BEIRUT — Syrian tanks and troops massed Monday outside the resistance stronghold of Homs for a possible ground assault that one activist warned could unleash a new round of fierce and bloody urban combat, even as the Red Cross tried to broker a cease-fire to allow emergency aid in.
A flood of military reinforcements has been a prelude to previous offensives by President Bashar Assad’s regime, which has tried to use its overwhelming firepower to crush an opposition that has been bolstered by defecting soldiers and hardened by 11 months of street battles.
“The human loss is going to be huge if they retake Baba Amr,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The central city of Homs — and in particular the opposition district known as Baba Amr — has become critical ground for both sides.
The opposition has lionized it as “Syria’s Misrata,” after the Libyan city where rebels fought off a brutal government siege. Assad’s regime wants desperately to erase the embarrassing defiance in Syria’s third-largest city after weeks of shelling, including a barrage of mortars that killed up to 200 people earlier this month. At least nine people were killed in shelling Monday, activists said.
Another massive death toll would only bring further international isolation for Assad from Western and Arab leaders.
“The massacre in Syria goes on,” U.S. Sen. John McCain said during a visit to Cairo, where he urged Washington and its allies to find way to help arm and equip Syrian rebels.
Assad’s fall also would be a potentially devastating blow for Iran, which counts on Syria as its most reliable Arab ally and a pathway for aid to Tehran patron Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But McCain urged for “like-minded” Western and Arab nations also to guard against attempts by al-Qaeda or other extremists to exploit a leadership vacuum if the regime crumbles.
“For us to sit back and do nothing while people are being slaughtered … is an affront to everything America stands for and believes in,” said McCain, suggesting that the Republicans could seek to make Syria a central campaign issue in this year’s U.S. presidential election.
But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit Monday to Mexico, dodged a question about whether the U.S. could accept Arab countries or others arming the Syrian rebels.
“We are all working for the planned Friends of Syria meeting (in Tunisia) at the end of this week, which we think will give us a chance to come together and chart a way forward,” she said.
In Cairo, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby suggested at a news conference that Russia and China — two countries that recently supported Damascus by vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s regime — may be shifting their positions.
“There are some indications, especially from China and to some degree from Russia, that there may be a change in their stance,” he said, without elaborating.
In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said the group has been in talks with Syrian authorities and opposition groups to negotiate a cease-fire in some of the most violence-torn areas.
“We are currently discussing several possibilities with all those concerned, and it includes a cessation of fighting in the most affected areas,” the spokeswoman, Carla Haddad, said.
She said the talks weren’t aimed at resolving any of the entrenched political differences.
“The idea is to be able to facilitate swift access to people in need,” Haddad said.
Activists believe Assad may be trying to subdue Homs — an important stronghold for anti-Assad groups — before a planned referendum Sunday on a new constitution. The charter would allow a bigger role for political opposition to challenge Assad’s Baath Party, which has controlled Syria since a 1963 coup.
But the leaders of the uprising have dismissed the referendum as an attempt at superficial reforms that do nothing to crack the regime’s hold on power.
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Iraq violence falls as fighters join Syria revolt • BAGHDAD — The departure of al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters from Iraq to join the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad has had one benefit, officials say: Violence has dropped in Iraq, in some areas by as much as 50 percent in just a few months.
Iraqi officials declined to provide precise figures for the drop-off or to estimate how many al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters have left the country for Syria. But the impact of the departure, they said, has been especially apparent in Nineveh province, which borders Syria and has long been the scene of some of al-Qaeda in Iraq’s most violent bombings and assassinations.
The province’s capital, Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, was once home to as many as 800 al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters, U.S. officials estimated last summer. But one provincial security officer said al-Qaeda in Iraq attacks in Mosul have become infrequent this year, and the attacks that do occur generally are small or are detected before they can be carried out. The officer spoke only on condition of anonymity because regulations prohibit him from talking to reporters.
“Violence is down in Mosul — maybe one or two operations per day, sometimes none,” the officer said Monday.
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Yemen presidential vote today formally ends 33-year rule
SANA, Yemen — Yemenis vote today in a presidential election that formally ends the 33-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who becomes the fourth Arab leader to succumb to a popular uprising, albeit on some of his terms.
As part of the brokered accord that concludes Saleh’s reign, the vice president for the past 18 years, Abdurabu Mansur Hadi, is running uncontested. Hadi was appointed leader after Saleh signed a power transition accord in November in return for immunity for himself and his inner circle.
Yemen is the only country touched by the Arab Spring to undertake a transition on the basis of a negotiated settlement. This gives Yemenis a chance to resolve issues and avert some of the problems facing other countries, U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein said this month.
U.S. senators meet with Egypt’s leaders before trial of 19 Americans. A delegation of U.S. officials, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met with Egyptian officials in Cairo before a trial of nongovernmental workers, including 19 American citizens, that threatens to derail relations between the countries.
McCain and U.S. Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., discussed the case Monday with Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council.
The Egyptian prosecution’s summary of the case focuses largely on the testimony of their accusers, with evidence primarily limited to proof that their organizations used U.S. and other foreign funds on payrolls and rent. The case has threatened Egypt with the loss of $1.5 billion in aid.
The summary, compiled by the Office of the Investigating Judge of Egypt’s Ministry of Justice, sets the stage for the group trial, scheduled to begin Sunday.
Denver Post wire services
Arab Unrest
