OSLO: It is just a matter of time before the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad falls because its use of massive force is mobilizing insurgents, General Robert Mood, the former head of the U.N. monitoring mission in Syria, said on Friday.
Mood left Syria after his 90-day mission expired – the mandate was renewed on July 20 for 30 days – and has been replaced by Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, who has already taken up his post in Damascus.
“In my opinion it is only a matter of time before a regime that is using such heavy military power and disproportional violence against the civilian population is going to fall,” the Norwegian general, who left Damascus on Jul 19, told Reuters.
“Every time there are 15 people killed in a village, 500 additional sympathizers are mobilized, roughly 100 of whom are fighters,” Mood said.
However, the authoritarian Syrian leader is probably secure in the short term because he has the military capability to hold off the rebels and his eventual fall could be months or even years away, Mood said.
“In the short term it may very well be possible for him to (hold on), because the military capabilities of the Syrian army are much much stronger than those of the opposition,” Mood said.
“The minute you see larger military formations leaving the ranks of the government to join the opposition, then that is when it starts accelerating … This could last for months or even years,” he said.
A Syrian parliamentarian representing the northern province of Aleppo said on Friday that she had defected to Turkey, becoming the first member of the rubberstamp assembly elected in May and dominated by President Bashar al-Assad’s Baath Party to defect.
“I have crossed to Turkey and defected from this tyrannical regime … because of the repression and savage torture against a nation demanding the minimum of rights,” Ikhlas al-Badawi told Sky News Arabia.
One of the most senior figures to defect from Assad’s inner circle, Brigadier General Manaf Tlas, has put himself forward as someone who could help unify the opposition inside and outside Syria on a plan for a transfer of power.
Russia, one of the few remaining allies of the authoritarian Assad, whose family has run Syria for 42 years, said calls for him to quit power were hindering efforts to end the conflict.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such calls, led by the United States, Turkey and other Western and Arab nations, were fanning violence. He reiterated Moscow’s contention that support for Syrian rebel groups was tantamount to backing terrorism.
Germany said Russian and Chinese backing for Syria was a big problem. “For this reason we urge them to recognise that the time of the Assad regime is over,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told German TV.
The US has said it is stepping up assistance to Syria’s fractured opposition, although it remains limited to non-lethal supplies such as communications gear and medical equipment. It is not clear whether Obama has signed the document, and US officials declined to comment on whether they will offer help or not. (Reuters)