U.S. withdraws envoy to Syria, southern strike spreads

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U.S. withdraws envoy to Syria, southern strike spreads

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters – 51 minutes ago

AMMAN (Reuters) - The United States has pulled its ambassador out of Syria

because of what it said were credible threats to his safety after his public

support for protesters led to attacks on the U.S. Embassy and his diplomatic

convoy by supporters of President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria immediately followed suit by recalling its envoy to Washington for

consultations, signaling a further deterioration of relations between Syria's

rulers and Washington, which has called for Assad to step down and deepened

sanctions on Damascus to include the country's small but key oil sector.

U.S. Ambassador Ford left as a crackdown on protests and a nascent armed

insurgency intensified despite Western condemnation and more businesses closed

in southern Syria in the most sustained strike of the seven-month uprising.

" Ambassador Ford was brought back to Washington as a result of credible

threats against his personal safety in Syria, " State Department spokesman Mark

Toner said on Monday.

" At this point, we can't say when he will return to Syria. It will depend on our

assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the

ground. "

State Department spokeswoman Nuland said Ford was expected to return to

Syria and demanded the Syrian government provide for his protection and end what

she called a " smear campaign of malicious and deceitful propaganda " against

him. "

" The concern here is that the kinds of falsehoods that are being spread about

Ambassador Ford could lead to violence against him, whether it's by citizens,

whether it's by ... thugs of one kind or another, " she said.

In the central city of Homs, 140 km (85 miles) north of Damascus, two people

were killed when troops and loyalist militiamen fired at majority Sunni Muslim

districts that have been a bastion for protests and, lately, a refuge for army

defectors leading armed resistance emerging there, residents said. Syria is

dominated by Assad's minority Alawite sect.

The killings bring to at least 10 the number of civilians killed in tank-backed

assaults on districts in Homs in the last two days, activists said.

The official Syrian news agency said " terrorist groups " fired at a shared taxi

carrying university students in Homs on Sunday night, killing a young woman.

Security forces arrested several members of other groups and seized automatic

weapons and automatic rifles and Molotov cocktails.

A Youtube video shot by activists purportedly showed a young protester dying

from a gunshot that hit him while he was dragging a body off a street in

al-Khalidiya district. Their comrades are heard shouting " God is greater " as the

two bodies lay next to each other on the asphalt.

Reuters could not confirm the authenticity of the footage. Most foreign media

have been banned from Syria, making it difficult to verify events on the ground.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting " armed terrorist groups " in Homs who

have killed civilians, security forces and prominent figures.

They blame the unrest across the country on such groups, which they say have

killed 1,100 army and police. The United Nations says the crackdown has killed

3,000 people, including 187 children.

" INCITEMENT " AGAINST ENVOY

A spokeswoman for the Syrian embassy in Washington, Roua Sharbaji, said Syrian

Ambassador Imad Moustapha had been recalled to Damascus for consultations on

Monday.

Ford left Syria over the weekend, a Western diplomat told Reuters, following a

series of incidents that resulted in physical damage but no casualties.

" Articles, more inciting against Ford than usual, have appeared in state media

recently. He left Saturday, " said one of the diplomats, who like others asked

not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

At the end of September Assad loyalists threw concrete blocks at his convoy and

hit the cars with iron bars as Ford was visiting centrist politician Hassan

Abdulazim, according to an account published by the ambassador the next day.

" One person jumped on the hood of the car, tried to kick in the windshield and

then jumped on the roof, " Ford wrote on the U.S. Embassy's Facebook page on Sept

30. " Another person held the roof railing and tried to break the car's side

window.

" ...Syria's problems come not from foreign interference but from intolerance --

the same kind of intolerance we saw in front of Abdulazim's office.

Unfortunately, those problems now are growing worse and more violent. "

In July several Assad loyalists broke into the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, tore

down signs and tried to break security glass. They also attempted to break into

Ford's nearby residence but failed to gain entry.

The mounting security clampdown has triggered a strike by private businesses in

towns across the Hauran Plain, which was the first region where masses publicly

turned against Assad.

Anger has grown over the killings of several protesters last week in the towns

of Dael and in Ibtaa. The region has seen nightly protests in solidarity with

Homs.

" Troops have entered into several towns to end the strike but protesters want to

expand it into wider civil disobedience, " said one activist who said army

reinforcements had been sent to several towns in the Deraa countryside.

In Deraa city, capital of the agricultural province, businesses across the city

were closed for the fourth day. In the town of al-Hirak to the east, the strike

picked up steam in the last two days, activists said.

" This strike is intensifying every day as more businesses shut and people become

more defiant than ever angered by the increasing brutality and daily roundups

and arrests, " said one Deraa resident who gave his name as Abu Abdullah.

With troops concentrating on urban centers, protests have expanded in rural

regions, including some areas which were once bedrocks of Sunni support for

Assad and are seeing defections from the military and armed resistance.

The 46-year-old president is from the Alawite community, which dominates the

state, the army and security apparatus in the majority Sunni Muslim country.

In an interview with Reuters last month, Ford said Assad was losing support

among key constituents and risked plunging Syria into sectarian strife between

Sunnis and Alawites by intensifying the military crackdown.

Ford also infuriated Syria's rulers with his high profile gestures of support

for the seven-month-old grassroots protest movement demanding an end to 41 years

of Assad family rule.

He was cheered by protesters when he went in July to the anti-Assad hotbed city

of Hama, which was later stormed by tanks. He also visited a town that had

witnessed regular protests in Deraa, ignoring a ban on Western diplomats

traveling outside the Damascus area.

Along with a group of mostly Western ambassadors, Ford later paid condolences to

the family of Ghayath Matar, a 25-year-old protest leader who had distributed

flowers to give to soldiers but was arrested and died of apparent torture,

activists say.

Washington, seeking to convince Assad to scale back an alliance with U.S.

arch-foe Iran and backing for militant groups, acted to improve relations with

Damascus after President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

Obama sent Ford to Damascus in January to fill a diplomatic vacuum prevailing

since Washington withdrew its envoy in 2005.

But relations deteriorated anew after the uprising broke out and Assad ignored

international calls to respond to protester demands that he dismantle the Syrian

police state and allow political pluralism.

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Suleiman al-Khalidi

in Amman; Editing by Dominic and Osterman)

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