U.S. Projects Tough Stance to Both Sides of Syria War
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Version 0 of 1. With Syria peace prospects in a basic state of collapse, the United States sought to project a toughened posture on Wednesday, conducting military exercises with neighboring Jordan and designating two leaders of Syrian jihadist groups as “global terrorists” — a warning that they should be ostracized by other members of the Western-backed insurgency fighting President Bashar al-Assad. The developments came a day after the top United Nations diplomat assigned to mediate a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict, now in its fourth year, quit in frustration, blaming both the Syrian government’s intransigence and the inability of the Security Council to take assertive action to support his efforts and alleviate civilian suffering. The resignation of the diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi, was described by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as a collective failure by parties to the conflict. But Syria’s official news media welcomed Mr. Brahimi’s departure and accused him of bias favoring Mr. Assad’s political opponents. In a new sign of the conflict’s insidious effects, international refugee officials reported Wednesday that a record 33.3 million people worldwide had now been displaced by war, and that Syria was the leading cause — ahead of new displacements from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Sudan and South Sudan. The report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said that 9,500 people a day — approximately one family every 60 seconds — were displaced inside Syria. “We have surpassed the darkest, bleakest days of the 1990s,” which were dominated by genocide in Rwanda and war in the Balkans, Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the refugee council and formerly the top relief official at the United Nations, said in an interview. The displacements in Syria, he said, exposed “an astronomic failure of humanity, nationally and internationally.” Jordan’s official news agency, Petra, said the joint military exercises with the United States included ground and air forces. Agence France-Presse said they were held in and around the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in eastern Jordan, which has long been regarded as a likely staging ground for any possible American military intervention in Syria. The exercises were held as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, on a visit to the Middle East, conferred with senior Jordanian political and military leaders. In Washington, the Treasury Department announced it had imposed sanctions on two militants in Syria that it identified as supporters of Al Qaeda, blacklisting them as “specially designated global terrorists,” a category that impounds any assets they may have in American jurisdiction and bans any commercial contact with them by United States citizens. The two, Abd Al-Rahman Muhammad Zafir Al-Daysi Al-Juhni, of Saudi Arabia, and Abd Al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, of Iraq, were accused of exploiting the mayhem in Syria to advance the influence of Al Qaeda and its affiliates. David S. Cohen, the Treasury under secretary responsible for sanctions enforcement, said the designation “sends a strong warning to the legitimate Syrian opposition and those who wish to support it” to avoid any dealings with them. Mr. Brahimi’s resignation, with no word on who might succeed him, came as Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterparts from allied European and Arab nations that support the moderate Syrian opposition were preparing to meet Thursday in London, with no clear plan for reviving a diplomatic solution to a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 people since it began in March 2011. Mr. Assad’s defiant announcement that he would seek a third seven-year term in elections next month, in which his victory is considered assured, was regarded as a major reason for the collapse of Mr. Brahimi’s peace efforts. They were predicated on devising an interim transitional government in Syria. Reflecting Mr. Assad’s view, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency quoted Syrian officials on Wednesday as saying Mr. Brahimi had himself to blame. The news agency quoted Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, as saying Mr. Brahimi had committed many errors, “including his interference in Syria’s internal affairs.” |