks.
"None of us can foresee exactly how this crisis will develop," British Foreign Secretary William Hague told lawmakers this week. "We have taken no decision, but we have not ruled anything out."
Russia - Assad's most powerful foreign backer - and the United States want peace talks in Geneva to try to agree a ceasefire and the makeup of a transitional government. The sources said the initiative had stalled and there was a risk such talks would never happen.
"We'd hope they would happen this year," said one. "It's an aim that's realistic. But it could be next year. It's been drifting. We can't drag it out indefinitely."
Imposing a no-fly zone was a non-starter. "It would need boots on the ground to enforce it and would be horrendously expensive," the source said.
Iran's decision to pour money and men into Syria to support Assad had made things even harder, another source said, adding there were perhaps as many as 10,000 Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and Iranian fighters inside Syria including members of the elite Qods brigade of the Revolutionary Guards.
Hezbollah openly boasts of its presence in Syria but Iran denies it has troops on the ground.
"Assad cannot score a decisive victory, but he can score tactical victories, as he did in Qusair and as he may do in Homs," said the first source.
"The opposition still controls significant swathes of territory along the borders that he cannot recover, and they can hop over the border and regroup."
(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Andrew Roche)
 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/18/us-syria-crisis-britain-idUSBRE96H16K20130718

Syrian helicopter fired rockets at a pro-rebel region of eastern Lebanon.

A Syrian military helicopter fired rockets at a pro-rebel region of eastern Lebanon in the early hours of Thursday, a security source told AFP.
"A military helicopter violated Lebanese airspace and fired four rockets at 01:30 am (2230GMT) in the Arsal area, two of which exploded, causing damage," the source said on condition of anonymity.
The attack did not cause any injuries.
Arsal is a Sunni neighbourhood in eastern Lebanon that is broadly sympathetic to the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, and has become a transit point for Syrian refugees, as well as rebels and their weapons.
The area has been targeted on multiple occasions by Syrian regime forces, including in a June 12 attack that hit the centre of Arsal.
That raid prompted a rare warning from the Lebanese army, which threatened to respond if the attacks continued.
[AFP]

Britain's outgoing army chief: no-fly zone over Syria would be unsuccessful without establishing ground control

Britain's outgoing army chief has warned that attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Syria would be unsuccessful without establishing ground control, in an interview published in Thursday's Daily Telegraph.
Britain is at the forefront of international efforts to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and has promised to supply rebels with equipment to protect them against chemical weapons attacks.
But in his interview with the Telegraph, general David Richards said: "If you wanted to have the material impact on the Syrian regime's calculations that some people seek, a no-fly zone per se is insufficient.
"You have to be able, as we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets. You have to take out their air defences."
Richards stressed that a "ground control zone" would need to be established and that tanks and armoured personnel carriers would have to be "taken out".
"If you want to have the material effect that people seek you have to be able to hit ground targets and so you would be going to war if that is what you want to do," he added.
A lack of international consensus and the splintered nature of rebel forces made it difficult to forge a military solution, the 61-year-old general added.
Richards retires on Thursday after a military career spanning more than 40 years.
[AFP]

Outspoken Assad supporter assassinated in Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunmen burst into the first floor apartment of a pro-government Syrian journalist Wednesday, killing him in a hail of nearly 30 bullets in a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon.

The pre-dawn assassination of Mohammed Darrar Jammo is the latest in a series of brazen attacks that have shown the growing vulnerability of the Shiite militant group, which has found itself increasingly on the defensive at home over its decision to back President Bashar Assad in the civil war raging next door.

Violence linked to Syria's war is increasingly washing across Lebanon, threatening to unleash large-scale fighting in a deeply fragmented country that is being constantly tested with ever deepening polarization over the conflict in Syria.

In recent months, violence has become more recurrent and geographically widespread, extending to predominantly Shiite neighborhoods that had been relatively immune from attacks plaguing other, mostly border areas.

On Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a Hezbollah convoy near the Syrian border, wounding two, and last week a car bombing in south Beirut wounded 53 people in the heart of the militant group's bastion of support. Rockets have recently hit the Hezbollah stronghold south of the Lebanese capital.

The attacks come as no surprise. Although there have been no credible responsibility claims, Syria-based extremist Sunni groups have interpreted Hezbollah's moves in Syria as a declaration of war against their sect and have threatened to retaliate inside Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon.

"It is still the beginning of a probably tough road ahead" for Hezbollah, said Kamel Wazne, founder and director of the Center for American Strategic Studies in Beirut. Such attacks, however, will not change the group's ideology or direction, but "will actually strengthen their resolve to continue what they started," he said.

Jammo, a 44-year-old journalist and political commentator, was one of Assad's and Hezbollah's most vociferous defenders. In frequent appearances on television talk shows, he would staunchly support the Syrian regime's strong-armed response to the uprising and in at least one case shouted down opposition figures, calling them "traitors."

His hard-line stance earned him enemies among Syria's opposition, and some in the anti-Assad camp referred to Jammo as "shabih," a term used for pro-government gunmen who have been blamed for some of the worst mass killings of the civil war.

On Wednesday, he was gunned down with automatic rifles shot at close range in his apartment in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of Hezbollah, where he lived with his Lebanese wife. The perpetrators got away.

Lebanon's state news agency published a photo Wednesday of a shirtless Jammo lying on a blue sheet soaked with blood, his chest riddled with bullet wounds. Bullet holes were clearly visible in the walls inside the house.

Hezbollah condemned the attack, saying it showed the "bankruptcy" of Sunni extremist groups fighting in Syria. In a statement, it said that the crime should serve as an "alarm bell" for Lebanese authorities "to find the most appropriate way to confront these terrorist groups before it is too late."

Assassinations of politicians, army officers and journalists who support Assad's regime are common in Syria, but the killing of a well-known Syrian in Lebanon is rare.

Syria's conflict has cut deep fissures through Lebanon and exposed the country's split loyalties. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad, while Shiites generally back Hezbollah and the Syrian regime.

Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have left scores of people dead in recent months, and the violence has escalated as Hezbollah's role fighting alongside the Syrian regime has become public. The group was instrumental in helping secure a regime victory in the strategic town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon last month.

Naufal Daou, a member of the anti-Hezbollah political coalition in Lebanon, said that by defying the will of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah finds itself facing a real dilemma "inflicted on itself by its stubbornness ... and insistence to attach Lebanon's fate to that of rogue states and dying political regimes."

The slide in Lebanon toward violence is taking place amid a dangerous political void. Politicians have been unable to form a new government since outgoing premier Najib Mikati resigned in March. Parliament extended its mandate by a year and a half in June, skipping scheduled elections largely because of the instability in the country.

The country appears to be headed toward a security vacuum in September, when the term of army commander Gen. Jean Kahwaji expires. Politicians are divided over whether parliament should meet to extend his mandate.

Analysts say Hezbollah is unlikely to be affected by the wave of attacks targeting its strongholds.

"Hezbollah is very good at taking punches," said Wazne. He said the group feels stronger and more assured now that Assad has regained the momentum against rebels fighting to topple him, largely after the fall of Qusair.

Hezbollah's hard-core Shiite supporters are likely to rally further around the group following such attacks.

In other developments Wednesday, Kurdish gunmen captured most of a Syrian town near the border with Turkey after a day of fighting against jihadi groups in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Such clashes have been common over the past months in rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

The Observatory said the fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn between the pro-government militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant left at least 11 dead people dead, including nine extremists.

Stray bullets from the fighting killed a 17-year-old in a Turkish town, a Turkish official said. Turkey's military said it fired into Syria in retaliation for the killing.

The fighting broke out Tuesday after the Islamic fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol in the area, capturing a Kurdish gunman. Wide clashes broke out later in the day after the two extremist groups rejected a truce offer, according to the Observatory.

Syrian TV reported Wednesday that a car bomb went off near a mosque in the Damascus suburb of Kanakir, killing three people and wounding 10 others, including women and children.

---

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, contributed to this report.

Stray bullets from Syria kill two in Turkish border town

(Reuters) - A man and a 15-year-old boy were killed by stray bullets shot from Syria into a Turkish border town, officials said on Wednesday. Turkish troops returned fire, in the most serious spillover of violence in weeks.
The Turkish military said it acted in accordance with its rules of engagement after bullets fired from the adjacent Syrian town of Ras al-Ain hit police headquarters in the southeastern Turkish town of Ceylanpinar and houses in the town's center.
The incident, which took place on Tuesday, underscores growing concern that Syria's more than two-year-old civil war is dragging in neighboring states.
Kurdish fighters have been battling Islamist rebels in Ras al-Ain since Tuesday. Ceylanpinar is only meters (yards) across the frontier.
The boy underwent surgery after being hit in the head by a bullet, but died of his wounds on Wednesday. Security sources said clashes were still ongoing.
A local government official was lightly wounded by one bullet, the Turkish military said, but made no mention of any other casualties and gave no further details of any targets it had struck inside Syria.
Turkish troops have stepped up return fire into Syria in recent weeks due to what officials have said was heightened tension along the border and increased activity by smugglers, many of them armed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said Kurdish armed men had taken control of most of Ras al-Ain from Islamist rebel fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
The clashes between Kurdish fighters, who generally support the creation of an autonomous region within Syria, and Islamist Arabs started on Tuesday after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol and took a gunman hostage, the Observatory said.
Clashes between Kurds affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Syrian Kurdish party with links to Kurdish militants in Turkey, and anti-Assad Syrian and foreign fighters have erupted since Kurds began asserting control over parts of the northeast from late last year.
KURDISH PEACE PROCESS
With its own large Kurdish minority, Turkey has been watching closely, worried the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could further embolden militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighting for autonomy in Turkey.
The PKK called a ceasefire earlier this year but a recent increase in militant activity in southeastern Turkey is fuelling fears that a peace process with Ankara could unravel. Kurdish politicians in Turkey have expressed concern the government has not been enacting reforms to fulfill its side of the bargain.
On Wednesday, Turkey's main pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) issued a statement expressing concern over what it called Ankara's support for Nusra and other affiliated groups, and said such support was leading to instability in the region and was contrary to peace efforts with the PKK.
Turkey has emerged as one of the strongest backers of the Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, giving them shelter on its soil, but denies arming them. However, like its allies, Ankara has tried to distance itself from groups like Nusra.
Ras al-Ain, also known by its Kurdish name Serekani, and Ceylanpinar were once a single town under the Ottoman Empire before they were split after World War One, and both have Arab and Kurdish communities.
In the worst example of the spillover of violence into Turkey, 52 people were killed when twin car bombs ripped through Reyhanli, another border town, on May 11. Turkey accused Syria of involvement in the attacks but Damascus has denied any role.
Turkey, which is sheltering around 500,000 Syrian refugees, has become one of Assad's most vocal critics and has scrambled war planes along the border as stray gunfire and shelling hit its soil.
(Additional reporting and writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Robin Pomeroy)

more fighting in Aleppo city

Opposition fighters in Syria say they have captured most parts of Nawa city in Deraa province.
Meanwhile, there has been more fighting in Aleppo city, where opposition fighters say they have made gains.
Al Jazeera's Mohammad Vall reports.

Syria rebels reinforce key suburb in Damascus battle

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels poured reinforcements into a key Damascus suburb on Tuesday in an attempt to push back government troops who have renewed their campaign to secure the capital and build on battlefield gains elsewhere in the country.
Fighting centered on Qaboun, a rebel-held district where Syrian troops backed by tanks and artillery had made inroads on Monday as part of efforts to consolidate control over Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's power base.
After two years of rebel gains in a war that has cost more than 90,000 lives, the tide has turned somewhat for Assad's forces, allowing them to seize the city of Qusair last month and press on with a campaign to link Damascus to Assad's coastal strongholds.
In facing down the mainly Sunni rebels seeking to oust him, the Syrian leader has received important backing from Shi'ite Iran and from Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon as the war takes on an increasingly sectarian aspect.
At the same time, the rebels are plagued by infighting between Islamist groups and members of the more liberal Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the West and some Arab nations.
The increasingly fragmented and brutal nature of the war was illustrated by an incident in Homs province, where gunmen loyal to Assad shot dead at least six mediators sent to try to reconcile warring sectarian groups in an area where opposing sides had until now been able to coexist.
Residents said the killings on Monday evening in the village of Hajar al-Abyad highlighted the growing challenge of mediating between towns held by rebel groups and those controlled by pro-Assad militias known as "shabbiha".
In a separate incident near the Turkish border in the north, Islamist rebel fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front clashed with Kurdish armed men, who generally support the creation of an autonomous region within Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said the fighting broke out after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol and took a gunman hostage.
The Kurds said they had killed eight Nusra Front militants in what they said was a territorial dispute.
PRESSING CAMPAIGN
Assad's forces are pressing their campaign at a time when the Free Syrian Army has yet to receive weapons promised by Washington but delayed by objections by U.S. lawmakers.
A U.S. official said on Monday that the Obama administration had made progress in overcoming these concerns but some details remained unresolved.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers fear the weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist militants, and would not be enough to tip the balance against the better-equipped Syrian government anyway.
Britain, meanwhile, said it would give Syrian rebels equipment to protect themselves against chemical and biological weapons as "a matter of special urgency".
Britain has said forces loyal to Assad have made limited use of chemical weapons, which the Syrian government denies.
In an attempt at unity, the Syrian opposition now intends to create a 10-member executive council that can to draw together disparate factions into a more structured army with better financing and weapons, Michel Kilo, a senior opposition figure, told Reuters in Paris.
In Damascus, the latest fighting comes almost a year after one of the rebels' most spectacular attacks in the capital - a bomb attack last July 18 which killed several of Assad's most senior security officials and led some commentators to predict Assad would soon fall.
Abu Nidal, a rebel spokesman in Damascus, said on Tuesday that his fighters were trying to prevent the army advancing further into Qaboun, which it entered on Monday.
"Rebel reinforcements are entering the area," he told Reuters by Skype. "We expect the army to advance further into the area but they will be stopped."
The intensity of the fighting could be seen in footage posted on the internet by opposition activists.
The amateur video showed a large grey plume of smoke rising from a densely built residential area of Damascus. Mount Qasioun, which overlooks the capital, can be seen in the background.
Text accompanying the footage posted on Tuesday said the smoke came from a ground-to-ground missile fired into Qaboun.
ARMY CHECKPOINT
Elsewhere in the city, nine people including a child were killed at an army checkpoint, the Observatory said in a statement. Quoting activists in the area, the British-based group said they were all shot in the head.
It added that mortar bombs were being fired by the army into the southern district of Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of central Damascus that has fallen in and out of government and rebel control during the past year.
Activists and residents said also that at least five mortar shells hit the Damascus neighborhood of Masaken Barze, injuring several people.
Clashes and bombardment were reported by activists in nearly every province on Tuesday, from central Homs city to the northwestern farming province of Idlib to the eastern desert city of Deir al-Zor.
In the south of Syria near the Israeli border, the Observatory reported clashes between rebels and government forces in the village of al-Qahtaniya.
"Initial reports indicate that several fighters in the regime forces were killed, and some armored vehicles were destroyed," the Observatory said.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Car bomb kills women and children in Syria's south

(Reuters) - A car bomb killed several civilians, including women and children, in a town south of Damascus on Wednesday, Syrian state television said.
The car was parked near the Amari Mosque in Kanaker, the channel reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, quoted activists as saying seven people had died.
The small town is under the control of President Bashar al-Assad's forces but there are rebels in the surrounding area. The province around Damascus has seen intense fighting during the two-year conflict.
Syria's civil war started with pro-democracy protests that were suppressed by government forces. An ensuing civil war has killed 90,000 people and drawn in regional powers hoping to sway the outcome of the conflict.
Assad's forces, spurred on by a series of recent battleground victories, have staved off rebel advances near Damascus and further south of the capital, in areas near the Jordanian border. Insurgents have used car bombs to target areas they are not able to push into with ground forces.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Israel: Suspects from Syria enter Israel army post

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Two Syrian suspects briefly infiltrated an unmanned Israeli military post on the border between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, the military said Wednesday.

When Israeli troops approached the post, they were fired upon from inside Syria, prompting the soldiers to return fire, the army said. The suspects later left the post, it added. The incident took place late Tuesday, the army said.

It was not the first time suspects from Syria have tried to overrun unmanned Israeli posts since Syrian fighting erupted in 2011. Israel has been wary of Syrian violence spilling across the border into Israeli-controlled territory.

Syrian mortar shells have landed inside Israeli-held areas, but Israel believes them to be errant shots. Israel has occasionally accused Syria of aiming at Israeli targets, and Israeli troops have returned fire.

On Tuesday, the military said a number of what appeared to be mortar shells struck the Golan Heights, causing no damage.

Israel is believed to have carried out four airstrikes in Syria in recent months against weapons thought to be destined for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Prominent Assad supporter assassinated in Lebanon.

BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunmen assassinated a prominent Syrian pro-government figure at his home in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its smaller neighbor, security officials said.

Mohammed Darrar Jammo was gunned down, shot nearly 30 times, in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Assassinations of politicians, army officers and journalists who support President Bashar Assad's regime are not uncommon in Syria, but the killing of a well-known Syrian in Lebanon is rare.

Violence linked to Syria's civil war is increasingly washing across Lebanon, threatening to unleash large-scale fighting in the country. On Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a Hezbollah convoy near the Syrian border, while last week a car bomb in south Beirut wounded 53 people in the heart of the militant group's bastion of support.

Syria's conflict has cut deep fissures through Lebanon and exposed the country's split loyalties. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad in Syria, while Shiites generally back Hezbollah and the regime. Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have left scores of people dead in recent months, and the violence has escalated as Hezbollah's role fighting alongside the regime has become public.

Jammo, a 44-year-old political analyst who often appeared on Arab TV stations, was one of Assad's most vociferous defenders. In frequent appearances on television talk shows, he would staunchly support the Syrian regime's strong-armed response to the uprising and in at least one case shouted down opposition figures and called them "traitors."

His hard-line stance earned him enemies among Syria's opposition, and some in the anti-Assad camp referred to Jammo as "shabih," a term used for pro-government gunmen who have been blamed for some of the worst mass killings of the civil war.

Lebanon's state news agency published a photo Wednesday of a shirtless Jammo lying on a blue sheet stained with blood, his chest riddled with bullet wounds.

The Lebanese security officials said Jammo's Lebanese wife and daughter were both in the house at the time of the attack. His daughter was later rushed to the hospital after suffering from shock, the officials said.

They added that a Lebanese man was detained near Jammo's house in Sarafand shortly after the shooting and was being questioned.

Sarafand is in predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway and Assad enjoys wide support among the local people.

The militant group has taken on a major role in Syria's conflict on the side of Assad's forces, which has contributed to a spike in Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon. It has also prompted warnings from Syrian rebel groups, who have threatened to retaliate on Hezbollah's home turf.

Inside Syria on Wednesday, Kurdish gunmen captured most of a town near the border with Turkey after a day of fighting against jihadi groups in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Such clashes have been common over the past moths in rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

The Observatory said the fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn between the pro-government militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant left at least 11 dead people dead, including nine extremists.

The Observatory said the fighting was taking place a few hundred meters from a border crossing with Turkey. It said members of jihadi groups had to withdraw from the town to nearby villages. It said Kurdish gunmen captured a number of fighters in the area.

The fighting broke out Tuesday after the Islamic fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol in the area, capturing a Kurdish gunman. Wide clashes broke out later in the day after the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant rejected a truce offer, according to the Observatory.

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

Aleppo University has stripped Recep Tayyip Erdogan of an honorary doctorate.

Syria's Aleppo University has stripped Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of an honorary doctorate citing his support for Syrian rebels and crackdown on Turkish protesters, state media reported Tuesday.
State news agency SANA said Erdogan was being stripped of the PhD because of "his plots against the Syrian people" and his use of "arbitrary" violence against protesters in Turkey.
SANA quoted Khudur Orfaly, dean of Aleppo University, as describing the decision as "a message of solidarity to the friendly Turkish people, who reject Erdogan's hostile policies".
Relations between Syria and Turkey have deteriorated sharply since the uprising broke out against President Bashar al-Assad's rule in March 2011 and Erdogan became one of Assad's most outspoken critics.
Turkey is now home to more than 400,000 Syria refugees and harbours many of the opposition's top civilian and military leaders.
[AFP]

Britain rushing to issue Syria's rebel fighters with chemical warfare protection.

Britain says it is rushing to issue Syria's rebel fighters with chemical warfare protection, including escape hoods, drugs and chemical detector paper.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament Tuesday that roughly 655,000 pounds (nearly $1 million) worth of equipment would be sent to the rebels as "a matter of special urgency" because evidence suggests that Syrian President Bashar Assad has deployed chemical weapons against the opposition.
Syria is believed to have large stocks of the nerve gas sarin which Western powers, including the United States, say has been used to poison rebel fighters in urban areas.
Syrian officials deny the charge, alleging instead that rebels have used the arms against government forces.
Hoods and drugs can be used as short-term fixes to evade or treat sarin poisoning.
[AP]

Rebel infighting each other in Syria undermining revolt

BEIRUT (AP) -- On Syria's front lines, al-Qaida fighters and more mainstream Syrian rebels have turned against each other in a power struggle that has undermined the effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After violent clashes and the assassination of two rival commanders, one of whom was beheaded, more moderate factions are publicly accusing the extremists of trying to seize control of the rebellion.

The rivalries - along with the efforts by extremist foreign fighters to impose their strict interpretation of Islam in areas they control - are chipping away at the movement's popularity in Syria at a time when the regime is making significant advances on the ground.

"The rebels' focus has shifted from toppling the regime to governing and power struggles," said a 29-year-old woman from the contested city of Homs. "I feel that the lack of true leadership is and has always been their biggest problem." She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the fighters and the regime.

The infighting, which exploded into the open in the country's rebel-held north in recent days, is contributing to a sense across many parts of Syria that the revolution has faltered. It threatens to fracture an opposition movement that has been plagued by divisions from the start.

The moderates once valued the expertise and resources that their uneasy allies brought to the battlefield, but now question whether such military assets are worth the trouble - not to mention the added difficulty in persuading the West to arm them.

"We don't want foreign fighters. We have enough men and we want them out of Syria," said Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, head of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group for dozens of brigades.

In strikingly blunt comments in an interview with Al-Arabiya on Monday, Idris, a secular-minded army defector who has the backing of foreign powers, accused members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of being regime agents and "criminals."

That group, formed in April and made up of al-Qaida's branches in Iraq and Syria, has taken on an increasingly dominant role in the Syrian civil war. Many of its fighters are north Africans, Iraqis, Afghans and Europeans who have flocked to Syria to join the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad.

Gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were behind the killings of the two rebel commanders, the highest-profile casualties of the growing tensions between jihadi fighters and Western-supported rebels.

Kamal Hamami, known as Abu Basir, served in the Supreme Military Council. Activists say he was shot late Thursday in a clash that erupted after militants tried to remove a checkpoint he set up on the Jabal al-Turkoman mountain in the coastal province of Latakia. Two of his men were seriously wounded in the shooting.

Also last week, members of the extremist group killed Fadi al-Qish, the local commander of a group affiliated with the mainstream Free Syrian Army, or FSA. The fatal attack took place in the village of Dana in the northern province of Idlib near the Turkish border. Activists say the militants decapitated al-Qish and another fighter and left their severed heads on the ground as a lesson to other rebels who challenge their rule in the area.

The executions have enraged FSA commanders, who are demanding that the killers be handed over to stand trial.

Activists also say extremists have recently been sweeping into villages previously controlled by the FSA, taking over crucial resources such as bakeries, oil wells and water pumps to secure people's loyalties. In several cases, the militants were said to seize weapons from army bases and keep them from other rebels.

But what alienates the general population is the brutality. The extremists have carried out summary executions, public floggings and mass arrests, fueling the backlash against them.

In one prominent case in Aleppo last month, al-Qaida-linked militants executed a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Qattaa, accusing him of being an "infidel" for mentioning Islam's Prophet Muhammad in vain. Gunmen shot the boy dead in front of his parents near a stand where he sold coffee in a killing that sparked rare local protests against them.

In many parts of Aleppo and Idlib and Homs, where a suffocating stalemate has been in place since last year, residents say their support and patience for the rebels is fraying.

In Aleppo last week, residents staged a protest at a checkpoint against a blockade imposed by the militants on government-held districts, because the blockade created food shortages at the onset of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. The protest led to a physical quarrel between supporters and opponents of the siege and ended with gunshots fired in the air to disperse protesters.

Syria's uprising started in March 2011 as an Arab Spring-inspired revolt against the decades-long Assad family rule. It eventually transformed into an insurgency and civil war in response to a brutal government crackdown against the protests. More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes.

The rebels are a disparate mix of ordinary citizens who took up weapons, army defectors, moderates and hard-liners, and increasingly, jihadists who have trekked to Syria from all over the world. A shortage of weapons and the inability of external players to interfere in the conflict to tip the balance in favor of one side or another has worked against the rebels.

Some FSA commanders are trying to tamp down the dispute with the al-Qaida militants, mindful of the damage the infighting has done to their cause.

"Their actions are despicable, but we will not be drawn into a fight with them," said one commander, who declined to be named so as not to aggravate the situation.

FSA spokesman Loay al-Mikdad was less delicate.

"I think they should come out in public and tell the Syrian people why they are in Syria. Is it to fight Bashar Assad or to impose a specific agenda on the Syrian people?" he asked.

"We never see them on the battlefield anymore," he said of the al-Qaida militants. "We only see them in liberated areas either next to oil wells or trying to impose specific agendas on territories."

The dispute is not restricted to Islamic militants versus moderates. In the north, there has also been deadly infighting between Kurdish and Arab groups over control of captured territory along the border with Turkey.

"This infighting is very dangerous and is undermining our revolution," said Mohammed Kanaan, an activist based in the northern province of Idlib. "People are fed up and tired. ... They are starting to hate both sides," he said via Skype.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the al-Qaida militants are working to entrench themselves and secure a place in a post-Assad Syria.

"They are trying to control everything, they have a lot of money," most of it from private donations, he said.

Still, al-Mikdad ruled out a scenario similar to the Iraqi one, when U.S.-allied groups of Sunni fighters battled al-Qaida.

"Until now, the FSA does not consider itself in confrontation with these groups. Our weapons are directly only against Bashar Assad's troops," he said in a TV interview.

"But if a fight is imposed on us, we will defend ourselves," he said.

...............

 AP correspondent Yasmine Sakr contributed to this report.

Seven Members of Syrian war reconciliation group killed

BEIRUT (AP) -- Pro-government gunmen killed seven members of a local Syrian reconciliation group near the central city of Homs, activists said Tuesday, as troops shot dead nine people including a child at a checkpoint in a suburb of the capital.

The latest killings coincide with an offensive by President Bashar Assad's troops in Damascus and its surrounding suburbs, as well as in the strategic province surrounding Homs.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the seven men, including two retired army officers, were Sunni Muslims working to convince gunmen to drop their weapons and return to normal life. They were killed Monday in the village of Hajar Abyad, where residents are known to be regime supporters, it said.

Assad's troops have captured several nearby rebel-held areas in recent weeks including the towns of Qusair and Talkalkh near the border with Lebanon. Late last month, they launched an attack to try to capture rebel-held areas of Homs, Syria's third largest city.

They have also made headway against fighter brigades on the edge of Damascus and eastern suburbs.

The uprising against Assad's rule began in March 2011 and has deteriorated into an insurgency with increasingly sectarian overtones. Rebels, who are overwhelmingly Sunni, have been assisted by foreign fighters, while government forces have been bolstered by guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

The killing came three days after rebels attacked a nearby army checkpoint, killing seven people including members of the military. It was not immediately clear if Monday's killings were in retaliation for Friday's ambush.

A Syrian activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the gunmen who attacked the checkpoint had already been cleared by the committee as they have surrendered their arms.

The Observatory said the dead included two retired army officers, a mosque preacher and a former mayor.

In the Damascus suburb of Qarah, troops shot dead nine people including a child at an army checkpoint in the area, the Observatory said.

It was not clear whether those killed were fighters or civilians. An amateur video showed seven dead men, some of them with beards, and a boy with a bloodied face. The dead appeared to have suffered bullet wounds, some to the head.

"These are Bashar's crimes during Ramadan," a man could be heard saying in the video referring to the Muslim holy month that began last week.

The Observatory also reported fighting in the town of Qahtaniyeh on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said regime forces were attacking rebels in the town.

More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes in the conflict.

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

forcibly ejected 30 Syrians patients by lebanese hospital.

A Lebanese hospital has "forcibly"  ejected 30 Syrians patients wounded in violence in their country, an activist  said on Monday, while the hospital said they were discharged over unpaid bills.
"The Alameddin hospital in Minieh threw out 30 wounded Syrians from Qusayr"  on Sunday, Khaled Mustafa, director of an office helping refugees in northern
Lebanon, told AFP.
The hospital, in northern Lebanon, has hosted dozens of Syrians from the  town of Qusayr, a former rebel stronghold that fell to government troops last  month, prompting an exodus of residents.
"They were forcibly expelled and were insulted," Mustafa said, adding that  "80 percent of them were fitted with splints because of their serious  fractures."
"The splints were removed without any concern for their health."
"They wouldn't even let them take their personal belongings or their  x-rays," he added.
Mustafa said the patients - some of whom were observing the fasting month of Ramadan - were left to sit on a pavement for two hours before Red Cross ambulances arrived to take them to another hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli.

  AFP reports.