Cardinals begin long process of picking new pope

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - With Pope Benedict XVI now officially in retirement, Catholic cardinals from around the world begin on Friday the complex, cryptic and uncertain process of picking the next leader of the world's largest church.

Some details are still unclear, owing to Benedict's break with the tradition that papacies end with a pope's death, so these "princes of the Church" will first hold an informal session before traditional rounds of talks begin on Monday.

No front-runner stands out among the 115 cardinal electors - those aged under 80 - due to enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave that picks the new pope, so discreetly sizing up potential candidates will be high on the cardinals' agenda.

They will also use the general congregations, the closed-door consultations preceding a conclave, to discuss future challenges such as better Vatican management, the need for improved communication and the continuing sexual abuse crisis.

Benedict ended his difficult eight-year reign on Thursday pledging unconditional obedience to whoever succeeds him to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics at one of the most problematic periods in the Church's 2,000-year history.

"The discussion we have in the congregations will be most important for the intellectual preparation" for choosing a pope, said Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley, adding the electors were already preparing spiritually for the vote by intense prayer.

"I would imagine each of us has some kind of list of primary candidates, and others secondary," saidCardinal Francis George of Chicago at a media briefing with O'Malley and another American cardinal, Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.

MOST SECRETIVE ELECTION

Conclaves are among the world's most secretive elections, with no declared candidates, no open campaigning and electors who often do not know more than a few dozen men in the room. Electors are sworn to secrecy about the actual voting itself.

George said cardinals consulted other electors before the conclave to learn more about possible choices, asking "what do you know about this candidate?" or "what kind of person is he?"

O'Malley, at his first conclave and already being mentioned in Italian media as a potential candidate, said he had been "using the Internet a lot" to read up on other cardinals.

Conclaves traditionally begin 15 days after the seat of St. Peter, as the papal office is called, becomes vacant. But that includes time for mourning and funeral ceremonies for a dead pope, so Benedict issued a decree allowing an earlier start.

From Monday, the cardinals will discuss how long they want to hold general congregations before going into the conclave; its name comes from the Latin term "cum clave" - with a key - to show they are locked away until a pope is chosen.

Cardinals over 80 cannot join them in the voting, but they are allowed to attend the general congregations and discuss the challenges to the Church with the electors.

Nothing is set yet, but the Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead Holy Week services culminating in Easter the following Sunday.

HELICOPTER INTO HISTORY

The cardinals will not see a top secret report prepared for Pope Benedict on mismanagement and infighting in the Curia, the Church's bureaucracy. But its three cardinal authors will be in the general congregations to advise electors on its findings.

"Since we don't really know what's in the report, I think we'll depend on the cardinals in the congregations to share with us what they think will be valuable for us to know to make the right decision for the future," O'Malley said.

In an emotional farewell to cardinals on Thursday morning in the Vatican's frescoed Sala Clementina, Benedict appeared to send a strong message to the cardinals and the faithful to unite behind his successor, whoever he turns out to be.

The appeal was significant because for the first time in history, there will be a reigning pope in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace and his retired predecessor living in a small monastery in the Vatican Gardens not far away.

Benedict left the Vatican by helicopter for the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo south of Rome to be far from the conclave and not influence it. He will move into the monastery when refurbishing is finished in about two months.

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Jerusalem road cuts village, drives Arab discontent

Syrian rebel chief: Fighters desperate for weapons

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of Syria's rebels said Friday that the food and medical supplies the United States plans to give his fighters for the first time won't bring them any closer to defeating PresidentBashar Assad's forces in the country's civil war.

"We don't want food and drink, and we don't want bandages. When we're wounded, we want to die. The only thing we want is weapons," Gen. Salim Idris, chief of staff of the opposition's Supreme Military Council, told The Associated Press by telephone.

The former brigadier in Assad's army warned that the world's failure to provide heavier arms is only prolonging the nearly 2-year-old uprising that has killed an estimated 70,000 people.

In what was described as a significant policy shift, the Obama administration said Thursday it was giving an additional $60 million in assistance to Syria's political opposition and said it would, for the first time, provide non-lethal aid directly to rebels battling to topple Assad.

The move was announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at an international conference on Syria in Rome. In the coming days, several European nations are expected to take similar steps in working with the military wing of the opposition to increase pressure on Assad to step down and pave the way for a democratic transition.

But the frustration expressed by Idris is shared by most of his colleagues in the Syrian opposition, as well as by scores of rebels fighting in Syria. They feel abandoned by the outside world while the Assad regime pounds them with artillery and bombs.

The main rebel units, known together as the Free Syrian Army, regrouped in December under a unified, Western-backed command headed by Idris and called the Supreme Military Council, following promises of more military assistance once a central council was in place. Despite those pledges, opposition members say very little has been delivered in terms of financial aid, and more importantly, in weapons and ammunition.

The international community remains reluctant to send weapons, fearing they may fall into the hands of extremists increasingly gaining ground among the rebels.

Mouaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, has lamented the West's focus on the presence of Islamic militants among the fighters. In a forceful speech Thursday to the Rome conference, he said the media reports give "more attention to the length of fighters' beards than to the (regime's) massacres."

Some Syrians expressed their disappointment on social media websites. One showed a photo of Kerry carrying a toy gun as a gift for the rebels. Another depicted a three-wheeled cart, of the kind usually used by farmers, with the words: "The first of the nonlethal weapons has arrived."

Idris, a 55-year-old who studied in Germany and taught electronics at a Syrian military college before defecting in July, said the modest package of aid — consisting of an undetermined amount of food rations and medical supplies — will not help them win against Assad's forces who regularly use warplanes to pound rebel strongholds.

"We need anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to stop Bashar Assad's criminal, murderous regime from annihilating the Syrian people," he said. "The whole world knows what we need, and yet they watch as the Syrian people are slaughtered."

Still, he said he hoped that the promised aid is delivered, which would provide some relief to the civilians caught in the fighting.

Russia, meanwhile, sharply criticized the decision by Western powers to boost support for Syrian opposition forces, saying the promised assistance would only intensify the conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the moves announced in Rome "encourage extremists to seize power by force."

Russia is a close ally of Syria that has continued to supply arms to Assad's regime as well as shielding the country from U.N. Security Council sanctions.

Idris denied media reports that the rebels have recently received arms shipments and said his troops were suffering from "severe shortages" in weapons and ammunitions.

Croatia's president said Friday his country will withdraw about 100 peacekeeping troops from the Syria-Israel border after reports that Syrian rebels have been armed with Croatian weapons. The Croatian government fears its troops could become targets for Syrian government soldiers fighting the rebels.

Croatian officials have also denied reports by local media and The New York Times that arms, including machine guns, rifles and anti-tank grenades used in the Balkan wars in the 1990s have recently been sent to the Syrian rebels.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said despite the official denials, "everyone has read those reports, and our soldiers are no longer safe."

Fierce clashes continued in northern Syria between government forces and rebels attacking a police academy near Aleppo, the country's largest city and commercial hub.

Rebels backed by captured tanks have been trying to storm the police academy outside the city since launching a new offensive last week. Activists say the academy, which has become a key front in the fight for Aleppo, has been turned into a military base used to shell rebel-held neighborhoods in the city and surrounding countryside.

Syrian's state-run news agency said government troops defending the academy had killed dozens of opposition fighters and destroyed five rebel vehicles.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group also reported heavy fighting around the school and said there were several rebel casualties.

The Observatory said clashes were still raging around Aleppo's landmark 12th century Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mosque was heavily damaged last year just weeks after a fire gutted the city's famed medieval market.

There were conflicting reports about whether the rebels had managed to force regime troops out of the mosque and take full control of the holy site.

Mohammed al-Khatib of the Aleppo Media Center activist group said the mosque was in rebel hands, although clashes were still raging.

"The regime forces left lots of ammunition in it (the mosque), with guns and rocket-propelled grenades," he said via Skype.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said rebels have been in control of at least half of the mosque complex for days, but he could not confirm that they had captured all of it.

Near the capital of Damascus, activists said the bodies of 10 men — most of them shot in the head — were found dumped on the side of a road between the suburbs of Adra and Dumair. Such incidents have become a frequent occurrence in the civil war.

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Syrians clash around 12th century mosque in Aleppo

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels clashed with regime troops in the narrow stone alleyways around a historic 12th century mosque in the Old City of Aleppo on Thursday, while a government airstrike north of the city killed at least seven people, activists said.

The rebels, who have been slowly chipping away at the regime's hold on Aleppo, received a boost from the U.S. in their fight to oustSyrian President Bashar Assad.

Washington pledged an additional $60 million in assistance to the opposition and — in a significant policy shift — said that for the first time it will provide non-lethal aid like food and medical supplies directly to rebel forces on the ground.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the decision Thursday on the sidelines of an international conference on Syriain Rome. European nations also were expected to signal their intention to provide fresh assistance to the opposition, possibly including defensive military hardware.

The rebels have made a number of strategic gains in northern Syria in recent weeks, including the capture of a hydroelectric dam and some military bases. They also have been regularly hitting the heart of Damascus with mortar rounds, puncturing the aura of normalcy that the regime has tried to cultivate in the capital.

In Aleppo, a key battleground in the civil war, clashes raged around the landmark Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The rebels control one part of the mosque, and government troops hold the other.

Rebels launched an offensive on Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center and its commercial capital, in July 2012. Since then, the city has been carved into rebel- and government-controlled zones in brutal street fighting that has destroyed entire neighborhoods and damaged some of the ancient city's rich archaeological and cultural heritage.

The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Aleppo, sits near a medieval covered market in the Old City, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mosque was heavily damaged in October 2012 just weeks after a fire gutted the old city's famed market.

North of Aleppo, a government airstrike on the village of Deir Jamal killed at least seven people, including five children, according to the Observatory. It was not immediately clear what the target was, but regime warplanes frequently carry out bombing runs on rebel-held towns.

Farther south, in the central city of Homs, the state news agency said a car bomb caused casualties and extensive material damage, but it did not elaborate.

An official in the Homs governor's office told The Associated Press that there were two blasts and that four people were killed and at least six wounded. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

With the bloodshed showing no sign of abating, the Syrian opposition has grown increasingly frustrated with what it sees as the international community's apathy toward the suffering on the ground.

On Thursday, the Syrian National Coalition, an opposition umbrella group, posted a statement on its Facebook page saying 72 bodies had been discovered in the village of Maalikiyah, south of Aleppo. It blamed the purported killings, which the SNC said took place on Feb. 25, on Assad's forces, and demanded that countries at the Rome conference "take a serious and firm position on the regime's crimes, which continue to cast a dark shadow of failure and weakness on any international efforts sought to provide support to the Syrian people."

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said he had heard rumors of a mass killing in the area, but could not confirm the reports.

No videos have been posted online yet showing the aftermath of the alleged killings, although word and videos in past cases has often taken days to trickle out because of the remote locations and difficulties in gaining access to the affected areas.

The opposition has also bemoaned the West's unwillingness to provide rebels with the arms they need to counter the regime's superior firepower.

The U.S. and its European allies have been reluctant to arm the opposition fighters the ground for fear the weapons could end up in the hands of Islamic militants, who might then carry out attacks on Western or Israeli targets.

So far, the U.S. has largely limited its assistance to the Syrian opposition to funding for communications and other logistical equipment.

The U.S. decision to provide more aid directly to the rebels is designed to increase the pressure on Assad to step down and pave the way for a democratic transition. The aid is also intended to help the Coalition govern newly liberated areas of Syria and blunt the influence of extremists.

"For more than a year, the United States and our partners have called on Assad to heed the voice of the Syrian people and to halt his war machine," Kerry said in Rome. "Instead, what we have seen is his brutality increase."

The Coalition, which has been hampered by the same infighting that has dogged the opposition since the uprising began, has struggled to agree on the leadership of a transitional administration since the opposition umbrella group was formed late last year. The group has met on previous occasions to select an interim prime minister, but has failed to reach a compromise.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the group said the March 2 conference in Istanbul was canceled for "logistical reasons." It said it would announce a new date as soon as possible.

Walid al-Bunni, a spokesman for the Coalition, said the meeting was pushed back "for few days" to allow for more consultations with members of the opposition inside Syria who have been hampered by security issues and because some local councils who were supposed to take part in the conference were holding elections.

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Former Syrian general: US, Russia can end war

Nihal, 9, puts olive tree branches inside a wooden stove at an underground Roman tomb which they use shelter from Syrian government forces shelling and airstrikes, at Jabal al-Zaweya, in Idlib province, Syria, Thursday Feb. 28, 2013. Across northern Syria, rebels, soldiers, and civilians are making use of the country's wealth of ancient and medieval antiquities to protect themselves from Syria's two-year-old war. They are built of thick stone that has already withstood centuries, and are often located in strategic locations overlooking towns and roads. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

MOSCOW (AP) — A former confidant of Syria's president who defected last year said Friday that Russia and the United Statescould act as co-guarantors of a ceasefire in Syria.

Manaf Tlass, a former elite army commander, told the state-runVoice of Russia radio station that Russia could help achieve peace in Syria by backing moderate opposition forces.

"In Syria there is a third party that doesn't support the regime or the extremists," Tlass said in response to Syrian government claims that President Bashar Assad's fall would hand power to terrorists. "Most Syrians don't want to choose between these two extremes, they want to go about their lives in a stable and secure state. And Russia could support moderate forces in Syria."

Tlass, who held talks with senior Russian officials in Moscow, said he came as part of efforts to negotiate a peace settlement. He added that "Russia has enough political clout to help find a solution."

Tlass added that he hoped Russia could "preserve Syria as a state, its unity, its complex structure with its ethnic and religious minorities, its infrastructure, and its secular nature."

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed a new-found willingness to listen to Western arguments for solving the crisis after meeting his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, on Thursday.

Throughout the two-year conflict, during which over 70,000 have died, Russia has shielded Assad's regime at the U.N. Security Council from sanctions. Moscow also has rejected calls for Assad to quit, saying his government and rebels should pursue talks.