Threats Against U.S. Ambassador Safety in Syria

The Obama administration pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad's regime for the threats that made it no longer safe for Robert Ford to remain. The Syrian government quickly ordered home its envoy to the United States, raising the diplomatic stakes.

Ford traveled to Washington this weekend after the U.S. received "credible threats against his personal safety in Syria," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday. Ford has been the subject of several incidents of intimidation by pro-government thugs, and enraged Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of peaceful protests and harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.

"We hope that the Syrian regime will end its incitement campaign against Ambassador Ford," Toner said. "At this point, we can't say when he will return to Syria."

Toner said the U.S. embassy will remain open in Damascus and that the threats were specifically directed toward Ford. His return is conditional on a U.S. "assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground," Toner said.

In an immediate response, Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha promptly left the U.S. on Monday, said Roua Shurbaji, a Syrian Embassy spokeswoman. She said no other steps were being taken by the embassy and declined to comment on the U.S. allegations.

Ford was the first American ambassador to Syria since 2005. President George W. Bush's administration withdrew a full-time ambassador from Syria over charges the country was involved in terrorism and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Syria has denied any involvement.

The Obama administration decided to return an ambassador to Syria earlier this year in an effort to persuade Syria to change its policies regarding Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and support for extremist groups. Syria is designated a "state sponsor of terrorism" by the State Department.

Although Ford's appointment in January, while the Senate was out of session, was originally criticized by some Republicans in Congress, he has won praise within the administration and beyond for his determination to meet Syrian opposition leaders in a hostile environment, and tough criticism of the Assad regime's brutal military response to mass demonstrations.

The Senate unanimously approved Ford's nomination earlier this month, with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Democrat, praising Ford for continuing to visit cities under siege and "speak truth to power."

Ford was greeted by demonstrators with roses and cheers when he traveled to the restive city of Hama in July, prompting immediate recriminations from the Syrian government, which tried to then limit where Ford could travel. Only days later hundreds of regime supporters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, smashing windows and spray-painting obscenities on the walls.

Ford also has been the subject of several incidents of intimidation by pro-government thugs, often in coordination with pro-Assad media capturing the humiliation. Media reports said Ford was hit last week with eggs and tomatoes while going to a mosque in Damascus. Other such incidents have occurred after meetings with dissident groups or individuals, and his postings on Facebook have provoked thousands of Syrian and other responses, and even some death threats from pro-Assad hardliners.

The U.S. last month decried Ford's treatment and "unwarranted and unjustifiable," after Assad supporters tried to force their way into a meeting he was having a prominent opposition figure. Syrian police were slow in responding, and Ford was trapped inside the building for about three hours. But White House press secretary James Carney insisted at the time that the U.S. had no plans to remove Ford for his safety.

Haynes Mahoney, the embassy's deputy chief of mission, confirmed that Ford has left Syria but said Washington hadn't not formally recalled him -- a symbolically significant diplomatic step.

At the time of Ford's arrival in Damascus, Syria was bouncing back from years of international isolation. Still, Assad largely shrugged off U.S. attempts to pull it away from its alliances with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. And as the Arab Spring protests escalated in Syria, Ford dropped his engagement efforts and took on an increasingly high-profile role defending the rights of Syrian protesters.

Toner lamented that the threats deprived the United States of a valuable emissary to the Syrian people at a time they face daily violence from Assad's security forces. Clashes on Sunday saw forces flood into villages where residents have been on strike and shoot two people dead, according to activists.

President Barack Obama has called on the U.N. Security Council to sanction Syria for using deadly violence against citizens who are rising up against the authoritarian government there.

A seasoned diplomat with extensive Middle East experience, Ford "has worked diligently to deliver our message and be our eyes on the ground" in Syria, Toner said. "This decision was based solely on the need to ensure his safety, a matter we take extremely seriously."

Jordan's king warns: 'No one has any idea what to do about Syria,'

No one has any idea how to deal with what's happening in Syria, Jordan's King Abdullah told CNN, saying he has "great concern" about how things will develop there.

"I don't think there's anybody in the region or outside who knows how to tackle the Syria issue," Jordan's ruler said of the country that has seen thousands killed in anti-government demonstrations over the past eight months.

The king has reached out personally to Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad, he said, with little result.

"I've spoken to Bashar twice. I have sent the chief of the royal court to see him on several occasions," he said, to outline how Jordan is trying to implement its own political reforms.

"Not that we've got anything perfect, but you know, national dialogue and outreach -- and they're not really interested in what we have to say," King Abdullah said.

"So we're trying to keep the channels of communication open and watching with great concern how things are going to develop there," he said.

Speaking to CNN on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea, the king also expressed serious doubts that Israel was serious about making peace with the Palestinians.
"I am one of the most optimistic people you'll meet in the Middle East, and for the first time I am very pessimistic about the Israelis and Palestinians moving forward," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says all the right things about how to reach a solution, the king said, but he sighed deeply when asked if Netanyahu was sincere.

"From what I have seen of the political system in Israel.... Israel is not really interested in a two-state solution," Abdullah said.

"And what's the other option? I think the one-state solution has tremendous negative implications on all of us, including the Israelis," he said.

And he pleaded with the Americans not to disengage from the region during U.S. election season, warning that to so do risks war.

"That would be disastrous because whenever there is a vacuum, whenever there is a status quo, there's usually a war. And so we're missing a tremendous opportunity," he said.

The focus has to remain on the Israelis and Palestinians because they are the central issue in the region, he said.

"I think the Arab Spring was a good opportunity for some to ignore the core issue that's always been here, that is, the future of the Israelis and Palestinians," he said.

Jordan itself is moving on from the Arab Spring, he suggested, preparing for national elections next year.

"We're going from the Arab Spring to the Arab Summer," the king said.

U.S. pulls ambassador out of Syria over safety concerns

The United States has temporarily pulled its ambassador out of Syria as a "result of credible threats against his personal safety," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, accusing Syria of "incitement" against Ambassador Robert Ford.

"At this point, we can't say when he will return to Syria," Toner said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, was recalled to Damascus "for consultations," embassy spokeswoman Roua Shurbaji said Monday.

Shurbaji had no information about why Moustapha was recalled or how long he will be gone. The deputy chief of mission in Washington will be filling Moustapha's role while he is gone, she said.

Ford was attacked by a pro-government "armed mob" last month, a United States official told CNN at the time. The official is not authorized to speak to the media and asked not to be named.

While there have been long-standing concerns about Ford's safety and threats against him, the decision was made to pull him temporarily after government-sponsored Syrian media began running false reports blaming Ford for death squads in Syria similar to the ones in Iraq, senior State Department officials told CNN.

The department was afraid the reports would inflame sentiment against Ford and would prompt pro-regime hardliners to harm and perhaps kill him, the officials said.

"We are concerned about a campaign of regime-led incitement targeted personally at Ambassador Ford by the state-run media of the government of Syria and we are concerned about the security situation that that has created," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday. "... I want to take this opportunity to call on the government of Syria to immediately end its smear campaign of malicious and deceitful propaganda against Ambassador Ford."

Ford, who has been outspoken against the Syrian government's use of violence against protesters, is seen by Syrian government supporters as an activist more than a diplomat.
He sparked a diplomatic firestorm in July when he traveled to the restive city of Hama to express support for demonstrators. He was welcomed with flowers by local residents who had suffered a brutal crackdown by government forces. President Bashar al-Assad's government called the trip an attempt to foment dissent.

A crowd tried to assault Ford and embassy colleagues September 29 "as they went about doing the normal work of any embassy," Toner said at the time.

"The mob was violent; it tried, unsuccessfully, to attack embassy personnel while they were inside several embassy vehicles, seriously damaging the vehicles in the process," Toner said.

Syrian security officers helped secure a path back to the U.S. Embassy for the ambassador and his staff.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned what she described as "an unwarranted attack" when Ford and his aides were conducting "normal embassy business."

The department does plan on sending Ford back, the officials said. It is hoped that his stay in the United States will be a brief cooling-off period and that the United States can persuade the Syrian government to abide by its obligations under the Vienna Convention to protect foreign diplomats in their country, they said.

"We do expect that Ambassador Ford will be returning to Damascus after his consultations are completed," Nuland said.

The department feels Ford serves a useful function as the United States' eyes and ears in the country, the officials said. In addition to serving as a witness to the regime's violence against protesters, he is seen as a key link to the opposition.

Ford was confirmed as ambassador to Syria in April after five years during which Washington did not have an envoy in Damascus.

Relations between Syria and the United States have been tense in recent months as Syria clamped down on demonstrations against Assad. At least 3,000 people have died, the United Nations and other international observers estimate.

Earlier this month, a Syrian man was arrested in the United States, accused of spying on Syrians demonstrating in the United States. Syria rejected the indictment's claim that Mohamad Anas Heitham Soueid worked for Syria's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat.

And it described as "ludicrous" the indictment's assertion that Soueid, a Syrian-born American citizen, had met privately with Assad.

Syria, Yemen warn dictators: You're next

Dictators around the Middle East should pay close attention to the fate of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, opposition activists from Syria and Yemen said Thursday as reports of Gadhafi's death flashed across the world.

"This is a lesson for all dictatorships: The clear fate of all who kill his people is to end up under the feet of the nation," said Omar Al-Muqdad, a Syrian opposition activist in exile in Turkey.

The opposition Syrian National Assembly "blesses the Libyan people that got rid of an infamous dictator such as Gadhafi," he said.

He said it would give a push to efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, saying he would suffer "the same fate" if he fell.

Opponents of longtime Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh also drew inspiration from the reports about Gadhafi.

"Whether he was killed or not, I hope Saleh is watching the news closely," Yemeni blogger Afrah Nasser said before Gadhafi's death was confirmed by Libya's governing National Transition Council.

She said she hopes the Yemeni opposition will get international support -- if not necessarily the military intervention that NATO gave Libya's revolutionary fighters.

"The support we need is sanctions against Saleh and boycott of Saleh's regime and acknowledgment of Yemen's (opposition) national council," she said from Sweden, where she fled in the face of threats in Yemen.

"I hope that Ali Abdullah Saleh and his regime learn a lesson from what happened to Gadhafi and his government," said Mohammed Abulahoum, head of Yemen's opposition Justice and Development Party. "Saleh must understand that the only scenario left for him, other than stepping down, is what happened to Gadhafi."

Regional expert David Hartwell agreed that Gadhafi's death could have "ripple effects" in the region, spreading the way the Arab Spring did.

"I think what we've seen in the past is that Tunisia had the effect of emboldening the opposition in Egypt," he said. "That has ripple effects out to Yemen and Libya itself."

Yemen is closer to a change of power than Syria, he said.

"Saleh is already edging toward the door anyway. This could have the effect of pushing him through it," said Hartwell, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at IHS Global Insight in London.

"Syrians may come to see that Libyans removed a dictator who was completely entrenched," he said, "(but) we're not at that point yet, though there have been defections from the army.

"There are local factors in Syria that are going to make it much more difficult to have an effect -- the middle classes in Syria have yet to really throw their lot in with the opposition," he said.

"The situation is going to go along for the foreseeable future," he said.

Radiating out from countries already in turmoil, more changes could be in store for the Middle East in the next few years, he said.

"Further down the line you may see disturbances in other countries," he said, adding that "Bahrain has been postponed rather than resolved ... Iran, when there are presidential elections in two years -- but for the moment it's Syria and Yemen."

Civilians killed as clashes rock Syrian city

Fifteen civilians were killed and dozens injured Wednesday as clashes and shooting broke out across the Syrian city of Homs, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
Seven members of the Syrian Army also died as a result of fighting with alleged army defectors, the activist group said.
The Syrian Observatory and the Local Coordinating Committees, an opposition group that organizes protests, said three sisters from one family were killed in Qoseir, near Homs, when security forces and the army shelled homes in response to defections.


The three sisters, from the Zoghby family, were aged 17, 15 and 11, the groups said.
We cannot independently confirm events in Syria, which restricts international journalists from accessing many parts of the country.
More than 20 people died Monday in Homs during intense clashes between security forces and defectors from the military, activists reported.


The United Nations estimates that about 3,000 people have died in Syria in the seven months since the government's crackdown on protesters demanding democratic reforms began.
The government says it has been making efforts to respond to citizens' grievances about the country's political system, and blames armed groups for stoking the violence.