Russia submits new draft resolution on Syria to the UN
• Syria's divisions appear to be deepening, Ian Black reports
• UN to train Arab League observers
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Here's a summary of the main developments today:
Syria
• The leader of the Free Syrian Army has called on the Arab League to refer Syria to the UN security council. Speaking to Reuters, Colonel Riad al-Asaad said: "We call on them to turn the issue over to the UN security council and we ask that the international community intervene because they are more capable of protecting Syrians at this stage than our Arab brothers."
• Syria's foreign ministry has said it "categorically rejects" the idea of Arab League troops being sent into the country, the state news agency reports. The foreign ministry was quoted as saying it is "surprised by the statements of Qatari officials which call for sending Arab forces to it [Syria], and it categorically rejects such calls which would aggravate the situation, hinder the joint Arab work and open the door wide for the foreign interference in Syria's affairs".
• Fighting between defected soldiers and the regular Syrian army appears to be getting closer to Damascus. The state news agency blamed terrorists for the killing of six soldiers including a brigadier general six miles south-west of the capital. Activists claim the Free Syrian Army is holding off a government assault in Zabadani north west of Damascus. Around 500 military defectors are protecting Deir Ezzor in the east as well, a political activist from one of the province's major tribes told the National.
• UN officials are trying reword a new draft resolution on Syria put forward by Russia which has consistently blocked UN attempts to condemn the Assad regime. One diplomat dismised the resolution as "playing for time". The new draft is heading for "diplomatic limbo" according to the Russian press agency RIA Novosti.
• A dispute has broken out over control of the British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, one of the main sources of information on the crackdown in Syria. Two rival websites have been set up claiming to represent the true voice of the Observatory. Prominent Syria experts have given their backing to human rights campaigner Rami Abdulrahman whose organisation suggested the Syrian regime and its supporters were behind the rival website.
Egypt
• The lawyer for Hosni Mubarak has described the ousted dictator as "a clean man who could say no wrong", as he opened the case for the defence. The prosecution is calling for the death penalty for Mubarak, who is charged with complicity in the killing of hundreds of protesters during an 18-day uprising that toppled his 29-year, authoritarian regime last February. Farid el-Deeb told the court Mubarak "has been mauled by malicious talk. He has been targeted from all directions and his reputation has been hit by tongues and pens." The trial has been adjourned until Wednesday.
Bahrain
• Bahrain is to introduce a law banning children from taking part in political gatherings, rallies and demonstrations, Trade Arabia reports. Human Rights and Social Development Minister Dr Fatima Al Balooshi said the bill would protect the rights of children but activists say a number of children been harmed by security forces cracking down on opposition on behalf of the government.
Yemen
• Yemen's opposition has accused the party of outgoing president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, of wanting to tear up the Gulf-brokered initiative for the transfer of power after the foreign minister said the presidential election could be delayed because of security concerns. Ghalib al-Odainy, a spokesman for the opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), said the aim of the foreign minister's statement was to put the country in chaos and then avoid the Gulf initiative and the presidential elections".
The death toll has risen rapidly in Syria today, according to activists.
The Local Co-ordination Committees say 30 people have been killed including two children, a young man with a disability, and four army recruits. They say 18 people have been killed in Homs and seven in Idlib. The Syrian Revolution Co-ordinators Union puts the number of people killed at 32.
These reports cannot be independently verified.
Syria's state news agency reports an attack on a bus which bears striking similarities to one highlighted by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
It is unclear whether they are both referring to the same attack. The Observatory posted footage of the wreckage of a bus (see 3.31pm). It said a device exploded on the mini-bus on the Idlib-Aleppo motorway, killing at least eight people. It did not identify the victims or the perpetrators.
The report on the Sana website says:
Four citizens were martyred and seven others were injured in Idlib when a bomb planted by an armed terrorist group exploded to the right side of the road linking Idlib and Saraqeb in the vicinity of Majarz Town Crossroads.
The martyrs are Haitham Okla al-Issa, Mohammad Ibrahim al-Ahmad, Mohammad Wasim Badawi, and Yousef Marandi.
A police source indicated that the bomb exploded when a microbus was transporting passengers from Saraqeb to Idlib, adding that the bomb was exploded through a remote control.
Although the roads referred to in the two reports appear to be different, the other details suggest they may well be talking about the same incident.
Syria has categorically rejected the idea of Arab League troops being sent into the country, the state news agency reports.
Sana says the foreign ministry "is surprised by the statements of Qatari officials which call for sending Arab forces to it [Syria], and it categorically rejects such calls which would aggravate the situation, hinder the joint Arab work and open the door wide for the foreign interference in Syria's affairs".
Qatar, which sent troops into Libya to help topple Gaddafi, is also one of the most hawkish countries within the Arab League when it comes to Syria.
Steven Cook from the US thinktank the Council of Foreign Relations makes the case for international intervention in Syria.
Writing in the Atlantic he dismisses concerns that such move risk repeated the mistakes of the Iraq invasion.
There are actually few analogies to the Iraq experience. Unlike Saddam at the time of the invasion, Assad is engaged in the mass killing of his own people; unlike Operation Iraqi Freedom, there is a chance that the Arab League would support a humanitarian intervention in Syria, and any military operations could be undertaken multilaterally. Getting a UN Security Council resolution would be tough given Chinese and especially Russian opposition, but without being too Rumsfeldian, does every military intervention require a UN writ? It is certainly preferable, but not a requirement ..
If there is no intervention and political will to stop Assad's crimes remains absent, the world will once again have to answer for standing on the sidelines of a mass murder. It is also hard to ignore the possibility that bringing down Assad would advance the long-standing American goal of isolating Iran. Any post-Assad government in Damascus would not likely look to Iran for support, but instead to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That would be a net benefit for Washington and others looking to limit Iran's influence in the Arab world.
Marc Lynch, a fellow contributor to Foreign Policy magazine, provides this riposte to Cook.
Risky, costly foreign policy decisions can not simply be taken to express moral outrage. They need to have a serious chance of success. None of the military options currently under discussion have a reasonable chance of improving the situation at an acceptable cost, and their failure would likely pave the way to something far worse.Military intervention in Syria has little prospect of success, a high risk of disastrous failure, and a near-certainty of escalation which should make the experience of Iraq weigh extremely heavily on anyone contemplating such an intervention. There is no magic number of deaths at which the U.S. must embark on a self-defeating and foolish adventure.
Prominent Syria experts have given their backing to human rights campaigner Rami Abdulrahman in a dispute over control of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Advancement of Arab Understanding, said:
I have seen nothing from his organisation that brings into question the credibility and professionalism of what he does.
He said there was no evidence that Abdulrahman had an association with Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Bashar al-Assad, as a rival member of the Observatory claimed.
Sheila Mosley, co-chair of Support Kurds in Syria, said:
Rami Abdulrahman's credibility and integrity are in tact. He is reporting on human rights issues whether in the opposition or people in the Syrian army. He has reported deaths among the army, which is not a popular move among a lot of activists.
If you look at the things that have been thrown up against Rami, one by one they are not true. They are just coming up with other stories to bash his credibility because they want to shut him up.
Mousab Azzawi, who claims to speak for the genuine Observatory, said Abdulrahman does not provide names of people he claims have been killed in Syria. Azzawi who has set up a rival website (syriahr.org as opposoed to Abdulrahman's sryriahr.com) claimed to be the official Observatory, said: "Our updates about the revolution are clear and transparent."
He claimed Abdulrahman inflated the death toll of an alleged sectarian incident in Homs last year, when he claimed 39 people were killed. "That number was not correct. The actual number was six."
Azzawi admitted that it was incorrect to claim that Abdulrahman could not communicate in English. He could also provide no evidence for his claim that Abdulrahman had links to Rifaat al-Assad.
On the Facebook page of Abdulrahman's organisation "a clarification" has been published, which implies that the Syrian regime is behind the attacks on his credibility. It reads:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stresses that since the start of the Syrian Revolution the Syrian regime and some of its loyalists, who live in Britain, are trying the discredit the Observatory and distort its image by launching websites using the name of the organisation, speaking to the foreign media on behalf of the Observatory, and making statements which are not related to the reports and the data issued by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights regarding human rights violations inside Syria.
In another post on the Facebook page it says at least eight people were killed when a device was exploded inside a mini-bus on the Idlib-Aleppo motorway. It posted this video showing the wreckage of the bus and what appears to be blood.
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