Cleric elected head of Syrian opposition bloc

QATAR: Syrian opposition factions which agreed on Sunday in Qatar to form a new coalition to fight President Bashar al-Assad have elected cleric Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib to head the bloc, an AFP reporter said.

Khatib, a moderate originally from Damascus who quit Syria three months ago, will lead the National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition, formed after the Syrian National Council agreed to the new group.

Prominent dissident Riad Seif, who had tabled an initiative to unite the opposition, and female opposition figure Suhair al-Atassi, were elected as vice presidents of the coalition.

Khatib and the recently-elected head of the SNC George Sabra signed the final draft of the agreement that forms the new coalition in a ceremony presided over by the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani.

“Our people are subjected to a systematic genocide,” Khatib said at the ceremony, urging the international community to “fulfill its pledges”.

He also urged Syrian troops fighting under Assad to defect, insisting that “all revolution forces ... renounce revenge,” and that the uprising was “peaceful from the start” before the regime forced people to carry arms.

Sabra meanwhile said that Syrian rebels need weapons “not just bread and water”. “We need arms... The regime continues to stock up arms while victims are deprived of carrying weapons,” he said in a passionate speech.

He hailed the agreement between the Syrian factions.

“The unification of the opposition is a necessity for us, the Syrians... It is needed to achieve victory,” he said.

Khatib had served in the past as the imam of the central Umayyad mosque in the Syrian capital before he was banned from leading prayers. He was arrested in 2011 and in 2012 for supporting the uprising before he left the country.

AFP