Syrian deputy prime minister dismissed - state media
Syria's deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, was dismissed from his post, state media said on Tuesday, citing government complaints about his performance and lack of coordination with other officials.
Jamil had been in Geneva recently and met U.S. officials there, according to U.S. sources in the city. It was unclear if his dismissal was linked to the meetings.
"Jamil was dismissed because he left his center of work without prior permission and did not follow up on his duties ... additionally, he undertook activities outside the nation without coordinating with the government," said a statement posted in a news flash on Syria TV.
This comes as UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, held a meeting with several Syrian government figures and internal opposition leaders in Damascus, on the second day of his visit to the country.
Brahimi is trying to prepare a peace conference on Syria which supposed to take place in Geneva next month, but the gathering has been increasingly in doubt as Syria's warring factions refuse to face each other at the negotiating table.
His visit comes as international inspectors overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile missed an early deadline in a brutally tight schedule, after security concerns prevented them from visiting two sites linked to Damascus' chemical program.
The chief of the global chemical weapons watchdog disclosed for the first time in a report obtained by The Associated Press that Syria has declared 41 facilities at 23 chemical sites where it stored approximately 1,300 tons of precursors and agents, and over 1,200 unfilled munitions to deliver them.
Ahmet Uzumcu said in his first report to the UN Security Council that inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had corroborated the information provided by Syria at 37 of the 41 facilities.
But the OPCW said inspectors were only able to visit 21 of the 23 sites because of security risks - which means the tight timeline for visiting all declared sites by October 27 was missed.
While there are no consequences for missing the deadline, the group's failure to meet it underscores the ambitious timeline as well as the risks its inspectors face in carrying out their mission in the middle of Syria's civil war.
The Syrian conflict has left more than 100,000 people dead and driven nearly seven million more from their homes.
This comes as Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, has urged young Saudis to refrain from fighting in Syria.
The kingdom has backed the rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad, publicly calling on the world powers to "enable" Syrians to protect themselves, but is wary that fighters could return home ready to wage war on their own dynastic rulers.
Islamists in Saudi Arabia, who follow a puritanical version of Sunni Islam, denounce Assad and his administration as infidels because of their roots in the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
However, Sunni Muslim al Qaeda fighters led by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden attacked targets inside Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006, having gained experience fighting in Iraq, and before that in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
A Gulf source familiar with military movements in the region said in September 2012 thousands of Saudis had sought to head to Syria to join the uprising. It is not known how many succeeded.
The grand mufti, appointed by the Saudi king, also warned preachers against encouraging young men to fight in Syria during their sermons, after delivering what the paper said was a lecture on "Deviation among the youth" at a mosque.
Bin Laden led a battalion of Arab volunteers fighting against the Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, while others joined local Muslim forces in civil wars in the 1990s in Bosnia and Chechnya.
But even before he sent 15 Saudis and four other Arabs to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, bin Laden had turned against the Saudi Arabia's ruling al-Saud family, mainly because of its close relationship with the West.
That relationship, especially with its oldest ally the United States, has cooled somewhat over the past months over the failure to end the war in Syria and a softening of tone towards arch-rival Shi'ite Iran.
Meanwhile, a polio outbreak has been confirmed among young children in northeast Syria, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
"Out of those 22 being investigated, 10 are now confirmed to be polio type one," WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer told a news briefing in Geneva. Laboratory results were still being awaited on the remaining 12 suspected cases in Deir al-Zor, he said.
"Of course this is a communicable disease, with population movements it can travel to other areas. So the risk is high for (its) spread across the region," Rosenbauer said.
REUTERS/AP