“U.S., Russia looking for pliant Syrian opposition”

Clockwise from top L.: Bogdanov with Rifaat al-Assad, Kassis, Muslim. Jamil, Tlass and Manna'

The leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today suggests in its front page lead that the Americans and Russians are working hand in hand to put together a pliant Syrian opposition to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Geneva.

The paper says U.S. and Russian representatives held talks this week with opposition figures outside the Syrian National Coalition of Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, which most Western and Arab countries recognize as sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

Asharq Alawsat’s report follows remarks by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov saying he would be meeting separately in Geneva Wednesday with each of:

Rifaat al-Assad, who fled Syria and went into exile in Europe in 1984 after staging a failed coup attempt against his brother Hafez al-Assad, the then president and father of Bashar. A sworn opponent of the current regime from which he has firmly distanced himself, there are no international sanctions against him. But human rights groups accuse him of playing a leading role in the bloody crushing of a 1982 uprising against his brother, in which tens of thousands were killed in Hama. He has denied the accusations.

More recently, French anti-corruption campaign groups have accused him of corruption, money laundering, embezzlement of public funds and misuse of corporate assets.

Siwar al-Assad, a son of Rifaat, told The New York Times in a telephone interview from Geneva his father wanted to attend the proposed peace talks, known as Geneva II, as an opposition figure whose presence would reassure government supporters and help bring about a compromise.

He said his father did not insist that President Assad step down as a prerequisite for talks.

“By putting preconditions, nothing will change, and every day people are dying,” Siwar al-Assad said, calling President Assad’s imminent departure “a fantasy” and adding, “I’m not pro-Bashar, but I’m a person who is realistic.”

It was unclear whether other parties would accept even sitting with Rifaat al-Assad at talks, much less whether talks will take place. But the Russian move was a sign of casting about for new ways to break the impasse.

The meeting between Rifaat al-Assad and Bogdanov drew scorn from many opponents of the president. They call Rifaat al-Assad the Butcher of Hama, a reference to his role in the bloody suppression of a violent uprising in that Syrian city in 1982.

Siwar al-Assad said his father did not want to be president and advocated a gradual handover of power under a transition council including government and opposition members, a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press and an independent judiciary, and transparent elections in which anyone, including Bashar al-Assad, could run. Asked if Rifaat al-Assad expected to meet soon with American officials, Siwar al-Assad told The NYT, “maybe.”

Manaf Tlass, a former Brigadier General of the elite Syrian Republican Guard and a member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle until his defection in July 2012. He is the son of Mustafa Tlass who served as defense minister for 32 years from 1972 to 2004.

Haytham al-Manna’ of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC), denies meeting Rifaat al-Assad in Geneva on Wednesday. “I am one of the people who started the criminal case against Rifaat al-Assad… I am still a member in Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) and not the commission to protect dictators.”

He said he does not have any contact with Rifaat or Qadri Jamil or any regime figure.

Saleh Muslim, leader of the Democratic Union Party, a Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and the most powerful member of the Kurdish opposition in the Syrian civil war

Qadri Jamil, one of the top leaders of the People’s Will Party and the Popular Front for Change and Liberation and a former member of the Assad government. Assad dismissed him last month from the post of deputy prime minister for economic affairs for acting without government permission when he met with U.S. officials in Geneva.

Ms Randa Kassis, president of the Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians and member of the Syrian National Council. She is also an anthropologist and journalist.

Syria troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi had hoped to hold the Geneva-2 peace conference this month.

But he said he was not able to announce a date, despite a day of meetings first with senior diplomats from the U.S. and Russia, then with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the UK, France and China -- as well as Syria's neighbors Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey.

Brahimi said he was still "striving" for a summit by the end of the year.

Attempts to set up a conference have been going on for months amid disputes over who should attend and its agenda.

The Syrian opposition has insisted President Assad should resign before any talks can take begin, but the government has rejected this.

The U.S. and Russia disagree on whether Syria's key regional neighbor Iran should be present.

The idea of a conference was first mooted in May, and in September UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a tentative date of mid-November after the Security Council passed a binding resolution on Syrian chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, aid agencies have warned that more than nine million Syrians, almost half the population, are now in need of humanitarian relief, and 6.5 million were now homeless within Syria.

Manaf Tlass goes back to the grind in Moscow

Elena Suponina photo of Manaf Tlass in Moscow

Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, Syria’s most prominent military defector and a former buddy of President Bashar al-Assad, is in Moscow for surprise talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and then with Lavrov’s deputy Mikhail Bogdanov.

Though Tlass is a Sunni Muslim, he commanded an elite unit of the Republican Guard, which is about 80 percent Alawite, the ethnic minority from which Assad and his inner circle are drawn.

The general's father, Mustafa Tlass, was Syria's longest serving defense minister, who helped to ensure Assad’s succession to the presidency in 2000 following the death of his father Hafez.

In announcing news of his impending talks with Lavrov, Voice of Russia describes Manaf Tlass as “one of Syria's most influential opposition leaders.”

It says he arrived in Moscow “recently” from Paris, where he set up home after his getaway from Syria last July.

According to Voice of Russia, powerbrokers pin “special hopes” on the general mediating between the warring sides and playing a key role in a Syria power transition.

“Gen. Manaf Tlass does not like to give interviews, and now during his visit to Moscow he is in no hurry to talk to the press. Nevertheless, he agreed to answer the questions of Elena Suponina, a political correspondent of the Voice of Russia”:

General Manaf Tlass, what is the purpose of your current visit to Moscow?

The purpose of my visit to Moscow is to help find a solution to the Syrian crisis. The bloodshed in Syria must be stopped. This vicious circle of violence needs to be broken. Russia’s political weight is great enough to help find the solution. And the solution lies in dialogue replacing continuation of the standoff.

What specifically is required of Russia?

Russia can help preserve Syria as a state. I mean its unity, its complex structure with all the ethnic and religious minorities, its infrastructure and secular nature. The state and the regime are not the same thing. We need to save the Syrian state, but not the ruling regime. One must presume that helping to preserve Syria as a state is possible only by disassociating oneself from the current regime.

The regime is trying to present the situation like there is supposedly no alternative to it other than the religious extremists or anarchy. We are saying that there is an alternative. There is a third side in Syria, which is not associated with the regime or the extremists. The majority of the Syrian people do not want to choose between these two extremes, but want to build their lives in a stable and safe country. And Russia could support the moderate forces in Syria, those who favor the happy medium.

A few days ago during his visit to Moscow, Syria's Foreign Minister Walid Muallem for the first time made some important statements about his government's readiness to start a dialogue with the opposition. What is your attitude to that?

I don't trust such statements. I very well know Syria's government structure from the inside. And I well remember during the entire crisis the government made repeated promises that gave hope but never fulfilled them. There has been too much lying from that government for us to believe it now.

In any case, there is the key precondition for the beginning of the dialogue – it is ceasefire in Syria. The warplanes need to stop bombing. The missile strikes need to cease. Look – recently Scud missiles at the government’s disposal attacked the city of Aleppo. I want to express my condolences to the residents of that city that were hurt, as well as to residents of the other attacked cities. What kind of dialogue can there be when the attacks continue?

How can a ceasefire be reached?

I believe this can happen under the auspices of the Russian-American cooperation and, of course, under the auspices of the United Nations Organization. The parties to the conflict cannot be guarantors of the ceasefire, and the regime even less so. The leading powers of the world can act as such guarantors.

But a part of the opposition is also opposed to the dialogue with the representatives of the government. What is your view on that?

The opposition is for democracy, which means that there can be and must be different opinions. But there are some points that everybody agrees upon. All opposition members want this regime to leave. And at the same time all opposition forces want the killing in Syria to stop, they want the bloodshed to stop.

Saudi Arabia stepping up a gear against Assad

Tlass on al-Arabiya, the tweet on his Saudi trip and the envoy who jumped ship

With fierce battles now raging for control of Syria’s two largest cities – Aleppo and the capital, Damascus – Saudi Arabia is stepping up a gear to oust the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass -- the highest-level defector from the Syrian regime now tipped to lead a political transition in Syria should Assad fall -- was said overnight to have arrived in Riyadh. (See the tweet in the collage above, as well my July 18 post, “Would Gen. Manaf Tlass ease Assad’s way out”).

Later in the day, he reportedly travelled on to Mecca to perform the Umrah (or lesser Hajj pilgrimage).

If confirmed, his trip to Saudi Arabia would have come hours after he went on the kingdom’s al-Arabiya TV news channel to call on Syrians to unite and start building a democratic post-Assad Syria.

Reading a prepared statement in his televised address, Tlass called on Syrians to “unite... to serve a post-Assad Syria... and do the impossible, to ensure the unity of Syria, and to be sure to start building a new Syria.”

Tlass, a Sunnite member of Assad’s inner circle and commander of one of Syria’s elite Republic Guard units who moved to France earlier this month, said he was “reaching out to (Syrians) in these difficult times for the country, as the blood of its innocents is being shed, when their only crime was to call for freedom.”

He said the “new Syria ... should not be built on revenge, exclusion or monopoly.”

He said he was speaking as “one of the sons of the Syrian Arab army, who has rejected this regime's criminal and corrupt ways ... and who cannot accept its crimes against our country...

“Whatever mistakes made by some members of the Syrian Arab army ... those honorable troops who have not partaken in the killing ... are the add-on to the (opposition) Free Syrian Army.”

Tlass, son of Mustafa Tlass who served as defense minister for 30-odd years under Assad’s father Hafez, said it was “the duty of Syrians to unite, to build a free, democratic Syria.”

The report about Tlass’ trip to Saudi Arabia comes hot on the heels of news that:

(1) Saudi Arabia is drafting a resolution on the situation in Syria for a UN General Assembly meeting next Monday (July 30). The kingdom’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Abdullah Y. al- Mouallimi, called for the General Assembly meeting and is penning the draft resolution in his capacity as chairman of the Arab League caucus at the world body. The draft resolution would restate the position of the Arab League Council of Foreign Ministers offering Assad a safe exit, warning him against using chemical weapons, and pressing for humanitarian corridors and security zones in Syria.

(2) Two more Syrian ambassadors have crossed the aisle to the opposition. They include Lamia al-Hariri, a niece of Syria’s Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa who headed the embassy in Cyprus, and her husband Abdullatif Dabbagh, who was ambassador to the UAE. Syria’s ambassador to Iraq, Nawwaf Faris, was the first to join the opposition this month. All three have now relocated to Qatar.

(3) The equivalent of some $50 million were raised across Saudi Arabia in the first 48 hours of a five-day public campaign for Syrian humanitarian aid ending early Friday. King Abdullah ordered the nationwide campaign on Monday -- the day he also called for a summit of Muslim nations in mid-August possibly linked to the Syria crisis. The monarch had days earlier appointed Assad’s nemesis Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States for 22 years, as the new chief of General Intelligence.

Mohammed Ballout, in his column this morning for the Beirut daily as-Safir, says whereas France is pressing the Syrian opposition to set up a coalition government for the political transition, the United States “prefers to see a military council” lead the transition in Syria (much as Egypt’s SCAF, or Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, oversaw the transition from Hosni Mubarak to Mohamed Morsy).

Ballout says Manaf Tlass is Washington’s preferred candidate to head the proposed military council. The Americans “believe he is best suited to convince senior officers in the president’s immediate circle to depose him.”

Separately, Mustafa al-Sheikh, one of the first generals to jump ship, eventually taking charge of the Free Syrian Army's military council, told al-Arabiya, “Tlass does not have Syrian blood on his hands… He will link up with the revolution and play a role.”

Syria the morning-after: Who, why and what next

Map from BBC co.uk

It’s time for the “morning-after pill.”

Supporters of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad are wailing and his opponents gloating over the killing of three men at the heart of his crisis team.

The three men killed in still unexplained circumstances at a meeting of the crisis team at national security headquarters in Damascus are:

1. Defense Minister and ex-chief of staff Gen Daoud Rajha
2. Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, who is married to Assad's sister Bushra, and
3. Gen Hassan Turkmani, assistant to the vice-president and head of the crisis management office.

Two other senior officials -- Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shaar and National Security Bureau chief Hisham Ikhtiar -- were among the wounded.

In neighboring Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemned what he termed a targeted killing: "We are going to miss them and we offer our condolences to the Syrian leadership and the Syrian army."

Assef Shawkat and Hezbollah

Ibrahim al-Amin, editorial chairman of Lebanon’s daily al-Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah and speaks for the Assad regime, goes further in his leader comment, titled, “The Damascus Crime: A new chapter of blood and tears.”

Al-Amin writes in part:

The blow is hard. What happened is not surprising in the context of the Syria crisis. But it’s a major development that hit pillars of the regime in Syria…

The question is what next?

The debate will slump to tell tales and scenarios ranging from conspiracy theories to long hands that reached the higher echelons of government. In the end, however, the incident remains a potent security operation that can be mounted by a small group, particularly that security measures surrounding leadership command centers are not as tight as imagined, given Syria’s current circumstances.

Assuming the perpetrators were professional, their mission would have been made so much easier by information provided by a global web of intelligence networks. Their aim is to bring down the regime by killing its icons.

It’s been months since the Syrian leadership was forewarned of security operations targeting security leaders and even President Assad personally. And success of yesterday’s bombing underscores the perseverance of the enforcers. It also gives added evidence that global stakeholders and some Syrian opposition groups are bent on a bloody ending to the crisis.

Opponents of the regime in Syria and their Arab and international backers simply don’t want a political settlement. All they want is to eradicate the regime. For them, the war currently underway is an existential war. Consequently, they are not interested in either political initiatives or dialogue.

Among those killed in yesterday’s Damascus outrage was someone who was the ceaseless focus of security, political and media scrutiny.

He was Assef Shawkat, the most controversial figure by virtue of his range of key positions.

The man’s demonization by the United States, Israel and their lackeys in the region did not stop for one day.

He was a true partner of the (Hezbollah) Resistance in Lebanon. He never waited for a demand or recommendation from higher up to help the Resistance.

He was a central player in the (July 2006) war by Israel.

Throughout the fighting, he remained seated in the central operations room on orders from President Assad. He supplied the Resistance with the weapons it needed, chiefly quality rockets.

Together with the late Gen. Mohamed Suleiman, who Israel assassinated on Syria’s coastline in 2008, Assef Shawkat spent weeks following up the delivery of quality weapons to the Resistance, smoothing the latter’s way to rout Israel.

The whodunit

In his front-page comment, Abdelbari Atwan, publisher and editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi, zooms in on the whodunit.

He begins by recalling the January 1986 “massacre with tea” in Aden by President Ali Nasser Muhammad of his rivals. A violent struggle ensued and Ali Nasser fled to North Yemen before settling in Damascus as a protégé of Hafez Assad.

Atwan says he evokes the incident after following news of the “mysterious” bombing of the crisis team meeting at the national security headquarters in Damascus.

“Conspiracy theorists say the perpetrator is the regime, or one of its offshoots, amidst non-stop reference to an inner circle power struggle pitting the president’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat against the president’s biological brother Maher Assad, who is Fourth Division chief and the muscle behind the throne.”

In their opinion, Atwan continues, the deadly attack came within two weeks of the flight to France of Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, commander of the most important Republican Guard unit, after his fallout with the president’s younger brother Maher. (See my earlier post, “Would Gen. Manaf Tlass ease Assad’s way out?”)

Atwan says talk is rife of both West and East condoning a palace coup in Damascus. “There are also rumors of Assef Shawkat having been in contact with Paris for years and that he may have been instrumental in smuggling out Manaf” to Paris.

Would Gen. Manaf Tlass ease Assad’s way out?

The Syria uprising entered a dramatic new phase with today’s killing in a bomb attack in the heart of Damascus of at least four of President Bashar al-Assad's top security aides.

They are Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajha; his deputy Assef Shawkat (who is Assad's brother-in-law); former defense minister and current Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani; and Hafez Makhlouf, head of Intelligence Agency investigations and brother of business tycoon Rami Makhlouf.

Several security officials were also seriously wounded in the attack, including Intelligence chief Hisham Bekhtyar and Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar.

The attack on the headquarters of Syria's National Security Council in the Rawda area is a deadly blow to the heart of the regime after two recent high-level defections – by Syria's ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf al-Faris, and a Republican Guard general, Manaf Tlass.

News of the devastating blow to Assad’s regime broke while I was working on the post below. For a while, I thought the post has probably been overtaken by events.

I doubt, but I leave it to the reader to judge:

Manaf Tlass (right) with Hafez and Bashar al-Assad

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) oversaw the transition in Egypt from Hosni Mubarak to Mohamed Morsy.

Would world powers refine the SCAF template and choose a body of senior officers in the Syrian military to oversee a Syria transition plan?

If so, would Brig-Gen. Manaf Tlass, a Sunnite member of President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and commander of one of Syria’s elite Republic Guard units who moved to France earlier this month, turn into Syria’s Hussein Tantawi?

Tlass yesterday called for a political transition in Syria and condemned military attacks on civilians in a statement sent to AFP.

Expressing anger that security forces were being used to suppress dissent, he said the regime held “the major responsibility” for the crisis and confirmed he was in Paris.

“I sincerely hope the blood stops flowing and the country emerges from the crisis through a phase of constructive transition that guarantees Syria its unity, stability and security, as well as the aspirations of its people,” said Tlass, a childhood friend of Assad.

“I am ready like any other Syrian, with no other ambition, to fulfill my civic duty to contribute to a better future for my country, as much as I can, and like all those... who have already made many sacrifices,” he said.

However, he did not specifically call for Assad to step down or say he was joining the Syrian opposition.

“I cannot but express my anger and pain at seeing the army pushed to carry out a fight that is against its principles, a fight directed by security forces and in which the people, including the soldiers, are the victims,” he said.

“When I took a position and refused to take part in the security action, I was isolated, accused and even labeled a traitor,” he said. “But my conscience, my deep conviction, pushed me to challenge this destructive action and to distance myself.”

Tlass said in the statement sent to AFP: “Faithful to my country and my beliefs, I always tried over the past 18 months to do my duty, unfortunately without success. I was not complacent with the regime, I did not accept nor participate in an action that led the country to its current tragic situation.”

Writing for today’s edition of the Lebanese pro-Assad daily al-Akhbar, Nasser Sharara gives an invaluable insight into the reasons behind Tlass’ flight to France.

My synopsis of Sharara’s 1,700-word account:

To this day, the way Manaf Tlass left Damascus remains a mystery to the Syrian security services.

He may have left via Lebanon. What is certain is that on the day news broke of Manaf having left Syria, his wife and young son who were in Beirut were driven by “M.H.” to Rafik Hariri International airport. There, they boarded a flight to Paris under their real names: “Tala Ahmad Khair (maiden name of Manaf’s wife) and (her son) Ahmed Manaf Tlass.”

In Damascus, however, officials still have reservations about calling Manaf a “traitor.” It seems “they’re still betting on keeping him close to President Assad whether he returns to Syria or stays abroad.”

Manaf did not break with Assad. He kept saying his clash was with the security services bigwigs who had Assad’s ear.

He complained to visitors, “The three closest persons to the late Hafez Assad were Sunnites. With the president now, I rank ninth.”

Manaf’s disaffection was with “the political solution saboteurs.” Media reports that he sulked at home after taking off his military uniform are false. Even when slamming “spoilers” in the security services, he kept turning out at his office in the presidential palace and at the headquarters of Presidential Guard Unit #105, which he commanded.

Throughout his disaffection, Manaf remained in contact and on good terms with Assad, whom he always addressed as “Boss.” He also kept repeating, “I can play the role of a go-between, connecting the Sunnite opposition in particular with President Assad. I played that role before. The Boss mandated me earlier to do just that. But opponents of a political solution sabotaged my task for fear of losing their vested interests in case a settlement is reached. That’s why I bowed out.”

In early 2012, Manaf got wind of a Moscow-backed suggestion by world stakeholders to solve the Syria crisis by a agreeing a mixed military council to oversee a political transition. The council would consist of officers from the various sects and mirror Egypt’s SCAF. People who heard him discuss this felt he was thrilled by the idea, “perhaps because he was promised a key role in the council.”

Recommended link:

An Alawite State in Syria?