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(Reuters) - The United States has pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns after his cultivation of contacts with protesters led to attacks on his embassy and residence by backers of President Bashar alAssad, diplomats said on Monday. Robert Ford left Syria over the weekend, the Western diplomats told Reuters, following a series of incidents that resulted in physical damage but no casualties. "Articles, more inciting against Ford than usual, have appeared in state media recently. He left on Saturday," said one of the diplomats, who like others asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. U.S. embassy officials were not immediately available for comment. Ford, a veteran diplomat, infuriated Syria's rulers by getting in touch with a seven-month-old grassroots protest movement demanding an end to 41 years of Assad family rule. Ford was cheered by protesters when he went in July to the antiAssad hotbed city of Hama, which was later stormed by tanks. He also visited a town that had witnessed regular protests in the southern province of Deraa, ignoring a new ban on Western diplomats traveling outside the Damascus area. Along with a group of mostly Western ambassadors, Ford later paid condolences to the family of Ghayath Matar, a 25-year-old protest leader who had distributed flowers to give to soldiers but was arrested and died of apparent torture, activists say. Washington, seeking to convince Assad to scale back an alliance with U.S. arch-foe Iran and backing for militant groups, acted to improve relations with Damascus after President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Obama sent Ford to Damascus in January to fill a diplomatic vacuum prevailing since Washington withdrew its ambassador in 2005. But relations deteriorated anew after the uprising broke out and
Assad ignored international calls to respond to protester demands that he dismantle the Syrian police state and allow political pluralism. In an interview with Reuters last month, Ford said Assad was losing support among key constituents and risked plunging Syria into sectarian strife by intensifying a military crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators. Time was running against Assad, he said at the time.
The wave of Arab unrest that started with the Tunisian revolution of January 2011 reached Syria in mid-March, when residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up antigovernment graffiti. President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad, at first wavered between force and hints of reform. But in April, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he launched the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restive cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators. Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform — rejected as shams by protest leaders — brought an end to the unrest. Similarly, the protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armored forces. The conflict is complicated by Syria’s ethnic divisions. The Assads and much of the nation’s elite, especially the military, belong to the Alawite sect, a small minority in a mostly Sunni country. Syria’s crackdown has been condemned internationally, as has President Assad, a British-trained doctor who many had hoped would soften his father’s iron-handed regime. But no direct intervention has been proposed, and support for protesters has been balanced against fears of instability in a country at the heart of so many conflicts in the world’s most volatile region. By October, estimates for the death toll ranged above 2,900, and human rights groups said that well over 10,000 people had been arrested. In July, the Obama administration, in a shift that was weeks in the making, turned against Mr. Assad but stopped short of demanding that he step down. By early August, the American ambassador was talking of a “post-Assad” Syria. As the assaults on restive cities continued, cracks emerged in a tight-knit leadership that has until now rallied its base of support and maintained a unified front. But by the fall, Syria’s economy was crumbling under the pressure of sanctions and the unrest, with its currency weakening, its recession expanding and its tourism industry wrecked — a serious blow to a regime whose legitimacy has relied on economic success. In early October, in what seemed to be the most serious attempt to bring together a fragmented opposition, Syrian dissidents formally established the Syrian National Council. The group’s stated goal was to overthrow President Assad’s government. Members said the council included representatives from the Damascus Declaration group, a pro-democracy network; the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamic political party; various Kurdish factions; the Local Coordination Committees, a group that helps organize and document protests; and other independent and tribal figures. The same month, a semblance of civil war erupted in Homs, Syria’s thirdlargest city, where armed protesters were calling themselves revolutionaries.
Since the start of the uprising, Homs has been one of Syria’s most contested cities. In the targeted killings, the rival security checkpoints and the hardening of sectarian sentiments, Homs seemed to offer a dark vision that could foretell the future of Syria’s uprising as both the government and the opposition readied themselves for a protracted struggle over the endurance of the fourdecade dictatorship. Increasingly convinced that President al-Assad will not be able to remain in power, the Obama administration began to make plans for American policy in the region after he is gone. In coordination with Turkey, the United States has been exploring how to deal with the possibility of a civil war among Syria’s Alawite, Druse, Christian and Sunni sects, a conflict that could quickly ignite other tensions in an already volatile region. Protest Timeline Oct. 12 Tens of thousands of Syrians rallied in central Damascus to show support for President Bashar al-Assad. The turnout in Sabaa Bahrat Square in Damascus underlined the degree of backing that Mr. Assad and his leadership still enjoy among many Syrians. That support is especially pronounced among religious minorities who fear chaos and reprisals if he falls. Oct. 9 Syria warned foreign countries not to recognize the newly formed opposition group, the Syrian National Council, and threatened to take “strict measures” against any country that does. Meanwhile, the government’s crackdown on protesters continued. Oct. 8 Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of Qamishli, a city in northeastern Syria, for the funeral of a celebrated Kurdish opposition leader whose assassination the day before unleashed fury in the country’s Kurdish regions. Oct. 5 Months of wrangling at the United Nations’ Security Council over a resolution condemning Syria collapsed after Russia and China vetoed a measure that contained a weak reference to the possibility of sanctions against Damascus. European members of the Security Council had weakened references to sanctions in an attempt to prevent a veto, to no avail. Oct. 3 Syrian dissidents formally established a broad-based national council designed to overthrow President Assad’s government. The announcement of the Syrian National Council appeared to be the most serious step yet to unify a fragmented opposition. Sept. 27 Syria’s Christian community remains largely supportive of Mr. Assad, fearing reprisals from Sunni Muslims if he falls or if protests degenerate into civil war. Their fears are echoed among minorities across the region, who wonder if it takes a strongman to protect them. Sept. 15 Syrian security forces shot dead 29 people in some of the country’s most restive locales: Homs, in central Syria; Dara’a, a southern town where the uprising began; the suburbs of the capital Damascus; and the outskirts of Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city. The toll marked one of the bloodiest in
weeks. Sept. 12 The United Nations raised its estimate of the number of protesters killed in the uprising to 2,600, as it announced the appointment of three investigators to look into human rights abuses in the country. Sept. 8 President Ahmadinejad of Iran became the most recent, and perhaps the most unexpected, world leader to call for President Assad to end his violent crackdown. As Syria’s most important regional strategic ally, Iran has increased calls for Syria to end the violence and reform its political process, a formula Tehran apparently hopes will repair its image and, if heeded, possibly bolster Mr. Assad’s standing. Sept. 5 Syria opened its main prison in Damascus to a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross for the first time since the uprising started in mid-March, amid hopes that the move could begin to reveal the fate of thousands of political detainees. At the same time as the visit, at least five people were killed when Syrian troops raided several cities and towns across the country in search of activists and protesters who were involved in planning the uprising. Troops also raided homes and combed areas in northern and central Syria looking for the attorney general, Adnan Bakkour, whose resignation greatly embarrassed the government. Sept. 1 Hama’s attorney general, Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour, resigned in protest as he detailed hundreds of killings, arrests and torture cases by the government of President Assad. His resignation was the first by a senior Syrian official and could represent a major blow to the government of Mr. Assad, who has so far dismissed all criticism of his crackdown on prodemocracy activists and ignored calls by the international community to step down. Mr. Bakkour said he quit because he was forced to falsify reports as security forces killed hundreds of jailed, peaceful demonstrators and buried them in mass graves. Aug. 30 Security forces killed at least seven people in southern and central Syria when they opened fire at worshipers emerging from mosques after early prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. At the same time, there were reports that dozens of soldiers, possibly encouraged by the rout in Libya of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, had deserted their positions in a village near Homs and on the outskirts of Damascus to join the uprising.
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian security forces killed four people in the restive central city of Homs on Monday, while government troops clashed with gunmen believed to be defectors from the military, activists said. The U.S., meanwhile, pulled its ambassador out of Syria, saying threats against him make it no longer safe for him to remain. Ford has been the target of several incidents of intimidation by pro-government thugs, and enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of peaceful protests and harsh critique of a government crackdown that the U.N. says has killed more than 3,000. The opposition movement driving Syria's 7-month-old uprising has mostly focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently there have been reports of protesters taking up arms to defend themselves against military attacks. There have also been increasing reports of defections from the military, highlighting a trend that has raised fears that Syria may be sliding toward civil war. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes Monday pitting Syrian troops against army defectors left casualties on both sides, but there was no precise death toll. The fighting happened in Houla, which is comprised of several villages in the Homs province. About 25 miles (40 kilometers) away in the city of Homs, security forces killed four people, the observatory said. Syria's third-largest city, Homs has seen some of the most severe violence in the past months. The Assad regime has banned most foreign journalists and prevented independent media coverage, making it difficult to confirm events on the ground. Activist networks with a wide network of sources on the ground and witnesses reached by telephone have provided a steady stream of information about the crackdown. Â