BEIRUT: The commander of Syria’s main armed rebel group urged Kofi Annan on Thursday to declare that his seven-week-old cease-fire plan has failed, allowing rebels to resume attacks on President Bashar Assad’s forces, Al Jazeera television reported.
But Col. Riad Al-Asaad, who is based in Turkey, also highlighted divisions with Free Syrian Army officers inside Syria when he dismissed their 48-hour deadline for Assad to comply with the former UN secretary-general’s plan.
“There is no deadline, but we want Kofi Annan to issue a declaration announcing the failure of this plan so that we would be free to carry out any military operation against the regime,” Asaad told Al Jazeera.
He said rebel forces had so far honored the plan. Analysts and witnesses say it has not stopped violence by both sides in the 14-month-old uprising against Assad.
Asaad’s statement angered the rebels inside the country, who issued a statement saying that only the leadership there has the right to speak in the name of the FSA.
“As of this date decisions will be taken by the leadership of the military tribunals inside (Syria) which expresses the condition of the Syrian people,” said Col. Qassim Saadeddine, spokesman for rebels inside the country.
“We call on whoever wants to represent the Syrian people or the Free Army or wants to be its spokesman to come back to the field ... Whoever wants to lead should be in the battlefield and not outside,” Saadeddine said in a YouTube video.
“We want to ask where was the so-called leader of the Free Army when blood was spilled and where is he when blood is still being spilled?“
The FSA is an umbrella organization led by exiled army defectors that exercises little control over the many insurgent bands in Syria.
Ahmad Fawzi, Annan’s spokesman, said a failure of the plan would mean that the international community has failed to solve the Syria crisis peacefully.
“The Annan plan does not belong to Kofi Annan. It belongs to the parties that have accepted it and the international community that has endorsed it. If anyone has a better plan they should come up with it,” he told Reuters.
“The time to implement it is now.”
