Syrian opposition establishes council

BEIRUT – Syrian dissidents on Sunday formally launched a broad-based national council designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime, which they accused of pushing the country to the brink of civil war. Syrians took to the streets in celebration, singing and dancing.

In a restive northern area, meanwhile, gunmen killed the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric in an ambush, the state-run news agency reported. The cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime and has echoed its claims that the unrest in Syria is the result of a foreign conspiracy.

The announcement of the Syrian National Council at a news conference in Istanbul appeared to be the most serious step yet to unify a deeply fragmented opposition. It follows five days of intense battles between the Syrian military and army defectors in the country’s central region that raised the specter of all-out armed conflict.

Prominent Syrian opposition figure Bourhan Ghalioun, who read out the founding statement of the Syrian National Council at the news conference, accused the regime of fomenting sectarian strife to maintain its grip on power.

“I think that this (Assad) regime has completely lost the world’s trust,” he said. “The world is waiting for a united Syrian (opposition) that can provide the alternative to this regime, so that they can recognize it.

“The council denounces the (regime’s) policy of sectarian incitement … which threatens national unity and is pushing the country to the brink of civil war,” he said.

Syria’s volatile sectarian divide means an armed conflict could rapidly escalate. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the nation is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.

The opposition movement has until now focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently some protesters have been reported to have taken up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. Army defectors have also been fighting government troops.

Sunday’s killing of the mufti’s son took place in the Saraqeb region of the Idlib province as he left the university where he studied. The news report gave no details on who might have been behind the killing.