The Syrian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood called on Sunday for the United States and Europe to deliver the
rebels promised military support after the opposition's National Coalition
voted in a new president and ended a months-long leadership vacuum.
The United States has signaled it is ready
to send arms to the rebels, in addition to humanitarian and non-lethal military
aid already in the millions of dollars. Its Gulf allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia
are already sending in arms.
But there have been no confirmed reports of
shipments reaching Syria from its hesitant Western backers.
"We feel abandoned and disappointed
that the United States and Europe have backed down from their position
regarding arming the Free Syrian Army and we call on the international
community to fulfill its obligations," said a statement posted by the
Brotherhood on Twitter.
The opposition has been calling for more
advanced weaponry since President Bashar al-Assad's forces launched a new
offensive in central Syria with the help of the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
His forces are hammering the central city
of Homs and have encircled rebel strongholds near the capital Damascus.
Western powers are still hesitant about
sending arms, partially due to the fractious politics of the opposition's
political umbrella group abroad, the Syrian National Council. It went months
without being able to create enough agreement within its ranks to hold
elections for a new leader, after the former president, Moaz Alkhatib, resigned.
They are also concerned about the growing
reach of radical rebel Islamist groups in Syria, some of them linked to al
Qaeda, who could end up with Western weapons.
For his part, Melhem al-Drobi, a senior official with the
Syrian Brotherhood, said there had been no official change from foreign powers
in terms of promises to step up aid to the rebels.
He said the Coalition's election on Saturday, which brought the
Saudi-backed tribal leader Ahmed al-Jarba to the helm, should give the West the
confidence now to send promised aid.
On another note, Syria's Islamist rebels said the downfall of Egypt's popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood president has
proven that Western nations pushing for democracy will never accept them, and
reinforced the view of radicals that a violent power grab is their only resort.
Radical Islamist groups, some of
them linked to al Qaeda, have lately been in the ascendancy in Syria's two-year
conflict as the death toll rises above 100,000.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has celebrated President
Mohamed Morsi's fall as a symbolic blow to the Islamist-dominated opposition, though on
the battlefield, where his troops are already making gains, it is likely to
have little impact given the Brotherhood's limited role in the fighting.
Hardliners in the rebel ranks have
long overshadowed the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional movement with a more
moderate Islamist brand, and often criticized it for working within the
framework of democracy instead of demanding an Islamic state.
On the field:
Shells smashed into a central
prison in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo, killing some prisoners, a rights
group said Sunday, part of a long battle for control of the ancient city, which
has already suffered severe damage in the civil war.
The explosions killed six
prisoners, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
communicates with a network of activists on the ground. The explosives hit on
Friday night, the Observatory said. It was not clear who fired the shells.
An al-Qaeda-linked group has been
fighting for weeks to seize control of the prison, besieging it. The Observatory
estimated some 120 prisoners have died in the Aleppo jail since April from
fighting, illness and executions.
Earlier, a Syrian rights group said that rebels are pounding two
besieged Shiite towns in the northern province of Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
that fighting was flaring up on the outskirts of the towns of Nubul and
Zahra. Fighters seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad have
besieged the towns for months and tried to force out his troops there.
AP/REUTERS
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