Assad replaces defence minister, isolation grows

AFP/Damascus

Lebanese and Syrian protesters demonstrate against the Syrian regime in downtown Beirut yesterday

President Bashar al-Assad named a new defence minister yesterday as he faced regional isolation after three Gulf states recalled their envoys and Sunni Islam’s top authority urged an end to Syria’s bloodshed. The announcement came as rights activists said security forces shot dead at least eight people including a mother and her two children in the eastern city of Deir Al Zor, where 42 people were reported killed in an army assault on Sunday. State television said Assad signed a decree naming General Daood Rajha, 64, the former army chief, to replace General Ali Habib as defence minister. Assad’s move was in line with decisions taken after meetings with residents of protest hubs to make changes in top state posts, it said. On the diplomatic front, the recall of ambassadors by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain marked a major escalation of pressure on Assad. The regime’s repression of Syria’s pro-democracy uprising has left at least 2,059 people dead, including almost 400 members of the security forces, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Announcing the recall of his ambassador from Syria, the Saudi king urged Damascus to “stop the killing machine and the bloodshed... before it is too late” and called for “comprehensive and quick reforms.” “The future of Syria lies between two options: either Syria chooses willingly to resort to reason, or faces being swept into deep chaos, God forbid,” the king warned. Fellow Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states Kuwait and Bahrain also recalled their envoys from Damascus. “The military option must be halted,” Kuwait’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed al-Sabah told reporters. The US reaction was that it was “encouraged, heartened” by a tougher stand from Arab countries. “We are very much encouraged, heartened by the strong statements that we’ve seen over the weekend by the Arab League as well as by the Gulf Co-operation Council,” US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said. Al Azhar, the Cairo-based top Sunni authority, also piled the pressure on the Assad regime, terming the crackdown a “tragedy” that “has gone too far.” Al Azhar “asks Syrian leaders to work immediately to end the bloodshed and to respond favourably to the legitimate demands of the Syrian masses,” said the grand imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb. Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi urged Syria to launch a “serious dialogue” with protesters who have rallied almost daily since mid-March, urging democratic reforms in a country ruled by Assad’s Baath party for nearly 50 years. “When people take to the streets... and seek change, presidents and governments must reach that solution through dialogue without making use of violence or force,” Arabi told reporters. But there was more bloodshed yesterday in Syria, with the Observatory reporting that seven people were killed, including the mother and her two children shot dead as they were fleeing a military assault on Deir Al Zor. Later, a sniper shot dead an 18-year-old woman in the city, the largest in eastern Syria, and an elderly woman was killed in the Al Jura district, the Observatory said, quoting local residents. It also reported that security forces shot dead three people in the southern protest hub of Daraa as they took part in the funeral of a man who died on Sunday. It identified one of the victims as Maan Awadat, brother of prominent dissident Haitham Manaa. “He was hit in the head, it was an assassination,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory. Witnesses and activists yesterday reported tanks and troops entering Maaret Al Numan in Idlib province bordering Turkey and carrying out “a large number of arrests,” while tanks also deployed outside the town of Sarakeb.