Syria opposition says no to peace talks without clear timeframe for Assad exit

Syrian National Coalition President Ahmad Jarba said on Sunday the opposition would not attend proposed peace talks in Geneva unless there was a clear timeframe for President Bashar al-Assad to leave power.
   
"We have decided not to enter Geneva talks unless it is with dignity, and unless there is a successful transfer of power with a specific timeframe, and without the occupier Iran at the negotiating table," Jarba told an Arab League emergency meeting in Cairo.             

This as a Syrian government minister said Sunday that foreign fighters who have come to the country to wage jihad are responsible for the outbreak of polio in the rebel-controlled north.

Last week, the United Nations health agency confirmed 10 polio cases in northeast Syria, the first confirmed outbreak of the disease in the country in 14 years, raising a risk of it spreading across the region.

The confirmed cases are among babies and toddlers, all under 2, who were "under-immunized," according to the World Health Organization. The agency is awaiting lab results on another 12 cases showing polio symptoms.

Minister of Social Affairs Kindah al-Shammat told The Associated Press on Sunday that jihadis from Pakistan were to blame.

Al-Shammat said the government has launched an immunization campaign to "protect all children in Syria." She did not say if and how the vaccination campaign will proceed in the northern areas along the border with Turkey. That area has been under opposition control since the rebels captured large swaths of land and whole neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria largest city, from the regime over the past year.

The polio virus, a highly contagious disease, usually infects children in unsanitary conditions through the consumption of food or liquid contaminated with feces. It attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze, and can spread widely and unnoticed before it starts crippling children. The disease was last reported in Syria in 1999.

On another note, Jordan's King Abdullah II promised lawmakers to speed up reforms slowed by unrest across the Middle East, though the kingdom's weakened opposition accused him of finding excuses to hold onto the monarchy's absolute power.

Abdullah told parliament's opening session that he will press ahead with plans to amend election laws the opposition says favor pro-palace candidates and overhaul a public sector widely seen as rife with corruption and nepotism.

The king called the reforms a "white revolution"  a term royal aides say signifies a peaceful change rather than one of turmoil like those brought by the Arab Spring, which saw four regional leaders deposed in uprisings.

The plan, the king said, will restructure state agencies and improve the quality of education, health care and public transportation in a key U.S. ally bordering Syria, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

On the field:
 
Syrian army and other fighters attacked Sunni rebel areas in southern Damascus on Sunday in an offensive aimed at breaking resistance to President Bashar al-Assad around the capital, activists said.              

Fighters from the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant, which is heavily comprised of foreign jihadists, have joined Islamist rebel brigades and Free Syrian Army units in close quarters fighting around the district of Hajar al-Aswad.              

Hajar al-Aswad is mainly inhabited by refugees from the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. It is one of a series of Sunni districts on the edge of Damascus at the forefront of the uprising against Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated Syria since the 1960s.
            
Rami Al-Sayyed, an activist in Hajar al-Aswad, said the bombardment was the heaviest since the uprising erupted in March 2011.

"We are being hit with mortars, tanks, artillery, and rockets. Civilians trying to find a way to flee are not spared. Over the last few days field hospitals took more than 150 wounded, mainly civilians," he said.

Activists said aerial, artillery and rocket barrages on Hajar al-Aswad had killed at least 30 civilians in the last three days. Ten rebels were also killed.
         
No firm casualty figure was available for their opponents but opposition sources said up to 30 foreign Shi'ite fighters were killed and wounded in an ambush by al-Qaeda linked Islamists last week.                   

Heavy fighting was reported in the adjacent neighborhood of Sbeineh, situated on the southern highway between Damascus and Deraa, and in the nearby district of Hajeera.

"People continue falling in Hajar al-Aswad as heavy regime bombardment enters its fourth day. Artillery fire on the besieged district has not stopped," a statement by the Syrian Revolution General Commission said.

The statement said a four-year old also died on Sunday from malnutrition brought about by the siege, which has already caused several deaths among children. The deaths could not be independently confirmed.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities.

Official media previously said that Assad's forces were fighting al-Qaeda "terrorists" in the area.

A Middle East based diplomat following the fighting said Assad's forces were trying "to bite off slowly" section after section of Hajar al-Aswad and surrounding districts.


REUTERS/AP