Syrian opposition seeks recognition
Meanwhile, Syria's newly named opposition leader, a soft-spoken cleric backed by Washington and the Gulf Arab states, launched his quest on Monday for international recognition of a government-in-waiting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Western and Arab enemies of Assad hope the creation of a new Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces can finally unify a fractious and ineffective opposition.
Mouaz Alkhatib, a former imam of a Damascus mosque, flew to Cairo to seek the Arab League's blessing for the new assembly, the day after he was unanimously elected to lead it. He made a concerted effort to address the sectarian and ethnic acrimony underlying 20 months of civil war that has killed 38,000 people.
"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili, Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people," he said, calling on Syrian soldiers to desert.
His assembly was recognized by the six Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdoms of the Gulf Co-operation Council as the "legitimate representative of the Syrian people." Washington said it would back it "as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future."
Shooting across the line that divides Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan was just the latest spillover of violence that has alarmed neighbours including Turkey and Lebanon.
Israeli military sources said Israel hit Syrian army mobile artillery on Monday, the second straight day it fired back in retaliation for what it said were stray mortars hitting Golan.
"We will not allow our borders to be breached or our citizens to be fired at," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. Although the two countries have not fought over the territory since 1973, they are still officially at war.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon called on Israel and Syria to halt firing.
In the north, a Reuters correspondent saw Syrian jets and helicopters bomb Ras al-Ain, a border town taken by rebels last week. Opposition groups said between 12 and 16 people died in the airstrikes.
Turkey said it did not appear that the planes had entered its air space. It is discussing with NATO allies deploying Patriot air defence missiles on the border.
Source: Reuters
