This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/world/middleeast/syria-crisis.html

The article has changed 7 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
U.N. Weapons Inspectors Return to Syria Syrian Rebels Throw in Lot With Al Qaeda
(about 14 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — United Nations inspectors returned to Syria on Wednesday to pursue further investigations into claims of chemical weapons in the civil war after an earlier trip during which they discovered the use of the nerve agent sarin. BEIRUT, Lebanon — As diplomats at the United Nations push for a peace conference to end Syria’s civil war, a collection of some of the country’s most powerful rebel groups publicly abandoned the opposition’s political leaders, casting their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda.
The Syrian authorities’ chemical weapons stocks are at the center of feverish diplomacy involving primarily the United States and Russia at the United Nations to place toxic agents under international supervision as a prelude to their destruction. As support for the Western-backed leadership fell away, a second, more extreme Al Qaeda group carved out footholds across parts of Syria, frequently clashing with mainline rebels who accuse it of making the establishment of an Islamic state a priority over the fight to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
The inspectors arrived in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after first landing in Beirut, the capital of neighboring Lebanon, news reports and officials said. The fractured nature of the opposition, the rising radical Islamist character of the rebel fighters, and the increasing complexity of Syria’s battle lines have left the exile leadership with diminished clout inside the country and have raised the question of whether it could hold up its end of any agreement reached to end the war.
United Nations officials said the inspectors’ second mission to Syria would complete their investigation into “pending credible allegations” of chemical weapons use, The Associated Press reported. In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations said the inspectors would focus on an attack on March 19 on the village of Khan al Assal outside the northern city of Aleppo, which the rebels captured in July, The A.P. said. The deep differences between many of those fighting in Syria and the political leaders who have represented the opposition abroad spilled into the open late on Tuesday, when 11 rebel groups declared that the opposition could be represented only by people who have “lived their troubles and shared in what they have sacrificed.”
In a report delivered to the United Nations last week on their first visit to Syria in late August, the inspectors had been charged with discovering whether chemical weapons had been used in an attack on Aug. 21 in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, an area long infiltrated by rebels. Distancing themselves from the exile opposition’s call for a democratic, civil government to replace Mr. Assad, they called on all military and civilian groups in Syria to “unify in a clear Islamic frame.” Those who signed included three groups aligned with the Western-backed opposition’s supreme military council.
Western nations accuse the Syrian authorities of using the chemical weapons in the attack, which killed hundreds. But President Bashar al-Assad has said the rebels seeking to unseat him were responsible. Mohannad Al Najjar, an activist close to the leadership of one of statement’s most powerful signers, Al Tawhid Brigade, said the group intended to send a message of disapproval with an exile leadership it believes has accomplished little.
The inspectors concluded that “chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale.” “We found it was time to announce publicly and clearly what we are after, which is sharia law for the country and to convey a message to the opposition coalition that it has been three years and they have never done any good for the Syrian uprising and the people suffering inside,” he said.
The weapons inspectors, who visited Ghouta and left the country with large amounts of evidence on Aug. 31, said, “In particular, the environmental, chemical and medical samples we have collected provide clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were used.” The statement was issued just as Western nations are striving to raise the profile of the “moderate” Syrian political opposition, which is led by Ahmad al-Jarba. The United States and its allies have been reluctant to fully align with and arm the rebels because they are heavily populated by Islamists.
Two days before the report was released, Syria officially agreed to join the international convention on banning chemical weapons, and the United States and Russia, frequently at loggerheads over Syria’s civil war, agreed on a plan to identify and purge those weapons from the country by the middle of next year. Syria has said it would abide by that plan. France has scheduled an event on Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at which Mr. Jarba is to speak along with foreign ministers who have backed him, including Secretary of State John Kerry.
In their first report, the inspectors said that the remnants of a warhead they had found showed its capacity of sarin to be about 56 liters — far higher than initially thought. They also said that falling temperatures at the time of the attack ensured that the poison gas, heavier than air, would hug the ground, penetrating lower levels of buildings “where many people were seeking shelter.” There was no immediate comment from Mr. Jarba, whose coalition is formally known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. Mr. Jarba canceled a news conference that had also been scheduled for Thursday.
Syria has since made an initial declaration of its chemical weapons program to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a watchdog group known as the O.P.C.W. that oversees the international agreement banning poison gas. A senior State Department official who accompanied Mr. Kerry to the United Nations meetings this week said that the United States was still trying to strengthen Mr. Jarba’s coalition and suggested that some of the factions that had broken with him might include extremists.
At the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, President Obama said in a speech that the world body must make sure that Syria sticks to its promises. “We, of course, have seen the reports of an announcement by some Islamist opposition groups of their formation of a new political alliance,” the State Department official said.
“There must be a strong Security Council Resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments, and there must be consequences if they fail to do so,” Mr. Obama said. “If we cannot agree even on this, then it will show that the U.N. is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws. On the other hand, if we succeed, it will send a powerful message that the use of chemical weapons has no place in the 21st century, and that this body means what it says.” “As we’ve already said clearly before, we’ve been long working toward unity among the opposition,” the official added. “But we also have had extreme concerns about extremists.”

Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut and Alan Cowell from London.

Another American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal deliberations, said that the coalition had recently made “real progress” in broadening its base by including an array of Kurdish parties as well as members of local councils in “liberated” areas of northern and eastern Syria.
But the official acknowledged that the coalition had more to do to build up its credibility inside the country since they were headquartered in Turkey and not Syria.
The latest split in the opposition emerged as the United States, Russia and other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council were making progress on another front: drafting a Council resolution that would enforce an agreement on eliminating Syria’s vast chemical weapons arsenal.
A Western diplomat said that about 80 percent of the resolution had been agreed to and that he was “cautiously optimistic” it would be settled this week.
The diverse — and fractured — nature of the opposition fighters has raised questions about the opposition’s influence within the country and whether it could hold up its end if an agreement was ever reached for a political solution to end the civil war.
“At this stage, the political opposition does not have the credibility with or the leverage over the armed groups on the ground to enforce an agreement that the armed groups reject,” said Noah Bonsey, who studies the Syrian opposition for the International Crisis Group.
“You need two parties for an agreement, and there is no viable political alternative to the coalition,” he said, defining a disconnect between the diplomatic efforts taking shaping in New York and the reality across the war-torn country.
Inside Syria, rebel groups that originally formed to respond to crackdowns by Mr. Assad’s forces on political protests have gradually merged into larger groupings, some commanded and staffed by those espousing radical Islamist ideologies. But differences in ideology and competition for scarce foreign support have made it hard for them to unite under an effective, single command.
Seeking to build a moderate front against Mr. Assad, Western nations encouraged the formation of the opposition political coalition. Even though some of its leading members like Mr. Jarba have been imprisoned by the Assad government, the coalition has loose links to many of the rebel fighters on the ground.
The rebel groups that assailed the political opposition are themselves diverse and include a number that are linked to the coalition’s supreme military council. But more troubling to the West, those same groups signed with the Al Nusra front, a Qaeda-linked group that the United States has designated a terrorist organization.
“The brigades that signed have political differences with Nusra, but we agree with them militarily since they want to topple the regime,” said a rebel, who gave his name as Abu Bashir.
A coalition member and aide to Mr. Jarba said the opposition was still studying the development but was surprised at some of the groups that had signed on with the Nusra Front.
“The Islamic project is clear and it is not our project,” said the coalition member, Monzer Akbik. “We don’t have a religious project; we have a civil democratic project, and that needs to be clear.”
Further complicating the picture is the rise of the new Qaeda franchise, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Syria — or ISIS, which has established footholds across northern and eastern Syria with the intention to lay the foundations of an Islamic state.
In recent months, it has supplanted the Nusra Front as the primary destination for foreign jihadists streaming into Syria, according to rebels and activists who have had contact with the group.
Its fighters, who hail from across the Arab world, Chechnya, Europe and elsewhere, have a reputation for being well armed and strong in battle. Its suicide bombers are often dispatched to strike the first blow against government bases.
But its application of strict Islamic law has isolated rebels and civilians. Its members have executed and beheaded captives in town squares and imposed strict codes, forcing residents to wear modest dress and banning smoking in entire villages.

Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut and Michael R. Gordon from the United Nations. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Istanbul.