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Assailants Gun Down Syrian Official in Damascus More U.S. Support for Syria Rebels Would Hinge on Pledges to Abide by Law
(about 5 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Penetrating an area of Damascus generally seen as well guarded, a squad of assailants using silencer-equipped weapons shot a government official in a gangland-style assassination as he dined in the upscale Mezzeh district of the Syrian capital, opposition activists and government media said on Friday. WASHINGTON — President Obama has agreed to additional nonlethal aid for Syria’s rebels, according to a senior administration official, but its delivery will hinge in part on pledges by their political leaders to be inclusive, to protect minorities and to abide by the rule of law.
The official was identified as Ali Balan, a member of Syria’s relief agency and the head of planning at the Social Affairs Ministry. Mr. Balan was responsible for distributing aid to the displaced population in Syria’s civil war and was said to have met a day earlier with a Russian relief delegation. Secretary of State John Kerry planned to meet with opposition leaders in Istanbul on Saturday, as well as with foreign ministers from nations that are supporting them, to discuss both what the United States plans to do to help the rebels and what it expects from them.
While several midranking officials have been killed as the civil war has encroached into government-held areas, the location of assassination was unusual because the western Mezzeh district was considered to be secure. The use of silenced weapons instead of bombs also was a new twist. “It’s not a quid pro quo, but we want the opposition to do more,” said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s strategy. “Secretary Kerry will be discussing what steps we want them to take.”
A resident, who spoke in return for anonymity because of the security situation in Damascus, said four assailants carried out the killing at a Chinese restaurant at around 11 p.m. on Thursday.. One member of the squad entered the restaurant and opened fire with a silenced pistol, the resident said, while the other three waited outside. The meeting in Turkey of the so-called Friends of Syria group is taking place against a backdrop of worsening violence in the two-year-old civil war, dire new worries about how to care for millions of displaced Syrians, and further signs of Islamist radicalization in the insurgency as well as intransigence by President Bashar al-Assad. The special Syria envoy of the Arab League and United Nations, Lakhdar Brahimi, told the Security Council on Friday that “the situation is extremely bad” and that he thinks daily about resigning.
The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and draws its information from a network of antigovernment informants in Syria, offered a slightly different version, saying all four attackers entered the restaurant in the early evening and that one opened fire as other diners looked on. The American package, officials said, includes protective military gear like body armor and night-vision goggles, as well as communications equipment — but not weapons. It comes on top of food rations and medicine announced by Mr. Kerry last February. While the State Department will determine the size of the package, an official said it could be double the $60 million in nonlethal aid already committed.
Rami Abdul Rahman, the founder of the Syrian Observatory, said the killing was a “political assassination” that he had first learned about it from medical sources and residents. But Mr. Kerry’s expected announcement, officials said, may not come until after the United States secures a commitment from the Syrian opposition and its supporters that any government that replaces Mr. Assad’s would be inclusive, would protect the rights of his Alawite minority and other sects, and would abide by the rule of law.
The official SANA news agency recorded the assassination in a terse dispatch, blaming what it called “terrorists” for shooting Mr. Balan “while he was sitting in a restaurant in the area, causing his martyrdom.” The government routinely calls all armed opponents of the government as terrorists. Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Mr. Kerry said his goal was “to get everybody on the same page with respect to what post-Assad might look like — commitment to diversity, pluralism, democracy, inclusivity, protection of minority rights.”
Since the Syrian revolt began in March 2011 and expanded into a full-blown civil war, even the most heavily guarded parts of the capital have not been immune from attack, often by bombers. In addition, Mr. Kerry said, the United States wanted the opposition to be “open to the negotiating process to a political settlement” and to “abide by rules with respect to conduct in warfare.”
Last July, the killing of several of President Bashar al-Assad’s main security aides in a brazen bombing attack near Mr. Assad’s own residence, called into question the ability of the government to protect its functionaries from attack. While the United States and European nations have insisted on democratic principles, American officials have been concerned that some of the opposition’s financial backers in Persian Gulf states have been less particular about the rebel factions they aid.
Just weeks ago, in March, an explosion killed at least 42 people inside a central Damascus mosque, including one of the major remaining Sunni supporters of President Assad’s embattled Alawite government. Among those that Mr. Kerry said he wanted to put “on the same page” are the “Qataris, Saudis, Emirates, Turks,” as well as the Europeans. Nurturing a unified, moderate opposition has been complicated by regional rivalries, with countries pushing their own favorites.
Also last month, opposition activists said a Customs Department officer in Damascus was killed by assassins who planted a bomb under his Mercedes-Benz. Not everyone in the Obama administration has necessarily been on the same page on policy toward the Syrian resistance. And State Department officials hope that the Istanbul meeting will enable the American side to close ranks as well.
The Mezzeh district is a relatively affluent enclave in Damascus. Although the sound of outgoing mortar fire can be heard almost constantly from nearby government military posts, upscale restaurants still operate, if with fewer customers than before. At one poolside club, children ride scooters beside a turquoise pool surrounded by palm trees while their parents smoke water pipes and eat salads off white tablecloths. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, voiced concern about the growing role of extremists among the anti-Assad fighters in Syria, and said identifying moderate members of the Syrian resistance had become more difficult.

Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Alan Cowell from London. Anne Barnard contributed reporting from Beirut.

“It’s actually more confusing on the opposition side today than it was six months ago,” General Dempsey said.
During his Senate testimony on Thursday, Mr. Kerry, when asked about General Dempsey’s comments, said one purpose of the Istanbul meeting was to identify and reinforce the moderate opposition.
The United States also wants the opposition to reaffirm that it is prepared to negotiate with representatives of the Assad government on a political transition. Sheik Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the opposition, has agreed to begin such talks if they can be arranged, but other elements of the opposition have resisted the idea.
The stepped-up American aid comes as Britain and France prepare to increase their own support, with the looming expiration of a European Union embargo on sending arms to Syria. Britain is already supplying robust nonlethal aid, like armored vehicles.
“We need to provide more help and support to the Syrian national opposition,” said Alistair Burt, the British under secretary of state for foreign affairs, who cautioned that the lifting of the embargo did not mean that Britain would supply weapons.
Though Britain has been more forward-leaning than the United States in aiding the rebels, Mr. Burt declined to fault the Obama administration for its reluctance to provide arms.
“Of course, there’s a degree of caution here,” Mr. Burt said in an interview in Washington on Monday. “A decision on whether to arm or not to arm will have consequences.”
In Syria, the daily litany of civil war violence was punctuated by news of the assassination of the government’s chief coordinator of emergency aid distribution to civilians. Anti-Assad activists said gunmen with silencer-equipped weapons killed the official, Ali Balan, as he dined Thursday night in a Chinese restaurant in the upscale Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus, which is heavily guarded. The official news agency, Sana, called the killing the work of terrorists, the government’s generic description for armed opponents.
Numerous clashes were reported by activist groups on Friday in the Damascus suburbs, the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, northern Idlib Province and elsewhere. In the Damascus suburbs alone, the Local Coordination Committees, an anti-Assad group, said indiscriminate shelling by government forces may have killed up to 100 people. There was no way to corroborate that assertion.
At the United Nations, Mr. Brahimi, a veteran diplomatic troubleshooter who took the Syrian peace envoy job six months ago, gave no indication that Security Council members were ready to get past their paralysis over the Syria issue. But he told reporters the council “is very much now aware it’s a serious problem — in fact the most serious crisis.”
Mr. Brahimi also dismissed the recurrent speculation, primarily in the Arab news media, that he was resigning, as his predecessor, Kofi Annan, had. But Mr. Brahimi did not hide his frustrations.
“Every day I wake up I think I should resign, but I haven’t so far,” he said. “One day perhaps I will.”

Reporting was contributed by Alan Cowell from London; Hwaida Saad and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon; and Rick Gladstone from New York.