WASHINGTON/DAMASCUS: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime will inevitably collapse in the face of mounting protests, the US spy chief said on Tuesday.
“I do not see how he can sustain his rule of Syria,” James Clapper, director of national intelligence, told senators. “I personally believe it’s a question of time but that’s the issue, it could be a long time.”
The opposition was “fragmented” but was piling growing pressure on Assad, said Clapper, adding that it remained unclear what would follow after the Syrian leader’s departure. CIA director David Petraeus, testifying at the same hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also described the regime as increasingly at risk.
The opposition had displayed “resilience” and the regime now faced challenges in Damascus and Aleppo, two cities that had been seen as insulated from the unrest, said Petraeus, a retired four-star general who served as commander in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I think it has shown indeed how substantial the opposition to the regime is and how it is in fact growing and how increasing areas are becoming beyond the reach of the regime security forces,” he said.
The fall of Assad’s regime would deliver a major blow to Iran, which relies on Syria as a vital logistics link to Hizbullah in Lebanon, he said.
Meanwhile, Syria’s opposition urged the international community to act and deplored its failure to stop “massacres” amid spiralling violence ahead of a UN Security Council showdown on Tuesday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in neighbouring Jordan for talks on Middle East peace, urged the Security Council to overcome bitter differences over Syria to increase pressure to end the bloodshed.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leading a Western charge to press Russia to back Security Council action to stop a crackdown on dissent the United Nations says has killed more than 5,400 people in the past 10 months.
Veto-wielding Russia has objected to a resolution introduced by Morocco which calls for the regime to put an immediate stop to violence against protesters and for President Bashar al-Assad to hand power to his deputy.
“I don’t think Russian policy is about asking people to step down. Regime change is not our profession,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, stressing that while the Syrian president was not an ally, it was not up to other nations to interfere.
The text seen by AFP calls for the formation of a unity government leading to “transparent and free elections,” while stressing there will be no foreign military intervention in Syria. Assad’s government has already flatly rejected a similarly worded resolution proposed by the Arab League.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, said on Tuesday that pushing the resolution through would be the “path towards civil war” in a country where an increasingly bold insurgency is harrowing regime forces.
The opposition Syrian National Council deplored the international community’s lack of “swift action” to protect civilians “by all necessary means,” in a statement on Facebook. The SNC, the most representative group opposed to Assad, reaffirmed the “people’s determination to fight for their freedom and dignity,” stressing they “will not give up their revolution, whatever the sacrifices.”
The head of the now defunct Arab League observer mission to Syria, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, said there had been a marked upsurge in violence since last Tuesday. Nearly 400 people have been killed since.
On Monday alone, almost 100 people, including 55 civilians, were killed during a regime assault on the city of Homs, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The unrest, which also saw 25 soldiers killed, marked one of the bloodiest days of a revolt that erupted in March, inspired by a wave of Arab uprisings that last year overthrew authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
On Tuesday, at least 22 people were killed, all but one of them civilians, the Observatory said. Seven civilians and a soldier were killed in Idlib province in the northwest and 14 civilians were killed in Homs.
