Syrian anti-regime protesters march through Damascus. Some 3,500 people have been killed since a crackdown in March, according to the UN. Photograph: Reuters
Syrian army defectors have attacked a string of military bases near Damascus, including an intelligence complex on the outskirts of the capital, in the first such reported assault on a major security facility in the eight-month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
Members of the Free Syrian Army fired shoulder-mounted rockets and machine guns at the compound run by Air Force Intelligence in Harasta, a suburb of the capital.
A gunfight ensued and helicopters circled the area. The attack appeared to mark an escalation in armed confrontations between government and opposition forces instead of clashes involving street protesters.
“I heard several explosions, the sound of machine gunfire being exchanged,” a Hasrata resident told Reuters.
Other attacks targeted military checkpoints in the suburbs of Douma, Qaboun and Arabeen and Saqba.
There was no immediate report of casualties, and the area where the fighting occurred remained inaccessible, the sources said.
The reported attacks came in the runup to an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers to suspend Syria‘s membership from the Arab League. The suspension, called “shameful and malicious” by Damascus, is to take effect on Wednesday as foreign ministers meet in Morocco. League rules require 15 of the 22 members to back an emergency summit.
President Bashar al-Assad’s growing isolation was underlined when six members of the Saudi-led Gulf Co-operation Council rejected his call for an emergency Arab summit to discuss the crisis.
Wednesday’s attacks could not be independently confirmed.
The Syrian government has largely sealed off the country, barring most foreign journalists and preventing independent reporting. But details gathered by activist groups and witnesses, along with the amateur videos, have become key channels of information.
Attacks near Damascus are rare, and clashes between defectors and troops have in the past been concentrated in the north-western province of Idlib and central region of Homs and the southern province of Daraa.
The latest incidents come two days after defectors killed 34 of Assad’s soldiers and members of the security services in Daraa, on what was one of the bloodiest days of the eight-month uprising.
The UN says more than 3,500 people have been killed since Assad launched a crackdown on the protesters in mid-March.
Also on Wednesday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four people, including three rebels, were killed in the central province of Hama after they were ambushed by troops loyal to Assad.
The Local Co-ordination Committees, another activist group, said three people had been killed on Wednesday: two in Idlib; one in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani.
Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister-designate, an academic and former European commissioner, was chosen by the nation’s president after his elected predecessor was abandoned by political allies. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg
A European Union (EU) flag, left, and Greek national flag fly near the Parthenon temple on Acropolis hill in Athens, Greece. Photographer: Angelos Tzortzinis/Bloomberg
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said “The level of hostility between different political forces is enormous.” Photographer: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg
The European debt crisis has toppled four elected governments with the last two, in Greece and
Italy, falling last week without a shove from voters.
The appointment of prime ministers in Athens and
Rome to push through unpopular austerity measures echoes efforts in the past five decades by European leaders to control policy-making when democratic means fall short.
“The
euro zone would never have been created if voters had been given a say,” Fredrik Erixon, head of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said in a telephone interview. “It’s an elite project but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad project.”
Greek Prime Minister
Lucas Papademos, a former central banker, and Italian Prime Minister-designate
Mario Monti, an academic and former European commissioner, were chosen by each nation’s president after their elected predecessors were abandoned by political allies, making them unable to pass legislation demanded by the other members of the euro region.
“They’re there not just because they’re technocrats, but because it was easier to ask independent personalities to construct political consensus,” European Commission President
Jose Barroso said Nov. 14 in Paris. “The level of hostility between different political forces is enormous.”
Progress toward building — and now saving — the 27-nation union has rested largely with the ruling elites. Decisions are taken at meetings of ministers from national governments, and the commission, its executive arm, is appointed by those governments.
Monnet’s Dream
The bloc, the brainchild of French bureaucrat Jean Monnet, started in 1951 as a grouping of six nations bringing their coal and steel industries under common management. In 1957, the six signed the Treaty of Rome, extending cooperation to other economic areas.
When the prototype European Parliament came into being in 1952, it had no legislative powers. Members weren’t elected until 1979 and the assembly shuttled between Brussels and Strasbourg,
France. It was only able to amass rights to influence decisions as new treaties were signed over the years. In 1999, the parliament exercised its power by forcing the removal of the commission.
Maastricht Votes
The Maastricht Treaty creating the common currency was approved by an Irish referendum in June 1992 and narrowly passed by the French in September 1992. Danes rejected it in June 1992 before endorsing a revised version in May 1993 giving them the right to opt out of the common currency.
“Monetary union has been a ‘top down’ project dreamed up by political and business leaders and pushed through without undue consultation or communication with the people,” said David Marsh, author of “The Euro: The Battle for the New Global Currency.”
A proposed European constitution was shelved after French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005. Its replacement, the Treaty of Lisbon, was only put to a popular vote in Ireland, which initially rejected it in 2008 before approving it in a re- vote the next year.
While the appointments in Greece and Italy avoided snap elections that may have created even greater turbulence in financial markets, governments made up of non-political experts can’t make up for the single currency’s flaws, said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in
London.
Worse still, they will be forced to pursue austerity measures that could further depress their economies and drive up their debt.
‘Deep Flaw’
“There’s a deep flaw in the structure of the common currency and that’s not something that technocratic governments can do anything about,” Whyte said. “Monetary union without fiscal and political union is inherently unstable.”
It has been left to the
European Central Bank to maintain what monetary order remains in the euro area. Nations led by
Germany have refused to consider jointly sold euro bonds, saying it would infringe on their sovereignty.
The ECB has bought limited amounts of Italian and Spanish bonds in recent months, without ever firmly stating it stands behind the debt of both countries. As a condition for the purchases, it sent a letter to Italian authorities in September demanding spending cuts, tax increases and labor-market revamping.
ECB Purchases
And there’s nothing alarming about the ECB dictating policies to Italy, said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a senior transatlantic fellow at the
German Marshall Fund of the
United States.
“Every day, they are buying Italian debt, which is a transfer of Italian debt to community debt,” he said.
Greece’s Papademos, a former vice president of the ECB, and Monti are struggling against pushback from elected officials, reflecting the squeeze from which they’re not immune.
Greek opposition leader Antonis Samaras said backing for the country’s new interim government should last no more than the three months needed to secure international financing before elections are held or risk a “social explosion.”
Monti yesterday moved to finish cobbling together his government after two days of talks that threatened to unravel amid political posturing.
“In parliamentary democracies, you can’t impose an alien,” Kleine-Brockhoff said. “They still have to get parliamentary majorities to move things.”
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Syrian army defectors attack intelligence base near Damascus