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| Missing: Farouk al-Sharaa (left) and Abdullah al-Ahmar |
Syrian armed forces deployed near the borders with
Jordan and Turkey have reportedly been put on high alert.
The $64,000 question is whether the measure is meant
to block or slow the torrent of Syrian refugees flooding the two countries or
seal escape routes for defectors, chiefly Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa.
Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu said in remarks published today his country cannot handle more
than 100,000 Syrian refugees and instead proposes a UN buffer zone inside Syria
to shelter them.
“If the number of
refugees increases to 100,000, we will not be able to shelter them in Turkey.
We have to welcome them in Syrian territory” under UN auspices, Davutoglu told
the Turkish daily Hurriyet.
Davutoglu urged the UN
to set up refugee camps “within the borders of Syria” in order to contain the
number of Syrians fleeing their country.
The exodus of refugees to
Turkey has intensified in the past week as a result of the battle for Aleppo,
reaching a total of 70,000.
Jordan’s government
spokesman has meanwhile sternly criticized Damascus for artillery shelling on
its northern border that wounded a Jordanian girl and panicked other civilians.
Sameeh Ma’aytah says
the government summoned the Syrian ambassador in Amman to hand him a letter of
protest late yesterday. Amman is awaiting a formal response from Syria.
Four shells landed in
Jordan on Sunday during clashes between the Syrian military and rebel forces on
the Syrian side of the border.
Ma’aytah said Jordan
protests what took place and “will ensure this does not happen again.”
Last month, Syrian
troops killed a six-year-old Syrian boy fleeing to Jordan.
From April to August, the number of Syrians
registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and
Iraq nearly quadrupled, from 40,000 to more than 155,000. About 75 percent are
believed to be women and children.
Community-based organizations say there are
many more Syrians who have not registered, either because they are afraid, they
are far from the registration centers, or they do not see any benefit to doing
so.
The numbers have been a point of contention.
The Jordanian government, for example, says 150,000 Syrians are on its
territory, but observers question whether they are all refugees or if some are
simply migrants or businessmen who regularly cross the border. In Lebanon,
observers say the opposite, that the Beirut government is downplaying the
numbers to avoid upsetting the unstable political balance in the country.
Syrians are increasingly seeking refuge
beyond the region. Sources close to the Algerian Ministry of Interior have
estimated that 12,000 Syrians have entered the country, with other estimates as
high as 25,000.
Eurostat, the statistical office of
the European Union, reported that an average of 1,000 Syrian asylum seekers
have arrived in Europe per month so far this year.
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| Barak, Clinton & Sharaa (syrianhistory.com photos) |
Meanwhile, I suspect Sharaa, the Syrian vice
president, has effectively jumped ship and is now holed up in a bordertown. I
hear he is in the safe hands of members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who are
trying to secure his safe exit to a neighboring country.
Sharaa exiting Syria via Iraq or Lebanon
would be foolhardy as both countries’ governments are allied to Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and under Iran’s thumb. His escape through the
occupied Golan being implausible leaves Jordan and Turkey as his two viable
options.
The intense media focus on Sharaa can be explained by the fact he is the
highest-ranking Sunnite Muslim figure in Assad’s minority
Alawite-led regime.
He has been vice
president since February 2006 and previously served as foreign minister for
some 21 years both under the current Assad and his father Hafez.
He was Syria’s chief
peace negotiator with Israel’s Ehud
Barak at December1999 and January 2000 talks brokered by then U.S.
President Bill Clinton.
Sharaa was last
seen in public last month for the state funeral of leading
regime security chiefs killed in
a July 18 bomb attack in Damascus.
His elevation to the
vice presidency followed the June 2005 resignation of veteran incumbent Abdul Halim Khaddam,
who broke with the regime soon afterwards and went into self-exile in France.
Sharaa was born in
December 1938 and hails from Deraa, the cradle of the uprising,
A married father of two,
he served on the ruling Baath Party’s central committee for decades.
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| Ahmar (left) with Hafez and Bashar Assad (1994). Inset, at Hafez's 1971 inauguration (syrianhistory.com photos) |
Like Sharaa, Ahmar is a
Sunnite Muslim. Born in 1936 at al-Tal, near Damascus, he was elected with
Hafez Assad to the Baath Party regional command in 1970.
