BEIRUT — Arab officials held a “frank and friendly” meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, the head of the delegation said at the beginning of a regional effort to resolve a bloody seven-month revolt, the most serious challenge yet to the four-decade Assad dynasty.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, hundreds of Yemeni women set fire to traditional female veils to protest the government’s brutal crackdown against the country’s popular uprising as overnight clashes in the capital and another city killed 25 people, officials said.
On the Syria issue, the Arab committee is trying to start talks between Assad’s government and its opponents, but protest leaders reject any dialogue with the regime while it continues its crackdown, which the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people since March.
Activists said at least 15 civilians were killed Wednesday in military operations across Syria, 12 of them in the flash point central city of Homs.
The meeting in Damascus between the Arab ministerial committee and Assad came hours after tens of thousands of Syrians packed a main square in the Syrian capital, chanting, “The people want Bashar Assad.” Assad succeeded his father, and together the family has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani was quoted as saying that the Arab delegation felt that the Syrian government is eager to work with the Arab committee “in order to reach a solution.”
Hamad told reporters that the delegation and the Syrian government will hold another meeting Sunday in either Syria or Qatar.
“What is important for us is that there are no victims from any side in Syria,” Hamad told reporters. “The fighting should stop, and the dialogue should begin between the Syrian brothers so that, God willing, they agree on points that fulfill [people’s] demands.”
Syria has rejected previous Arab initiatives, and it was not clear whether this would be different or whether the regime was trying to gain time to try to crush the uprising.
The Arab officials’ visit follows a meeting in Cairo last week by the 22-nation Arab League, which gave Syria until the end of the month to end military operations, release detainees arrested in the crackdown and start a dialogue with the opposition.
Human Rights Watch quoted Syrian activists as saying at least 186 protesters and residents have been killed in Syria since the Cairo meeting.
The activists said towns and villages in southern and central Syria, as well as some areas in the north and east, closed their businesses in compliance with an opposition call for a general strike.
Amateur videos showed shops closed in different parts of the country, as well as counter demonstrations to the one held in Damascus. One of the largest took place in the village of Halfaya in the central province of Hama.
A giant banner raised on an electricity pole there read: “To the Arab League. How do you want us to have a dialogue with the killer of children and women when all laws say that the killer should not be negotiated with, but put on trial?”
The Syrian government has staunchly defended its crackdown on protesters, saying it is the target of a foreign conspiracy.
Bassma Kodmani, spokesman for the broad-based opposition group the Syrian National Council, said it is “impossible” to talk about a dialogue within the current security crackdown.
“And even if the right conditions for dialogue prevail, the only thing to discuss would be a road map for the peaceful transfer of power,” she said.
“Russia gives Bashar international protection, Iran gives him weapons, and Arabs give him time” read a banner carried by protesters in northern Syria on Tuesday evening. “No dialogue with the killer of children” read another.
Human Rights Watch called on the Arab ministers to demand that the government allow independent, civilian monitors into Syria to observe the behavior of security forces.
Assad still has significant support among Syrians, including those who benefited financially from the regime, minority groups who fear they will be targeted if the Sunni majority takes over and others who see no clear and safe alternative to the president. He also still has the loyalty of the bulk of the armed forces, key to his remaining in power.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other rights groups said 15 civilians were killed Wednesday in shootings by security forces nationwide, including 12 in the rebellious city of Homs. The observatory also reported that 11 soldiers were killed in Hama province when the bus they were traveling in was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, also said 15 people were killed Wednesday nationwide, most of them in Homs.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland expressed hope that U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford would return to Damascus in a month. He was withdrawn this week after the United States said “credible threats” were made against him. Ford often disregarded Syrian demands that he refrain from visiting areas where protests are strong.
She said the United States will expect Syria’s government to stop its attacks on Ford through state-sponsored media.
YEMEN
In Yemen’s capital, Sana, women spread a black cloth across a main street and threw their full-body veils, known as makrama, onto a pile, sprayed it with oil and set it ablaze. As the flames rose, they chanted: “Who protects Yemeni women from the crimes of the thugs?”
The women in Yemen have taken a key role in the uprising that began in March against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s authoritarian rule and was inspired by other Arab revolutions.
Wednesday’s protest, however, was not related to women’s rights or issues concerning the Islamic veils; rather, the act of women burning their clothing is a symbolic Bedouin tribal gesture signifying an appeal for help to tribesmen, in this case to stop the attacks on the protesters.
The women’s protest came as clashes have intensified between Saleh’s forces and renegade troops who have sided with the protesters and the opposition in demands that the president step down.
Medical and local officials said that up to 25 civilians, tribal fighters and government soldiers died overnight in Sana and the city of Taiz despite a cease-fire announcement by Saleh late Tuesday. Scores of others were wounded.
During a meeting with the U.S. ambassador on Tuesday, Saleh offered to sign a power transfer deal backed by the U.S. and Persian Gulf Arab powers that gives him immunity from prosecution if he steps down.
The opposition has dismissed his latest offer.
EGYPT
Two policemen who beat a man to death were convicted Wednesday of the lesser charge of manslaughter and given a relatively light sentence in a case that helped spark Egypt’s uprising.
Relatives of defendants Mahmoud Salah and Awad Ismail Suleiman were still angered by the sentence of seven years in prison each for the two officers. They smashed benches in the courtroom in the northern port of Alexandria and attacked the slain man’s uncle and lawyers despite the presence of other police and military troops.
Pro-democracy activists expressed disappointment not only with the verdict but also with the fact that it was closed to the public, which they saw as signs that the revolution that ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in February was having little effect on getting rid of deep seated corruption in Egypt.
The slain man, Khaled Said, was widely seen as Egypt’s version of Mohammed Bouazizi, the fruit seller whose self-immolation sparked the Tunisian revolution and the chain of Arab Spring uprisings in the region.
JORDAN
Jordan’s king said Wednesday that he will give lawmakers a say in appointing the Cabinet, the latest step aimed at heading off Arab Spring style protests in the tiny, U.S.-allied nation.
Under the current system, King Abdullah II has sole power to appoint all Cabinet members. The change, starting next year, will allow the elected, 120-seat parliament to choose a prime minister who the king can either appoint or veto. If he vetoes, the parliament will search for a consensus with the king on an alternative candidate, said the king’s adviser, Amjad Adaileh.
BAHRAIN
A U.S. fact-finding team in Bahrain wrapped up talks Wednesday to investigate workplace purges that have spurred calls to suspend a key trade pact over the Persian Gulf nation’s crackdown on protesters.
The firsthand inquest by the Department of Labor is in response to efforts by America’s biggest labor group, the AFLCIO, to force a U.S. rebuke of Bahrain’s rulers, who have crushed opposition groups but have avoided serious backlash from Washington because of strategic concerns.
Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
The Labor Department has until December to complete a report on the complaint filed by the AFL-CIO.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeina Karam, Gamal Abdul-Fattah, Maggie Michael, Jamal Halaby and Brian Murphy of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/27/2011