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New Border Mayhem as Humanitarian Toll Mounts in Syria France Recognizes New Syrian Rebel Group, Hints It May Provide Weapons
(about 5 hours later)
GAZIANTEP, Turkey — Syria pulled Turkey and Israel closer to military entanglements in its civil war on Tuesday, bombing a rebel-held Syrian village a few yards from the Turkish border for the second straight day after Israeli tank commanders in the disputed Golan Heights blasted a mobile Syrian artillery unit across their own armistice line on Monday. PARIS — France on Tuesday became the first European country to recognize the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and raised the possibility of arming the group as it begins taking charge of the opposition’s role in the civil war.
The escalations involving two of Syria’s most powerful neighbors came hours after the fractious Syrian opposition announced a broad new unity pact that elicited praise from the big foreign powers backing its effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad. There has been speculation that Mr. Assad, feeling increasingly threatened, will deliberately seek to widen the conflict that has consumed much of his country for the last 20 months, leaving roughly 40,000 people dead, millions of civilians internally displaced and over 400,000 people registered as refugees in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Although there was no indication that Mr. Assad was trying to lure Israel into the fight, any Israeli involvement could rally his failing support and frustrate the efforts of his Arab adversaries. The French announcement, conveyed by President François Hollande at his first news conference in office, went beyond other Western pledges of support for the new Syrian rebel group, which was officially created on Sunday and calls itself the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.
Relief agencies, meanwhile, warned on Tuesday of a growing humanitarian crisis, with about 2.5 million people driven from their homes throughout the conflict, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, which cited estimates from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the principal local partner delivering relief for international agencies. Though the United States and Britain have welcomed the rebel group’s formation, they have nonetheless held back on whether to recognize it as the legitimate government of Syria for now and have expressed reluctance to provide it with lethal military aid. That is in part because of uncertainties over how weaponry would be used and fears it would fall into the hands of the radical jihadists in Syria who are also fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
Previous assessments said 1.2 million people were displaced by the civil war, but even the new figure might not capture the full extent of the crisis. “I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Mr. Hollande, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Mr. Assad’s harsh repression of the domestic opposition.
“People are really on the run, hiding,” Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said in Geneva on Tuesday. “They are difficult to count and difficult to access.” As for weapons, Mr. Hollande said, France had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government.”
His announcement came as the rebel coalition’s newly chosen leader, Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, a former imam of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and a respected figure inside Syria, made a broad appeal to Western and Arab countries for recognition and military aid. Foreign ministers of the Arab League, while approving the new group as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition,” have not agreed on recognizing the group as a provisional government to replace Mr. Assad.
There are widespread expectations that the new coalition will seek to establish itself as the government in rebel-held areas of northern Syria near the Turkish border, which if successful could signal a significant change in the conflict. Mr. Assad has ridiculed the insurgency against him partly because it does not have cohesive control in any part of the country. He has also benefited from the opposition’s fractiousness.
The recognition by France came as new fighting raged inside Syria and international relief agencies warned that the humanitarian crisis there had worsened in the past few weeks.
A rebel-held Syrian village a few yards from the Turkish border, Ras al-Ain, was bombed by Syrian aircraft for the second consecutive day. And tensions remained high along the armistice line between Syria and Israel in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights area controlled by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israeli tank gunners blasted a Syrian mobile artillery vehicle there on Monday in response to repeated instances of errant mortar shells landing on the Israeli side.
Anti-Assad activists reached in Damascus, the capital, said security checkpoints had been vastly expanded in recent days in response to fighting between insurgents and loyalist forces in the suburbs. They said it was also becoming more difficult to go shopping or exchange money.
In Geneva, the United Nations refugee agency said about 2.5 million Syrians had been driven from their homes throughout the conflict, citing estimates from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the principal local partner delivering relief on behalf of international aid groups.
Previous assessments said 1.2 million people had been displaced by the civil war, but even the new figure might not capture the full extent of the crisis.
“People are really on the run, hiding,” said Melissa Fleming, the spokeswoman for the refugee agency. “They are difficult to count and difficult to access.”
More than 4,000 Syrians fled to Jordan in the past week, the highest weekly outflow there in two months, Ms. Fleming said, in addition to 9,000 Syrians who crossed last week into Turkey. Increasing numbers of Kurdish Syrians are escaping to Iraq, which is now hosting more than 50,000 Syrian refugees, she said.More than 4,000 Syrians fled to Jordan in the past week, the highest weekly outflow there in two months, Ms. Fleming said, in addition to 9,000 Syrians who crossed last week into Turkey. Increasing numbers of Kurdish Syrians are escaping to Iraq, which is now hosting more than 50,000 Syrian refugees, she said.
As further evidence of widening violence, Ms. Fleming said the United Nations refugee agency was withdrawing some of its staff members from the northeastern governorate of Hassakeh. On Monday, an attack on the Turkish border, by what Syrian witnesses identified as a Syrian MIG-25 warplane, demolished at least 15 buildings and killed at least 20 people in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, the scene of heavy fighting for days and an impromptu crossing point for thousands of Syrians clambering for safety in Turkey. As further evidence of widening violence, Ms. Fleming said the United Nations refugee agency was withdrawing some of its staff members from the northeastern governorate of Hassakeh.
On Tuesday, a Syrian jet attacked near the town again, killing one person and wounding three, according to an official on the Turkish side of the border quoted by The Associated Press.

Steven Erlanger reported from Paris, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva and Richard Berry from Paris.

The Turkish authorities, increasingly angered by what they view as Syrian provocations, have deployed troops and artillery units along the 550-mile border with Syria and have raised the idea of installing Patriot missile batteries that could deter Syrian military aircraft.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, sent a diplomatic note to Syria on Monday to protest the first Ras al-Ain bombing, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported.
Civilians in southern Turkey’s provinces of Hatay, Sanliurfa and Gaziantep, where the government has erected camps for Syrian refugees, have been advised not to travel close to the border.
The United Nations, which monitors an armistice agreement between Israel and Syria in force since the 1973 war, has said it feared that Golan violence could jeopardize the cease-fire.
In Israel, the military said Israeli tanks that are deployed in the Golan Heights, which the Israelis seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, had made a direct hit on a Syrian mobile artillery launcher on Monday after consecutive days of erratic mortar fire coming from the Syrian side of the armistice line.
Military officials and analysts in Israel said that they viewed the shelling by the Syrian government forces as unintentional spillover and that Israel had no desire to get involved in the Syria conflict.
But some Israelis said that after four decades of relative stability in the Golan area, the Assad government may be trying to push them into a fight that could galvanize Arab hostility toward Israel and distract attention from its own problems.
Others said Mr. Assad was unlikely to want to provoke Israel, afraid of a crushing response that could weaken him militarily.
In Doha, Qatar, where Syrian opposition figures had been meeting since last week, the agreement reached Sunday on forming a new umbrella organization, which could become the basis for a provisional government, was welcomed by participants and the effort’s foreign backers, including Turkey, the United States, the European Union and the Arab League.
There were expectations that the new group, called the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, would be permitted to take Syria’s seat at the Arab League, which expelled Mr. Assad’s representative.

Sebnem Arsu reported from Gaziantep, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, and Richard Berry from Paris.