Damascus clamps down on uprising anniversary

BEIRUT: The chief of Syria's main, Western-backed rebel group marked the second anniversary of the uprising against President Bashar Assad by pledging yesterday to continue fighting until the "criminal" regime is gone.
Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Supreme Military Council, called on Syrian soldiers to join the rebels in a "fight for freedom and democracy" and said that his Free Syrian Army fighters "will not give up."
In Damascus, Syrian authorities yesterday beefed up security measures as rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad urged supporters to mark the second anniversary of the country's uprising by stepping up attacks against the regime.
The revolt against Assad's authoritarian rule began in March 2011 with protests in the southern city of Daraa, after troops arrested teenagers who scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall. It has since morphed into a civil war with an estimated 70,000 people killed, according to the UN
Yesterday, some rebels called for stepped-up attacks to mark the anniversary. The banned Muslim Brotherhood group urged supporters for a "week of action" on the occasion but didn't specify what it would do. A Damascus-based activist who identified himself as Abu Qais said troops increased patrols and security searches in the country's capital. He spoke on condition his real name not be used for security concerns.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Lebanon, gunmen set fire to three fuel tankers with Syrian license plates to prevent them from crossing into Syria, the state-run National News Agency said.
The Lebanese agency said the incident occurred in the northern city of Tripoli, and that the tankers were carrying fuel when they were stopped by the protesters and later set on fire. No casualties were reported.
Protesters have in the past closed roads to keep tankers from crossing into Syria, where there are severe gasoline and diesel shortages. They claim diesel exported to Syria is being used by regime tanks.
Many among Lebanon's Muslims have backed Syria's mainly rebel forces, in which radicals have become increasingly active. The pro-Hezbollah Muslims, however, have leaned toward Assad.
Separately, the Syrian Foreign Ministry complained in a letter sent to the Lebanese government on Thursday that armed groups have tried to infiltrate Syria from Lebanon repeatedly in the past 36 hours, triggering clashes with border guards.
Damascus said Syrian troops have exercised "utmost self-restraint" until now but warned that "this would not continue endlessly." Also yesterday, at least eight Syrians were killed and 29 were injured when the bus they were traveling in from Syria overturned in the mountains in central Lebanon, officials said.
The bus was headed to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, when the accident occurred in the Kahhaleh region. George Kettaneh, operations director for the Lebanese Red Cross, said the casualties included women and children. He said it's unclear why the bus overturned.
It was not immediately known whether the Syrians where refugees fleeing the violence at home. The bus had Syrian license plates from the northeastern Hassakeh province, which recently witnessed heavy clashes.
More than 1 million Syrians have fled the country's civil war to seek shelter in neighboring countries. In Lebanon alone, the UN has registered more than 360,000 Syrian refugees.
Syria's war and the refugee crisis it triggered are at real risk of exploding across the Middle East, the UN refugee agency said yesterday, on the second anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres also urged the world to strive to end the conflict and to step up humanitarian aid, calling it a "morale obligation" and "essential to preserve global peace and global security."
"I believe that if the Syrian conflict goes on and on and on, there is a real risk of an explosion in the Middle East, and then there will be no way to cope with the challenge from the humanitarian, political and security perspective," said Guterres.
The United Nations says more than 1.1 million Syrians have fled mostly to Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey, and some four million others have been displaced inside their war-torn country.
Guterres — in Lebanon on the last leg of a regional tour that also took him to Jordan and Turkey — raised the alarm over the potential security impact the refugee crisis could have on Syria's neighbors.
"The Syrian crisis is not just another crisis, and what we are dealing with now is that the Syrian crisis is a tipping point," he told reporters.
"Things get much worse before they get better.