WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has for now abandoned efforts for a diplomatic settlement to the conflict in Syria, and instead it is increasing aid to the rebels and redoubling efforts to rally a coalition of like-minded countries to forcibly bring down the government of President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials say.
Administration officials have been in talks with officials in Turkey and Israel over how to manage a Syrian government collapse. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is headed to Israel in the next several days to meet with Israeli defense counterparts, following up on a visit last week by national security adviser Thomas Donilon, to discuss, in part, the Syrian crisis.
The administration has been holding regular talks with the Israelis about how Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, administration officials said. The administration is not advocating such an attack, the officials said, because of the risk that it would give Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference.
The White House is now holding daily high-level meetings to discuss a broad range of contingency plans — including safeguarding Syria’s vast chemical weapons arsenal and sending warnings to both sides to avert mass atrocities — in a sign of the escalating seriousness of the Syrian crisis after a week of intensified fighting in Damascus and the killing of Assad’s key security aides in a bombing attack.
Administration officials insist they will not provide arms to the rebel forces. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are financing those efforts. But U.S. officials said that the United States was likely to supply intelligence support and provide more communications training and equipment to help improve the combat effectiveness of opposition forces in their widening, sustained fight against Syrian army troops.
By enhancing the command-and-control of the rebel formations, largely by improving their ability to communicate with one another and their superiors and to coordinate combat operations, U.S. officials say they seeking to build on and fuel the momentum of the rebels’ recent battlefield successes.
“You’ll notice in the last couple of months, the opposition has been strengthened,” a senior Obama administration official said Friday. “Now we’re ready to accelerate that.”
The official said that the hope was that support for the Syrian opposition from the United States, Arab governments and Turkey would tip the balance in the conflict.
BEIRUT — Riding a wave of momentum, Syrian rebels made a run on Aleppo on Saturday in some of the fiercest fighting seen in the country’s largest city, which has been a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad over the course of the 17-month-old uprising.
The rebels also took over a third border crossing — and the second one along Syria’s frontier with Iraq — in another sign the regime’s tight grip on the country is wobbling.
The fighting in Aleppo comes on the heels of clashes in the capital, Damascus, as rebel forces target the pillars of regime power in their attempts to usher in what they hope will be the end of Assad’s rule.
“There were huge explosions, and the gunfire didn’t stop for several hours,” said Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed via Skype. “The uprising has finally reached Aleppo.”
The city has remained largely loyal to Assad and been spared the kind of daily bloodshed that has plagued other areas.
But Saeed said dozens of fighters from the Free Syrian Army entered Aleppo from the countryside and were fighting regime troops from the inside.
The rebels have put the regime on the defensive after a week of battles in Damascus, including a bombing that killed four high-level government officials. The coming days will be crucial to determining whether the regime can recover from the blows.
Rebels also took over the Syrian side of the border crossing at the Iraqi town of Rabiya, 320 miles northwest of Baghdad, said Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Iraq’s Ninevah province.
Iraqi officials said rebels tore up and shot at posters of Assad but did not face resistance from regime authorities who surrendered the sprawling, dusty border crossing peacefully. Iraqi officials quickly barricaded the crossing and ordered additional troops to secure the area.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned Assad to prepare to leave.
“Bashar Assad’s regime is condemned by his own people, who show great courage,” Fabius said. “It’s time to prepare for the transition and the day after.”
