US preparing for ‘post-Assad future’: Report

Two members of the security personnel were reported shot dead in separate attacks. Security forces also defused a bomb planted under a crude oil pipeline near the city of Homs, state news agency SANA said.
The US report said Washington is quietly working with Turkey to plan for a post-Assad future that could see Syria’s various ethnic groups battle for control of the country, potentially destabilizing neighboring states.
It said that despite calling on Assad to step down, the US has yet to withdraw its ambassador, Robert Ford, because it views him as a vital conduit to the opposition and various ethnic and religious communities.
Also Tuesday, an Arab parliamentary body called for suspending the membership of Syria and Yemen in the Arab League to put pressure on the two countries to heed popular demands for reforms.
“We call on the Arab states to freeze the membership of Damascus in the Arab League and urge the Arab leaders to take more active stands in that regard if the Syrian leadership did not... stop violence and withdraw its security forces and army... and form a national unity government from all political powers,” said Tawfik Abdallah of the Arab Parliamentarians Political Affairs and National Security Committee.
Abdallah added: “We call on the Yemeni leadership to respond to the Yemeni people and accept the Gulf states initiative ... or we call on the Arab League to suspend the membership of Yemen in the Arab League and all its organizations.”
The New York Times added that intelligence officials and diplomats in the Middle East, Europe and the US increasingly believe Assad will not be able to quash the revolt.
“There’s a real consensus that he’s beyond the pale and over the edge,” the Times quoted a senior official in US President Barack Obama’s administration as saying.
“Intelligence services say he’s not coming back.”
Assad has deployed tanks and troops in an increasingly violent response to anti-regime protesters inspired by the Arab Spring, with at least 2,700 people, mostly civilians, killed since March 15, according to UN figures.
Obama was due to discuss the Syrian crisis and wider turmoil throughout the Middle East in talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The Syrian villagers were killed in Al-Kiswa region 8 miles south of the capital, where hundreds of police raided houses looking for protesters, Deir Baalbeh near the city of Homs and in Jabal Al-Zawiya region near the border with Turkey, where army defectors have been taking refuge, activists and residents said Tuesday.