Britain does not have to wait until August to start sending weapons to the Syrian rebels, William Hague has said.
It had been thought that no EU countries could send weapons before 1 August, but the British foreign secretary told BBC Radio 4 that this was wrong:
I must correct one thing because I know there's been discussion of some sort of August deadline. That is not the case. There will be a discussion in the EU by August 1 but from now on ... we have said we have made our own commitments that at this stage as we work for the Geneva conference we are not taking any decision to send any arms to anyone.But that is not related to a date of August 1, I don't want anyone to think that therefore there is any automatic decision after August 1 or that we are excluded from doing so beforehand.
Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of intelligence, has condemned Russia’s decision to ship the anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government, writes Phoebe Greenwood. Steinitz said it was wrong to describe the anti-aircraft S-300s as weapons of defence as because of their range of 300km; they could be used to target civilian or military aircraft over Tel Aviv. He said these weapons could also end up in the hands up of Hezbollah or Iran, thereby bypassing the arms embargo on Iran:
Clearly supplying such advanced weapons to Assad in the middle of brutal civil war while he is slaughtering his own people, mostly his own civilians on a daily basis, is a kind of encouragement to this brutal regime that is totally wrong from a moral point of view. One cannot justify such behaviour.
But he said he was also worried about weapons coming in from the EU to the rebels eventually being used to target Israel:
We have decided not to encourage the United States or Europe to take any action there whatsoever because it’s very complicated situation … There is always a worry [that these weapons will be used against Israel]; therefore if one supplies certain arms to certain groups in Syria, you have to consider carefully what sort of commitment you get from those groups about the use of those weapons.
Dr Dominic Zaum, reader in international relations at the University of Reading, has been in touch to explain why Russia is able to sell these anti-aircraft missiles to Syria:
As there are no UN sanctions against Syria, Russia can legally sell these missiles to the Syrian government. Sanctions on Syria have either been bilateral or EU sanctions, and therefore do not bind Russia.Militarily, they could increase the risk for countries using air strikes against targets in Syria - most likely Israel (especially now that Hezbollah is openly supporting the Assad regime militarily), and western states who might want to impose a no-fly zone, as Nato did in Libya in 2011.Given that greater involvement in the Syrian conflict is controversial in most western countries, even those most explicit in their call for support for the opposition such as the UK and France, the greater risk of casualties might well mute calls for a no-fly zone. A no-fly zone seems a remote possibility at the moment even without the delivery of these missiles, given the Russian objection to it in the UN security council.
He adds that the more interesting issue here is the effect of the move on the planned peace conference next month.
Just as the termination of the EU arms embargo on the Syrian opposition was intended by the UK and France to increase pressure on President Assad ahead of the conference, so could the delivery of these missiles have the effect of blunting the UK and France's efforts in this regard, as they are a very explicit symbol of continued Russian support for the Assad regime.
Updated
Bashar al-Assad may be asking himself what has changed as he studies the EU’s arms embargo announcement, writes Simon Tisdall:
What has changed is that the two-year civil war is ever closer to fulfilling predictions that it will spill into neighbouring countries, principally Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, and spark a regional sectarian conflagration. Weekend missile attacks in southern Lebanon and Israel were further proof of that contention, as was Hezbollah's admission that its forces were fighting alongside Assad's troops.What has changed, as Oxfam among others has warned, is that by fuelling the conflict by sending yet more weapons to the combatants, Britain and France risk stoking a further rapid and potentially disastrous escalation; risk adding to the appalling toll of 80,000 people dead and millions displaced; and risk shooting down and killing off the already enfeebled diplomatic process they seek to sustain.
Alex Winning has more on Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov's reaction to the EU arms embargo's being lifted.
Ruabkov accused European leaders of “fanning the flames of the conflict", and told journalists that the EU’s decision reflected “double standards” and dealt a serious blow to prospects of a peace conference.
He also said that the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles cannot be used against rebel forces (presumably because they don't have aircraft).
Ryabkov said that Russia would stick to its goal of securing a political solution to the Syria crisis and that a peace conference and ceasefire were essential first steps to end the bloodshed.
Martin Chulov explains that the US has put its faith in Salam Idriss, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, as someone who can be trusted to be supplied with weapons via Saudi Arabia:
A reluctant US administration has lately settled on Salam Idriss, the commander of the umbrella guerilla group, the Free Syria Army, as a leader in whom it is prepared to take a risk. Dealings between Idriss and the US military have stepped up in recent months, both in Jordan and Turkey, where small groups of Syrian rebels are being trained.An influx of Saudi supplied weapons that crossed the Jordanian border earlier this year were channelled through vetted Idriss loyalists. The supply included explosives that can take out tanks and cause extensive damage to structures as rebels advance. But it did not include the holy grail of heat seekers [shoulder-launched heat-seeking missiles].
The BBC has more from Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov on Moscow's decision to press ahead with the supply of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government:
We consider these supplies a stabilising factor and believe such steps will deter some hotheads from considering scenarios that would turn the conflict international with the involvement of outside forces.
Russia's envoy to Nato, Aleksandr Grushko, said Moscow was acting "fully within the framework of international law":
We are not doing anything that could change the situation in Syria. The arms that we supply are defensive weapons.
Ryabkov said the contract for the missiles had been signed years ago.
Russia is to go ahead with deliveries of anti-aircraft missiles to the Syrian government, the BBC reports.
Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister, has said the S-300 missiles were a “stabilising factor” that could dissuade “some hotheads” from joining the conflict.
Earlier Israeli defence minister Moshe Yaalon said the S-300 missile system had not yet left Russia. "I can say that the shipments are not on their way yet," Yaalon told reporters. "I hope they will not leave, and if, God forbid, they reach Syria, we will know what to do," he said.
Israel is worried the missiles could be used to attack its own cities.
Russia's foreign minister said on 13 May that Moscow had no new plans to sell the S-300 to Syria but left open the possibility of delivering such systems under an existing contract.
Russia and Iran will be keen to see Bashar al-Assad step down as soon as his seven-year term is up in 2014, according to Professor Fawaz Gerges, the director of the Middle East centre at the London School of Economics.
He said that the way Russia and the United States viewed their proposed Syrian peace conference was “a matter of nine/eight months of negotiations”:
This would coincide with the end of President Assad’s presidential term, 2014. My take on it is the United States and Russia are viewing 2014 as the tipping point of a real political transition, whereby the end of Assad’s term, elections would take place, and the transfer of authority to a transitional government might take place.
With Assad, or without him?
Without Assad. The Russian and Iranian leaderships have made it very clear that Assad will stay in place until 2014. I take it that both the Russian leadership and the Iranian leadership basically would like to see Assad go: a face-saving formula: he stayed, he fought, and then a new government would take his place.The question is: what kind of government, what kind of transitional government? What kind of reforms would be implemented within the security forces, in particular the army … and the balance of power between elements of the regime and the opposition itself, and this is really where the talks and the hard work and the details become very complicated.
I asked Gerges what he thought of William Hague’s theory that the threat of arming the rebels would be enough to force Assad to the negotiating table.
My reading of the state of mind of President Assad and his conduct over the last two years tells me that I don’t expect Assad to respond in the same way that Mr William Hague believes him to. I think had the decision been taken a year ago it would have made a probably critical difference.The Syrian conflict has now gone too long. It’s an open-ended war by proxy. Assad is fighting a war to the bitter end. He views this war as existential. His regional supporters are deeply involved on his side. Russia is deeply invested in the survival of the Assad regime, if not Assad himself. I doubt it very much whether the European threat of sending arms to the rebels will make a qualitative difference, in particular because the United States remains opposed to arming the rebels.
He said the “game-changer” would be if the US decided to get involved, either directly or by arming the rebels – but he agreed this was unlikely. “Obama does not want another military adventure in the Middle East … He believes that Syria is the responsibility of Europe and the Arab world.”
What did Gerges think of the theory that any weapons meant for the “good guys” among the rebels might make their way to Islamist insurgents such as the al-Nusra Front.
One of the lessons we have learnt over the last 50 years when it comes to civil wars and regional conflicts, is once you send arms to a particular country, to a particular faction, the supplier will have no control over where the weapons go and where they travel … I doubt it very much that Britain and France would have control over where the arms go once they enter Syria.
But he felt Britain had no intention of actually sending arms at this point, and the decision to lift the embargo was a “political tool, a threat”. And he added:
Mr William Hague has made it clear more than once that Britain knows the risks that these weapons could and would fall into the wrong hands. But Britain is willing to take risks given the escalation of this conflict, and given the huge human toll that the use of massive force by Bashar al-Assad has exacted on the Syrian population.
Here is William Hague’s statement on the EU decision last night.
The British foreign secretary said: “It has been difficult for many nations, of course. That is why we have had such long discussions today … We have agreed as member states to make clear commitments about the restrictions on any arms we would supply, and on common rules, on the basis of common rules, and I think the whole of the European Union is very strongly committed to a political settlement in Syria. So yes, of course, on such a difficult foreign policy issue, there are disagreements, and yes we have had some disagreements today, but we have resolved those disagreements, I think on the right basis for the future.
Oxfam’s Anna Macdonald said the charity was disappointed in the EU’s decision, adding: “This decision does not give the green light to any member states who want to supply arms to groups in Syria. As clearly laid out in the EU Common Position on Arms Transfers, any transfers must be subject to full risk assessment procedures against the risks of arms being used for violations of human rights and humanitarian law.”
Robert Fox, the London Evening Standard’s defence editor, was just interviewed about the lifting of the arms embargo on BBC News.
We’re encouraging intervention, but not necessarily with our boots on the ground – which is the worst of all possible worlds, because … it means that the criminal networks that can distribute arms now feel that they’ve got a go-ahead, as long as somebody else does.In the past when this has happened – Yugoslavia, Afghanistan … Libya in particular – the wrong arms go to the wrong guys. And if we’re talking about highly portable, highly sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles it could end up very quickly among the al-Qaida affiliates like the al-Nusra Front, which is very prominent in the fighting in Syria.And nothing that seems to be said from the EU, by Mr Hague, by Paris, or by Whitehall, seems to have a clue how to stop all of that.
Eyewitness testimony and graphic video footage seems to support claims that one of the worst atrocities of the Syrian civil war was carried out in three neighbouring districts in Bayda and Baniyas earlier this month, the BBC reports.
The BBC says opposition activists have documented the deaths of more than 200 people, including women and children; the Syrian government says it killed “terrorist fighters”. The BBC reports:
On 2 May, government troops and militias marched into al-Bayda, in Tartous province on Syria's Mediterranean coast. The following day they attacked neighbouring Baniyas.Together government forces have described these operations as a "strike against armed terrorists".State media reported that 40 opposition fighters were killed. But Syrian human rights activists and eyewitnesses claim that more than 200 civilians died and hundreds are missing in what they allege was a brutal sectarian attack against innocent civilians …Numerous pictures and videos that appear to show the aftermath of Baniyas are horrific; men, women and children, some terribly disfigured, piled together, and what appear to be entire families killed.
The women we interviewed described similar scenes. "There were slaughtered corpses and charred bodies everywhere", says Om Abed [not her real name]. "Houses were on fire. The people inside them were burning. An entire family lay down dead, slaughtered in one house. There was so much blood."
This map shows where Bayda and Baniyas are (yellow pins).
Here is some response from British MPs to William Hague’s successful attempt to get the EU arms embargo against Syrian rebels dropped.
From Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary:
From Labour MP Emily Thornberry:
From Labour MP Richard Burden:
From Conservative MP Brooks Newmark:
Updated
A Syrian TV correspondent was killed covering the fighting near Qusair yesterday.
Yara Abbas, who worked for the state-owned Al-Ikhbariyah TV, was attacked by rebels who ambushed the car carrying her and her crew, the Syrian information ministry said. A cameraman and his assistant were wounded, according to the report. AFP reported that she was 26.
Updated
The Lebanese army has said it is investigating the attack on a checkpoint in which three soldiers were killed and its troops are searching for the gunmen.
Lebanon is divided over the Syrian civil war. The Shia militant group Hezbollah is fighting alongside Assad's troops, while many Sunnis back the opposition. In Tripoli, a city in the north of Lebanon, factions backing the two sides have been fighting over the last few days.
Updated
Russia has said that the European Union's lifting of the arms embargo on Syrian rebels will undermine the chance the peace conference that Russia and the United States are trying to organise being successful.
"This does direct damage to the propects for convening the international conference," Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister, said.
Updated
Summary
Good morning and welcome to the Middle East live blog. We'll have live coverage of developments from the region throughout the day.
Syria
• The EU arms embargo on Syria will not be renewed, meaning Britain and France can supply arms to the Syrian opposition from 1 August. London and Paris were the only capitals of 27 EU countries that backed letting the embargo lapse this Friday, UK foreign secretary William Hague arguing that the mere threat of arms would force Bashar al-Assad to the negotiations. But the other EU countries – despite worries the arms would fall into the hands of Islamist rebels such as Jabhat al-Nusra – assented, to preserve a semblance of unified policy, since the refusal of Britain and France to go along with the arms embargo could have caused the collapse of all EU sanctions against Syria. The August start date was decided upon to give the EU time to gauge what might happen at the peace talks in Geneva mooted for next month, although there is no certainty they will take place or who will attend. All the other parts of the Syrian embargo were retained apart from the arms embargo on the rebels.
• Austria was a strong opponent of letting the embargo lapse, and foreign minister Michael Spindelegger said that Vienna would now have to reconsider its deployment on a long-running UN peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel. Vienna has said in the past it might have to pull its 380 soldiers out if the arms embargo was eased.
• Medics working in six rebel-held districts near Damascus have treated several hundred fighters for symptoms of chemical exposure since March, a detailed investigation has found, adding fresh impetus to claims the Syrian regime has resorted to the banned weapons. France is testing samples of suspected chemical weapon elements used against Syrian rebel fighters and smuggled out by reporters from Le Monde and will divulge the results in the next few days, a senior French official said.
• The battle for Qusair near the border with Lebanon continued to rage on Monday, with Hezbollah forces advancing slowly from the south, but continuing to take heavy casualties. Officials close to the Islamic Dawa party in Lebanon suggested to Lebanese media that between 79-110 Hezbollah militants had been killed in Qusair in the past eight days.
• Some 96 people were killed across Syria yesterday, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, an activist monitoring group.The group said 30 of those were killed in Homs, and 28 in Damascus and its surrounding areas. The Local Co-ordination Committees, another activist group, said 89 people had been killed, including 27 in Damascus and 27 in Homs. These accounts cannot be verified because media access to Syria is limited.
• A British doctor who left his home, family and job in the UK to help civilians wounded by the conflict in Syria has died after the makeshift hospital he was working in was shelled. Dr Isa Abdur Rahman, 26, was working as a volunteer in the north-western city of Idlib with the British charity Hand in Hand for Syria (HIHS) when the facility was attacked.
• Hawkish US senator John McCain met rebel leaders inside Syriato discuss their calls for heavy weapons and a no-fly zone to help them topple Assad and bring the bitter civil war to a conclusion.The Arizona senator has been leading efforts in Congress in recent weeks to force Barack Obama to intervene in Syria following reports of alleged chemical weapons use by forces loyal to Assad.
Lebanon
• Gunmen opened fire on a military checkpoint in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley this morning, killing three soldiers before fleeing to the nearby Syrian border, a Lebanese military source told Reuters. The source said two of the soldiers died in the attack, near the town of Arsal, and a third died later in hospital. The border areas around Arsal are used by Syrian rebels to smuggle weapons and fighters from Lebanon across into Syria, and the region has seen previous clashes between the Lebanese military and gunmen. The news comes two days after a rocket attack hit Beirut's southern suburbs near the heartland of Hezbollah, raising fears Lebanon could be drawn more deeply into the Syrian conflict next door.
Iraq
• A wave of bombs exploded in markets in mainly Shia neighbourhoods across Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 66 people and injuring nearly 200, increasing fears that Iraq risks sliding back into broad sectarian conflict.
Israel and the Palestinian territories
• European football's governing body, Uefa, has been accused of showing "total insensitivity" to the "blatant and entrenched discrimination" of Israel
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