The Syrian opposition said on Monday it had postponed a decision on forming a government-in-exile at its meeting in Istanbul.

Sources at negotiations in Istanbul said that the head of Syria’s opposition coalition has flown to Qatar to secure promises of financial aid for a transitional government.

“It seems that there won’t be a government unless Sheikh Moaz al-Khatib comes back from Qatar with enough to convince enough members of the coalition that any government they set up will be viable,” said one coalition member who declined to be identified.

“There is agreement on the need to establish a transitional government but the majority opinion favors not to form it now without secure areas to operate in and enough international support and guarantees for direct recognition,” coalition member Ahmad Ramadan said.

“Otherwise the government will be born paralyzed,” he added.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the primary organized force in the Syrian opposition, has made it clear it does not favor a government at present.

But opposition sources said the Brotherhood could change its mind if regional powers, especially Turkey, Qatar and other Gulf states, throw their support behind the project. The Syrian opposition also says that it needs guarantees of support from dissident forces on the ground.

The Syrian National Council (SNC), a key component of the opposition, said the meeting held on Sunday formed a five-member panel to consult with the rebel Free Syrian Army, and other concerned parties on the issue.

“After studying the proposals and after deliberation on the question of creating an interim government, we decided to set up a five-member committee tasked with consulting with the forces of the revolution, the Free Syrian Army and friendly countries,” the council said.

The Syrian National Council is an influential member of the National Coalition, which was set up in Doha in November in a bid to unify opposition forces fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The opposition said the five-member committee would also be tasked with exploring “the extent of (opposition and international) commitment in order for the work to be financially and politically feasible.”

The panel includes, among others, National Coalition chief Moaz al-Khatib, Syrian National Council head George Sabra and prominent Paris-based dissident, Burhan Ghalioun.

The opposition is due to meet again on January 28 in Paris, along with representatives of some 20 countries that back the revolt against Assad.

More than 60,000 people have been killed so far in the conflict that erupted in March 2011. 

Human Rights Watch: Syrian rebels burn and plunder religious sites

Syrian rebels have looted and burned minority religious sites in Northern Syria, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says. The attacks highlight the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict as the bloodshed continues unabated.

The three incidents took place in November and December of last year in religiously mixed areas.

Rebels looted two Christian churches in separate villages in the relatively peaceful western governorate of Latakia, local witnesses told the rights watchdog.

They also destroyed a Shi’a ‘Husseiniya’ – a religious site devoted to Hussein, a martyr in Shi’a tradition – in Idlib governorate.

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube by user @syriarage showing Syrian rebels seizing the village of Zarzour on December 11 2012, where they allegedly torched the local mosque. RT

In all three cases, Human Rights Watch found evidence showing the attacks on the religious sites were directly connected to the areas coming under the control of the armed rebels.

After rebels took control of Jdeideh village in Latakia on December 11, a local resident told the group gunmen broke into and stole from the church, letting off multiple rounds inside which caused structural damage. Damage to the sealed-off church, including broken windows and evidence of forced entry, were observed by the group a week after the attack.

The priests’ quarters next to the church were also appropriated by rebel gunmen, who used it as a base to fire upon government forces in a neighboring village. A resident said medicine had been stolen from a clinic belonging to the church, homes had been looted and civilians were kidnapped, at times for ransom.

In the village of Ghasaniyeh, gunmen broke into another church, stealing gas and diesel fuel in late November. A cross had been left on the floor, but apart from the forced entry, no other damaged was observed.

“While the motivation for the church break-ins may have been theft rather than a religious attack, opposition fighters have a responsibility to protect religious sites in areas under their control from willful damage and theft,” Human Rights Watch said.

The destruction of the Shi’a holy site was carried out on December 11 after rebels took control of Zarzour village.

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube where they allegedly torched the local mosque. RT

A video published on YouTube the following day purportedly showed armed rebel celebrating the expulsion of government forces from the village as a fire rages in the Shi’a mosque.

One rebel, identifying himself as a member of the Amr bin Ma’ad Yakrib al-Zubaydi Brigade, proclaims the”destruction of the dens of the Shi’as and Rafida,” a derogatory term used against the Muslim denomination.

Rebel fighters claimed government forces torched the mosque before leaving, but two local residents said anti-government forces set the fire upon seizing the town.

Human Rights Watch independently confirmed that the damage to the site had been deliberate, lending credence to the video’s authenticity. The investigators witnessed that the windows at the site had been shattered, prayer stones were strewn across the floor, religious posters had been ripped off the walls, and charred items lay in a pile on the floor, indicating “they were piled on top of one another and deliberately set on fire.”

Christians have increasingly viewed the current government as a guarantor of their religious freedoms. Religious persecution faced by Egyptian and Iraqi Christians in the wake of regime change has only increased fears that religiously tolerant Syria will be transformed by Islamist elements of the opposition.

Such sentiments have put them in the crosshairs of rebel fighters.

In August, Syria’s state news agency SANA reported a massacre in nearby Jandar village which left 16 civilians, mostly Alawites and Christians, dead.

In June, at least 9,000 Christians from the western Syrian city of Qusayr neighboring Homs were reportedly forced to seek refuge after an ultimatum from a local military chief of the armed opposition.

In March, sources inside the Syrian Orthodox Church have claimed the systematic “ethnic cleansing of Christians” by the Free Syrian Army was taking place in Homs.

A letter sent to Agenzia Fides – the Vatican’s press agency – by Orthodox sources in Syria said that “Militant armed Islamists…have managed to expel 90 percent of Christians in Homs and confiscated their homes by force.”

Agnes Mariam, a local Christian leader in Syria, told RT in September that the persecution of Christians was a reflection of how their faith had excluded them from Islamist elements within the opposition, an “ambiguous position” as she said. 

Nothing will improve with the situation in Syria while the opposition is possessed with the idea of ousting President Bashar Assad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday an annual press conference summing up the previous year. 

“I repeat: everything ends with the opposition’s obsession with ousting Assad. As long as this intransigent attitude remains in force, nothing good will happen. The fighting will continue and people will die,” Lavrov said.

“Some countries of the West and the Middle East welcomed creation of the opposition coalition. When we asked our partners why they have chosen an attitude that rejects dialogue, we were told that the main task is to unite the opposition, and once that’s done, the Western countries taking part in the settlement of the Syrian crisis will talk the opposition into taking a more constructive position,” said the minister.

But that never happened, he explained, saying that “there were no attempts to call the sides to negotiation table,”despite efforts by Russia, China, UN special envoy Kofi Annan and another envoy, Lahdar Brahimi, who replaced Annan.­

For Russian foreign politics, preserving or deposing President Bashar Assad’s regime is not a priority, Lavrov pointed out. The settlement of the Syrian crisis means putting an immediate halt to the fighting to stop the bloodshed and stabilize the situation in Syria. He said Western powers agree in private but differ when speaking to the media. 

“But when they go to the public, they say things that differ from those previously said by them in private,” Lavrov revealed.

Lavrov also shared his belief that the presence of the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean Sea guarantees stability in the region and that Russia has no plans to close its embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus.

“The embassy is functioning properly, fulfilling the task of being in contact with both the Syrian leadership and the opposition,” Lavrov said. 

— Reuters, TAAN, RT