Syria’s Opposition in Disarray Amid Continued Violence

Photo Credit: AFP

Al Jazeera describes the “chaos” that the Syrian National Council (SNC) faces, amid a failed Arab League conference in Cairo, the resignation of leader Burhan Ghalioun, and the threat from the Local Coordination Committees to leave the SNC. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says he believes the White House is moving increasingly closer toward a military intervention in Syria. “Every day that passes more people get killed,” Lieberman said. “It’s our moral obligation to help them … Right now [all] they’re asking for is…the weapons.” Leon Wieseltier explores the common themes that have cropped up regarding U.S. response to Syria: complexity, time, and fatigue of war. Wieseltier says, however, that the Obama administration is making excuses to not do more, and those decisions are impacting Syria negatively.

The violence continued in Syria as a roadside bomb exploded about 150 yards from a U.N. convoy carrying the head of a Syria ceasefire monitoring mission, Major General Robert Mood. No casualties were reported in this incident. Elsewhere, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a Syrian army shelling killed 16 people, including children, in the town of Souran in the central province of Hama.

In other news, Reporters Without Borders released a statement expressing shock to learn of the death sentence passed on citizen journalist Mohammed Abdelmawla al-Hariri for “high treason and contacts with foreign parties.” Al-Hariri was arrested shortly after giving an interview to Al Jazeera. “Such a verdict is unacceptable and out of all proportion to Mohamed al-Hariri’s so-called crime of giving an interview to Al-Jazeera,” the press freedom organization said.