Britain officially recognises new Syrian rebel coalition as country’s ‘legitimate’ government
By: Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent, Ruth Sherlock in Beirut, telegraph.co.uk
Date: November 20, 2012
William Hague, the foreign secretary, announced Britain’s formal switch of recognition from Damascus to a newly engineered committee of leftists, liberals and Islamists which his diplomats helped to bring together in Damascus earlier this month.
“It is strongly in the interests of Syria, of the wider region and of the United Kingdom that we support them and deny space to extremist groups,” Mr Hague said in a statement to the House of Commons.
“On the basis of the assurances I received and my consultation with European partners yesterday, Her Majesty’s Government has decided to recognise the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”
His decision came despite – or partly because of – a video statement released on Monday claiming that the coalition and its western backers were not recognised by the main rebel brigades fighting in Aleppo. The statement said they were declaring an Islamic state, not a democratic one.
Mr Hague said the Coalition was being invited to send an official envoy to London, and that it would receive material support.
He refused to rule out of the prospect of Britain arming the rebels directly, although at present he said there had been no decision to change policy.
The wording of Mr Hague’s statement is important. It is a strengthening of the recognition provided by Britain and other western allies including the United States and France to the Syrian National Council, an opposition group which once aspired to leadership but was only ever titled “a legitimate representative” of the Syrian opposition.
The new grouping is expected to fulfil the same role as Libya’s Transitional National Council last year, gradually taking on a larger role, moving ultimately into rebel-held territory and forming an interim government.
The Libyan body was headed by a former judge with a moderate Islamist background seen as standing above the competing political factions.
Likewise, Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Coalition, is a former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus who was imprisoned this year by President Bashar al-Assad.
However, although he has made strong statements opposing sectarianism, he also has a track record of anti-western statements.
The main challenge facing the Coalition remains exerting authority over the multi-faceted armed opposition, which range from elite army officers who defected recently from the Assad regime to militant jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda.
“These people may be generally well respected, but they don’t have a social base, following or institutional structure that can back them inside Syria,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert based in America. “You are always treading in muddy territory when dealing with issues of civil society in countries where dictators have ruled for decades.
“The big problem is trying to glue this idea on these militias.” Even if governments do channel their support to the opposition through this new group, the rebels will remain fragmented, activists and weapons suppliers say.
“The money now is coming through mosques and independents,” said Shakeeb al-Jabri, one activist. “These won’t stop funneling their funds in this way to their groups, even if they are groups that the West does not support.”
A Lebanese radical who supplies Jabhat al-Nusra, the most militant rebel group and one of those which rejected the new group on this week’s video, said: “They think the regime will fall down and they don’t need the West.
They have enough weapons. Last year we were smuggling guns to Syria. Now, in Lebanon we are buying bullets from Syria.”