Allies use power of purse against Syrian regime

SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands (AP) — A coalition including the United States, the European Union and the Arab League met Thursday to plot new ways of isolating the regime of Syria's President Bashar Assad, and a Syrian opposition leader warned that sanctions alone won't bring the regime down.

The group called Friends of the Syrian People was set up in February after the U.N. Security Council was unable to reach agreement on a resolution condemning Syria's government, due to opposition from Russia and China.

On Thursday, financial experts joined representatives of the group at their meeting in a coastal suburb of The Hague, Netherlands, to help member countries understand how Syria may be relying on dual-use technologies and front companies to get around the existing sanctions, which include an embargo on oil and arms. Twelve more countries have joined the 60-member coalition, committing also to block Syrian financial transactions and to enforce a travel ban on the country's top leaders.

The uprising against the Syrian government began in March 2011 as part of Arab Spring protests and intensified after Assad's government used the country's military in an attempt to end the unrest. The United Nations estimates that at least 18,000 people have been killed as a result of the fighting, most of them civilians. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, many fleeing as refugees to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.

Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the sanctions are having an effect, despite non-participation by Russia, China and Iran, citing a sharp fall in Syria's oil exports. "The EU took 90 percent of Syria's oil," before the sanctions were applied, he said. "It turns out to be hard for the regime to sell oil elsewhere."

Abrahim Miro — a member of the Syrian Governing Council, an umbrella organization of Syrian opposition groups cooperating to overthrow the government — said the sanctions alone will not bring Assad's regime down. He said he hopes increased sanctions and the armed resistance by the Syrian Free Army "will actually cause the economic heart attack and also the military heart attack of the regime."

Miro said Syria's continued trade with Iraq and Iran — which were not represented at Thursday's meeting — is a major source of concern for the opposition.

Abdo Hussameldin — a former official in Syria's oil ministry, who in March became the highest-ranking member of the government to defect — said the economic sanctions are demoralizing and delegitimizing the regime in the eyes of the country's people. But he agreed with Miro that the sanctions alone won't force Assad from office as long as his regime continues to get financial support from countries such as Russia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Lebanon.

In a closing statement, the Friends of Syria coalition called on banks and companies to adhere to the sanctions, even if their government is not a member, or risk damage to their reputation and jeopardize their relations with the rest of the business world.

The Friends of Syria group agreed to meet again in Japan before the end of 2012, though no date was set.

Latest developments in protest of anti-Islam film

Associated Press/Vahid Salemi - An Iranian protester chants slogans as she holds a copy of the Quran, Muslims' holy book, in front of the French Embassy in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012, during a protest the publication of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad by a French satirical weekly. Dozens of Iranian students and clerics gathered outside the embassy and chanted "Death to France" and "Down with the U.S." and burned the representation of the U.S. and Israeli flags Thursday. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Rebels unite in fight for Syria's largest city

Associated Press/Muhammed Muheisen - In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 photo, Syrian rebel fighters flash the victory sign while moving past a building destroyed partly in a government shelling in Aleppo, Syria. Arabic reads on the vehicle, "Free army". Rebels have taken a major stride in uniting their ranks in the battle for Syria’s largest city, giving them hope they could tip the balance in three-months of bloody stalemate in Aleppo, one of the biggest prizes of the civil war. The question is how much more destruction the city can bear. Regime troops are retaliating with heavier bombardment, and civilians are bearing the brunt, their neighborhoods left in rubble. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Rebels have taken a major stride in uniting their ranks in the battle for Syria's largest city, giving them hope they could tip the balance after three months of bloody, stalemated combat in Aleppo, one of the biggest prizes of the civil war.

The question is how much more destruction the city can bear.

Government troops are retaliating against more effective rebel attacks with increasingly devastating bombardment, and civilians are bearing the brunt, with their neighborhoods left in ruins.

The new military council was announced Sept. 9. It brings together two of the biggest rebel players in Aleppo and the countryside, and should allow for better coordinated attacks against the 30 percent of the city still in regime hands.

The rebels have long been hampered by their division into dozens of competing groups, some with better links to funding and weapons, while others have more manpower. There has been little coherent strategy, and organizing a major assault can often involve negotiations among dozens of independent outfits.

"Before we made this council, the military aid used to come to just one man, and the people on the ground would get nothing. By forming this council, now aid comes to everyone, and everyone gets part of it," said Abdel Aziz Salameh, a former honey trader, based in the town of Tel Rifaat. He runs the biggest network of fighters in the province and is part of the Tawhid Division.

He described how assaults often had to be called off when his men ran out of ammunition after days of hard fighting and had to regroup and scrounge for more.

No rebel group admits to getting weapons or ammunition from abroad. They say instead that they get funds from Syrians abroad and use it to buy weapons from smugglers.

The uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011, when protests calling for political change were met by a violent government crackdown by government troops. Many in the opposition took up arms, and activists say more than 23,000 people have been killed.

Salameh's one-time rival is Col. Abdel Jabbar Aqidi, a recently defected officer from Assad's military and the official representative of the Free Syrian Army. He received the lion's share of the funding from Syrians abroad, but did not have the manpower to take advantage of it.

"There were differences among the organizations and now we are united in our structure to improve our fighting," the blue-eyed officer in smartly ironed fatigues told The Associated Press from the basement of his villa set among olive groves in a village north of Aleppo. "Unity and coordination make us more effective in the revolution."

The rebel assault on Aleppo, a city of about 3 million, began in July after the government crushed a similar attack on the capital of Damascus. In this case, however, the forces were more evenly matched and to the surprise of many, the outgunned rebels not only held on but expanded their hold on the city in fierce urban combat.

While the rebels are poorly equipped and lacking much organization, their successes have as much to do with their tenacity as the state of the Syrian army in Aleppo.

"Significant weaknesses among the Syrian armed forces have been the primary factor behind the deadlock in Aleppo," said Torbjorn Soltvedlt, a senior analyst with the Britain-based Maplecroft risk analysis group, explaining that the bulk of the regime's trusted troops were based around Damascus. Other units are constantly in danger of hemorrhaging men through defections to the rebel cause.

"The regime has been unable to use the main highway between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north to reinforce and supply its forces," he said, because of rebel control of the city of Rastan, on the highway, and parts of the Idlib province countryside around it.

The Syrian army, whose raison d'etre until recently was a full scale tank war with Israel, is also not accustomed to counterinsurgency tactics in urban environments — something the rebels, for all their flaws, appear to have adapted to quite quickly.

Already there have been some successes, including the overrunning of a military barracks in the northern Aleppo neighborhood of Thakanet Hanano on Sept. 10 that involved several battalions working together.

The barracks was a key government bastion and part of a string of regime strong points being targeted by the rebels, including the military intelligence headquarters as well as the medieval citadel in the center of the city.

The response, however, was swift. For three days, government artillery and plans unleashed a withering bombardment of rebel-controlled areas nearby.

Human rights groups have reported a spike in civilian casualties as the regime staves off rebel advances with heavy weapons.

"A pattern has emerged in recent weeks in areas where government forces, pushed into retreat by opposition forces, are now indiscriminately bombing and shelling lost territory — with disastrous consequences for the civilian population," said the London-based Amnesty International in a briefing paper Wednesday.

Just two days after taking over the barracks, nearby neighborhoods were constantly buzzed by helicopters and regime fighter jets that lazily circled the city, confident in their invulnerability before diving to bombard a target.

Residents report the use of "barrel bombs" that appear to be large drums packed with explosives that can take down whole buildings.

Despite occasionally shooting down helicopters, most recently over Damascus on Thursday, the rebels are still struggling to confront this airborne menace for civilians both inside the city and in the country.

Peter Harling, a Syria expert for the International Crisis Group, said the regime is conserving its manpower in Aleppo and meting out collective punishments through airstrikes on any neighborhoods under rebel control.

The lack of progress on the ground and civilian frustration has been part of the impetus for the rebels to put aside their differences and work together, he noted.

"They are increasingly faced with anger and frustration in places coming from people who don't see them making progress that is tangible," he said. "That's a driver behind these unification attempts — I think the opposition needs to show some results and break out of this impasse one way or another."

Yet the new council includes just 80 percent of the estimated 8,000-10,000 rebels fighting the regime in and around Aleppo. The commanders say that Jebha al-Nusra, or the Victory Front, which follows an extreme Islamist ideology and includes foreign fighters, remains outside the council.

The powerful smuggler-turned-rebel-leader Abu Ibrahim, who controls the border crossing withTurkey through his Northern Storm brigade, also declined to join with his 700 fighters.

He told AP he was invited to join but was withholding his support because the new outfit lacked organization.

"The rebels should be organized like an ordinary military, with the men totally under control of the leadership and each man knowing his role," he said, dismissing Aqidi and Salameh as weak leaders with little operational control of their men.

The problems over unity are also replicated on a broader level across the country. There have been talks under way to unite and reorganize the Free Syrian Army under the leadership of defected Gen. Mohammed al-Haj Ali, but it is not clear if any progress has been made.

When asked if he would be part of the effort to unite the rebels, Aqidi only smiled and declined to comment.

Iran slams Israel's nuke program, Israel Iran's

Prophet film puts spotlight on US Copts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The anti-Islamic movie trailer inflaming the Middle East opens with Muslims ransacking a Christian medical clinic and then segues into a flashback of Muhammad's life. "Set the place on fire! We'll burn out these forsaken Christians!" cries one Muslim character.

The opening scene from "Innocence of Muslims," although crude, resonates with some Egyptian Christians, who have suffered years of persecution and attacks by Islamic militants.

The 14-minute trailer on YouTube enraged Muslims worldwide with its depiction of Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester. Most Egyptian Christians in the U.S. have rejected the movie and say the man and the nonprofit tied to the film are fringe players who are not well-known in the Coptic Orthodox Church, the church for the vast majority of Coptic Christians in America.

A tiny minority of U.S. Copts, however, have used their adopted nation's free speech protections to speak out against Islam in a way that would not be tolerated in their native Egypt. The few who engage in this anti-Muslim, evangelical activism — including those behind the movie trailer — are fueled by that history, said Eliot Dickinson, an associate professor of political science at Western Oregon University who has written a book on U.S. Copts.

"Whoever made this film is such an outlier in their community that it's completely unrepresentative," Dickinson said. "But what it does is, it taps into this frustration of always being persecuted back inEgypt and let's not downplay that. To be a Copt in Egypt now is a very, very difficult life because, especially after the Arab Spring, it's open season."

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, is the man federal authorities have said is behind the film, though he has only acknowledged publicly that he was involved in management and logistics. He has a criminal record that includes drug and check fraud convictions, and he has been in hiding since leaving his suburban Los Angeles home last weekend.

Media for Christ was listed as the production company for the film and its headquarters was where most of the movie was made. Its president is Joseph N. Abdelmasih, an outspoken critic of Muslims who also has gone into hiding. Steve Klein, a California insurance agent who has dedicated his life to warning the world about Muslim extremism, has said he was a consultant and promoter of the film.

Nakoula and Abdelmasih are followers of a U.S. Coptic priest named Zakaria Botros Henein, who has not been linked to the film but owns a home in Orange County and has been called Islam's Public Enemy No. 1 for his teachings disparaging the faith.

A man who answered the phone at a listing for Henein in Huntington Beach hung up on the AP.

The trailer was released against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty for the estimated 8 million Christians who remain in Egypt and now live under an Islamist government run by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, following last year's overthrow of longtime president and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak. Many Copts who fled their homeland for the U.S. and other Western nations in the late 1960s and 1970s still have relatives in Egypt and are concerned for their safety.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is home to the vast majority of the 300,000 Coptic Christians in America. In addition to Los Angeles, the largest concentrations of U.S. Copts are in New Jersey, New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston and Cleveland.

Henein left the Coptic Orthodox Church a decade ago and has no connection to it, said Bishop Serapion, the church leader for Southern California and Hawaii. "We don't know about what he is doing, we are not responsible (for him), even we don't even know where he is," Serapion said.

Coptic leaders said they were unaware of Nakoula until the trailer surfaced. Media for Christ, which raised more than $1 million last year, is known but not embraced by Coptic leaders.

Magdy Azer, president of the California Coptic Assembly, called the charity a "fanatic" group and said its program called "The Way TV" is full of anti-Islamist preaching and pleas for donations.

"What was their intent? I don't know," he said of the filmmakers. "For me, they most likely just wanted to grab attention from everybody about the persecution in Egypt."

Instead, the video has put the spotlight on a small U.S. immigrant community that for decades has focused on charity to help their fellow Christians in Egypt instead.

A survey released earlier this year by George Washington University found that 92 percent of U.S. Copts donated money to Egypt in the last three years at an average amount of $5,000 per person, said Nermien Riad, founder and executive director of the Virginia-based charity Coptic Orphans.

"The Copts are always wanting to be the salt of the earth and a light to the world. The great majority focuses on good and on doing good," said Riad, whose organization co-sponsored the study. "These are Christian values."

Church leaders were also quick to distance themselves from the movie, saying it doesn't match the sentiments of most Copts.

"We have never reacted or behaved like this for the very simple reason that this is against Christianity," said the Rev. Joseph Boules, a priest at St. Mary and St. Verena Coptic Orthodox Church in Anaheim. "We are not going to abandon our principles and return hate for hate. That's not what orthodoxy is about."

The Christian minority in Egypt has long lived with violence.

Last year, a New Year's day bombing at Saints Church in Alexandria, Egypt killed 21 worshippers, setting off three days of protests and clashes with security forces and Muslim passers-by. In 2010, six Christians and a Muslim guard were killed in a drive-by shooting in southern Egypt on Coptic Christmas Eve.

Many U.S. Copts now worry that the video will worsen the situation for their fellow Copts in Egypt. Christians there saw an increase in violence after Florida pastor Terry Jones threatened to burn the Quran and after the publication of cartoons ridiculing Muhammad, said Boules, the Coptic priest.

"For some reason when something inflammatory or offensive comes out, some people rush to shoot first and aim later," he said.

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