THE AUSTRALIAN
From: AP April 09, 2012 7:57AM
Free Syrian Army fighters on Friday try to spot a sniper during fighting with Syrian troops in a suburb of Damascus. Source: AP
A UN-brokered plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria has effectively collapsed after President Bashar Assad's government raised new, last-minute demands that were swiftly rejected by the country's largest rebel group.
This satellite image posted on the U.S. Embassy Damascus Facebook page on Saturday shows the presence of Syrian armoured vehicles in Idlib on April 5, right, next to imagery of ...
The peace plan, devised by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Anan, was supposed to go into effect on Tuesday, with a withdrawal of Syrian forces from population centres, followed within 48 hours by a ceasefire by both sides in the uprising against four decades of repressive rule by the Assad family.
But on Sunday, Syria's foreign ministry said before any troop pullback, the government needed written guarantees from opposition fighters that they will lay down their weapons.
The commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, Riad al-Asaad, said that while his group was ready to abide by a truce, it did not recognise the regime "and for that reason we will not give guarantees".
Mr Annan's spokesman had no comment on the setback. The envoy has not said what would happen if his deadlines were ignored.
Even before the setback, expectations were low that the Assad regime would honour the agreement.
Russia, an Assad ally that supports the ceasefire plan, may now be the only one able to salvage it. The rest of the international community, unwilling to contemplate military intervention, has little leverage over Syria.
In recent days, instead of preparing for a withdrawal, regime troops have stepped up shelling attacks on residential areas, killing dozens of civilians every day in what the opposition described as a frenzied rush to gain ground.
"Mortar rounds are falling like rain," activist Tarek Badrakhan, describing an assault in the central city of Homs, said via Skype as explosions were heard in the background. The regime is exploiting the peace plan "to kill and commit massacres," he said.
Just as Mr Annan wascomplaining that the escalation was "unacceptable", Syria said its acceptance of the Annan deal last week was misunderstood and suggested it would not be able to withdraw its troops under current conditions.
In addition to demanding written guarantees from the opposition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said Syria also wants assurances from Mr Annan that Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia - Assad's most active critics - halt "financing and arming of terrorist groups".
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are said to be creating a fund to pay rebel fighters, while Turkey has floated the idea of creating buffer zones for refugees in Syrian territory, near the Turkish border.
Many had expected the Assad regime to stall and create new obstacles to a truce because it has little to fear from the international community, said Peter Harling, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank.
"Shelling whole neighbourhoods, various forms of collective punishment and a significant increase in forced displacements - nothing seems to have a price tag," he said.
The regime might also be reluctant to proceed for fear of losing control.
While Mr Annan's plan calls for eventual negotiations between the government and the opposition over Syria's political future, anti-regime activists say huge numbers of protesters would probably flood the streets and quickly topple Mr Assad if he were forced to halt his yearlong crackdown.
AP
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