DOHA – Syria's splintered opposition factions started talks in Qatar Sunday on a common front to gain international respect and recognition and, crucially, better weapons for their quest to oust President Bashar Al-Assad. It was the first concerted attempt to meld opposition groups based abroad and align them with rebels fighting in Syria, to help end a 19-month-old conflict that has killed over 32,000 lives, devastated swathes of the major Arab country and threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration. Tensions between Islamists and secularists as well as between those inside Syria and opposition figures based abroad have thwarted prior attempts to forge a united opposition. Four days of talks in the Qatari capital Doha are anticipated with the goal of overhauling and broadening the Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest of the overseas-based opposition groups, from some 300 members to 400. SNC leaders hoped this would pave the way to a follow-up meeting in Doha Thursday bringing other opposition factions with the goal of creating an anti-Assad coalition setting aside months of political and personal infighting. “The main aim is to expand the council to include more of the social and political components. There will be new forces in the SNC,” Abdulbaset Sieda, current leader of the Syrian National Council, told reporters in Doha ahead of the meeting. He said the meetings will also elect a new executive committee and leader for the SNC, criticized in the past over perceptions of domination by the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States called last week for an overhaul of the opposition's leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the SNC and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the meeting in Qatar would be an opportunity to establish a credible opposition. Internal feuding, a lack of cooperation between leaders abroad and fighters in Syria and the rising clout of autonomous Muslim militants in rebel ranks have deterred Western powers keen to see Assad gone from offering more than moral support. Influential opposition figure Riad Seif has proposed a structure melding the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other insurgent units alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures. On Sunday, Seif called for a more active role by the international community to support the opposition. – Agencies
