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Syrian President Warns Against Foreign Intervention in Syria Syrian President Warns Against Foreign Intervention in Syria
(about 4 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — With battles flaring from the north to the south of his country, President Bashar al-Assad was quoted on Thursday as warning outside powers not to intervene militarily, saying the price of an invasion would be “more than the world can afford.” DOHA, Qatar — The quarrelsome Syrian opposition was locked in extended bartering on Thursday over the creation of a more diverse yet unified umbrella organization that its foreign backers hope will become a credible alternative to the Damascus government.
He also indicated that he would not heed Western proposals to leave Syria. The basic goal is to create an executive body — with members within Syria and abroad — that can channel aid to nascent local governments in opposition controlled areas, bolstering their hold over territory wrested from the Syrian government.
“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he said. “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.” If it works, supporters say, the plan would help to both push back against the chaos in which jihadi organizations thrive, and to convince foreign governments — particularly a second Obama administration — to get invested more directly in the opposition’s success.
A transcript of excerpts from an interview with Mr. Assad was posted in English on the Russia Today television news channel’s Web site on Thursday in advance of the conversation’s broadcast on Friday. “We have to find a way out of the cul-de-sac that we are in,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, a former confident of President Bashar al-Assad turned opposition activist. “We need to find a solution so that the Syrian opposition can deal with the international community through one executive body, rather than everyone with his own opinion, his own agenda and his own allies.”
Mr. Assad’s defiance — familiar throughout the months of uprising that have turned to civil war affecting all of Syria’s major cities — came a day after the regional consequences of the fighting seemed to assume ever more ominous tones. The meeting in Doha was the latest effort to build an effective and united opposition leadership after many failed attempts since the uprising began nearly 20 months ago. It was supported by the United States and Qatar, which have called for President Assad to step down — and have even offered some material support to the rebels. Without a unified opposition various foreign supporters — Qataris, Saudis, Turks, French, Americans — have each aided different groups allowing the opposition to survive but without the critical mass it might need to succeed in taking out the government.
For the first time on Wednesday, Turkey, a NATO member, publicly raised the idea of stationing Patriot missile batteries along its southern border with Syria. The move would effectively create a no-flight zone that could help safeguard refugees and give rebel fighters a portion of Syrian territory without fear of airstrikes by Syrian forces. If the opposition needed a reminder of the stakes, President Assad provided one with a rare interview, telling the Russia Today satellite channel that he was not leaving the country.
Within Syria, insurgents escalated attacks on targets within earshot of Mr. Assad’s Damascus palace on Wednesday, killing a prominent judge with a car bomb and lobbing mortar shells at a neighborhood that houses central government offices and a military airfield. The assassination of the judge, reported by the official news agency, SANA, was the second high-profile killing of a top Assad loyalist in the Syrian capital this week and added to the impression of an intensifying insurgency in the 20-month-old conflict. “I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he said in excerpts published Thursday on the channel’s Web site. “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”
In what appeared to be another high-profile target operation by the rebels, the Free Syrian Army said Thursday that it had seized Abdo Ghazali, the son of Gen. Rustom Ghazali, Mr. Assad’s chief of political security, in the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising against Mr. Assad’s government began in March 2011, There was no immediate confirmation of the claim. General Ghazali was appointed to his post less than four months ago in a shake-up following the Damascus bombing that killed top security aides to Mr. Assad, Asked about possible armed intervention, Mr. Assad said he did not expect the West to invade, “but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next,” Mr. Assad said.
It was not clear when Russia Today recorded the interview with Mr. Assad, who was shown speaking to an interviewer, Sophie Shevardnadze, sitting in a high-backed chair against the background of a carved wooden doorway. The price of an invasion “if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can afford,” he added in the brief excerpt. The station said the full interview will be broadcast Friday.
Asked about possible armed intervention, Mr. Assad said: “We are the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence, let’s say, it will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific and you know the implication on the rest of the world.” Foreign governments who back the Syrian opposition had hoped that the Syrian National Council would become a government-in-exile when it was created more than a year ago. But the American secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, pronounced it a failure late last month.
He said he did not believe the West planned to intervene “but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next,” Mr. Assad said. The price of an “invasion if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can afford,” he said, without elaborating. She said the United States and its partners would help the opposition unite “behind a shared, effective strategy that can resist the regime’s violence and begin to provide for a political transition that can demonstrate, more clearly than has beenpossible up until now, what the future holds for the Syrian people once theAssad regime is gone.”
The interview coincided with efforts in Doha, Qatar, to unify the fragmented opposition seeking Mr. Assad’s overthrow. It also came two days after Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain suggested that Mr. Assad could be given safe passage out of Syria as part of a peace settlement. Members of the Syrian National Council fought back like a fish on a hook — maneuvering to avoid what members fear will be marginalization. Members gathered in Doha all week to introduce reforms — doubling the overall membership to more than 400, including some 33 percent from inside Syria, up from 15 percent.
On Thursday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the fighting, said clashes erupted between rebel and government forces in the northern town of Ras al-Ain along the 550-mile border with Turkey. But some attempts to prove its diversity backfired — not a single woman won in the elections for a 40-member secretariat, for example, and few members from inside made it either because they lacked support from a political bloc.
The rebels had infiltrated the town from two directions and, after hours of fighting, government forces stormed the town and killed 10 insurgents in a battle for the security headquarters in Ras al-Ain. Turkey’s semiofficial Anatolian News Agency said two Turkish civilians were injured by stray rounds from the fighting, prompting the Turkish military to send reinforcements to the area. But the main criticism of the S.N.C. is that it has failed to attract the kind of support needed to shift the balance of power away from Mr. Assad, instead spending months jockeying over internal positions. The S.N.C. lacks significant support from the minority Alawite sect of President Assad, other minorities, tribal elders, important religious figures and from the business community.
Anti-government activists also reported fighting in the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising began with peaceful demonstrations in March, 2011. Government troops were said to be shelling southern neighborhoods of Damascus, the capital, while, in the Old City, troops broke into homes to search for opponents. “We will not have a vehicle for the future of Syria without those,” said Salman Shaikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center, which helped lead the process of reshaping the opposition. “They don’t trust it.”

Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Hwaida Saad from Beirut and Rick Gladstone from New York.

S.N.C. members argued that they never got the financial or military support needed to attract a wider membership. But its foreign backers calculated that nearly 20 months after the conflict began, with no end in sight to the fighting that has claimed nearly 40,000 people by opposition estimates, it was time for a new approach.
There are basically four goals in reshaping the opposition:
The first is supporting the democratic local committees in running their areas before the military commanders take over completely, creating a patchwork of warlords and militarized fiefs that tear Syria apart, meaning it might take a larger intervention to glue to back together later.
The second is creating some kind of civic structures to minimize the chaos and political vacuum that has often allowed jihadi organizations to thrive in places like Somalia or Afghanistan.
Third is to convince all the groups within Syria who might dislike President Assad, but remain on the fence, to find a home with the opposition.
Finally, as a longer term goal, to convince the Russians that there is a credible alternative to Mr. Assad. Moscow has said repeatedly they are not wedded to him, but they see no obvious replacement.
Participants also make no secret of the fact that they want to get Washington more involved. The Obama administration, extracting itself from long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been adamant that it would not do more than provide nonlethal aid to the Syrians. David Cameron, the British prime minister, said this week that he would work with the American administration to make the opposition more effective.
“We are all waiting for Mr. Obama,” said Mr. Shaikh.
Mazem Arja, the head of the Revolutionary Council for Idlib city in northern Syria, said in an interview here that including people like him was critical.
The Syrian National Council, he said, had appointed a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in his 60s as the youth envoy for Idlib, he said.
“They guy had not been there for 32 years,” he said. “If you dropped him at the edge of town, I doubt he could find his old house.”

Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar; Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad contributed reported from Beirut, Lebanon; Alan Cowell contributed from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.