Reuters The chilling spectacle of Muammar Gaddafi's brutal end last month and the capture of his son Saif Al-Islam this week, far from deterring Bashar Al-Assad, seem to have energised him into redoubling his efforts to crush Syria's eight-month rebellion. As the Arab League intensified Assad's isolation by suspending Syria's membership, defecting soldiers in the Free Syrian Army carried out their boldest attacks so far at Deraa in the south and on an Air Force intelligence base near Damascus. Unconfirmed reports said the rebels also fired rockets at a headquarters of the ruling Ba'ath party in Damascus, until now firmly locked down by the regime's security apparatus. The country of 22 million, convulsed this year by a civil uprising like those that brought down dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, now appears to be on the brink of a Libya-style armed insurgency, with arms flowing in from Lebanon, Jordan and from soldiers who have deserted with their weapons. Most observers believe Assad will fight it out, playing on fears of a sectarian war between minorities and the majority if the country's complex ethno-sectarian mosaic unravels, and that neither western powers nor Arab neighbors would risk military intervention to prevent it. Arab leaders and Syrian opposition figures, with growing support from the Arab League, are now lobbying for a “Contact Group” for Syria, led by Britain and France, to help prepare for a transition in the belief that Assad's days are numbered and preparations to deal with the fall-out are now essential. “I think we've entered into a new phase. I don't know if it's the final phase but it is significant because of two things: on the ground there is a more militarized environment, and in the diplomatic sphere, a more determined effort which includes Arab cover,” Salman Shaikh, Director of the Brookings Doha Center, told Reuters. As Assad expands his military onslaught, which might soon include the use of air power, Arab leaders want the group to consider contingency plans for no fly zones and safe havens near the Turkish and Jordanian borders to protect civilians. “The Assads are finished and the dam could burst as soon as next year,” one senior Arab diplomat said. “The Arabs have acted because they know he cannot survive”. There is now, moreover, an Arab, international and Turkish coalition that has proven to be effective in Libya and will be effective with Syria, according to Salman Shaikh. “If you look at the core countries that are driving this: France, Turkey, Qatar and the US. This disengagement and attempt at isolating Syria, particularly by these countries, is very significant and I think will have, in the longer run (and it is a long run game) a debilitating effect on the regime,” Shaikh said. The Arab League said it would follow through with its decision to suspend Syria, establish contacts with the opposition and examine how the Arab bloc and the United Nations can protect civilians from military attack. “An international consensus is emerging with the exception of Russia that Syria is to blame for the violence,” said Fawaz Gerges, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the London School of Economics. But the 46-year-old Assad looks set to tough it out. “The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue. Syria will not bow down,” Assad told the Sunday Times. Most analysts said Assad, who can depend on the loyalty only of two elite units — the Fourth Armoured Division and the Republican Guard — cannot maintain current military operations without cracks emerging in the armed forces. __
