U.N.: 11,000 refugees pour out of Syria in 24 hours

Eleven thousand refugees have poured out of Syria in just 24 hours, a staggering number as violence surges near the border, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday.

The Friday deluge is more than triple the usual numbers of 2,000 to 3,000 people escaping daily, agency spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes said. Nine thousand Syrians fled to Turkey alone, most of them reaching the border overnight. The numbers were nearly enough to fill a typical refugee camp.

The rest of the day's refugees went to Jordan and Lebanon.

Vast, sudden waves of refugees usually mean the violence raging in Syria has veered especially close to one of its borders, Wilkes said. Scores of refugees showed up wounded over the last 24 hours; two have died.

“The numbers are increasing by the hour,” Wilkes said. “The Turkish government says it can take weeks or even months to build a camp. But it can take only hours to fill them.”

Syrian refugees in Lebanon top 100,000

BEIRUT -- The number of Syrian refugees has now exceeded 100,000 in Lebanon, the third country in the region to pass that mark, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.

Thousands of Syrians continue to flee into neighboring countries as daily death tolls from the 19-month uprising often top 150 amid no prospects for an end to the conflict. An attempt by Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. and Arab League envoy to Syria, to broker a cease-fire for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha is widely viewed as unlikely to succeed.

More than 100,000 Syrians have registered or are waiting for registration with the U.N. in Lebanon, but the actual number on the ground is likely much higher.

Activists in Lebanon say that some Syrians, most of whom are Sunni Muslims, have been wary of making their presence known in a country with ongoing Sunni-Shiite tensions. In August, a powerful Shiite Muslim family in the Bekaa Valley kidnapped dozens of Syrians in response to the abduction of a family member in nearby Syria.

Some EU nations rejecting Syrians seeking asylum

While the European Union denounces the escalating violence in Syria, not all of its member nations have welcomed fleeing Syrians with open arms, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.

Some countries on the eastern edges of the European Union are rejecting more than half of Syrians who seek asylum, the U.N. agency said. Greece, for instance, has fallen short in protecting Syrian refugees, agency spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva. The country rejected every one of the 115 Syrian asylum applications that it weighed between January and June, according to European Commission statistics.

Human-rights groups have long complained that Greece throws up steep barriers to those seeking  asylum; the country contends that it bears an unfairly heavy immigration burden because of its location on the Mediterranean Sea.

Greece "fails to meet the protection needs of many refugees," Edwards told reporters.

Other countries are offering Syrians only “a tolerated stay,” the U.N. agency said.

Though Edwards did not name which specific countries were doing so, European Commission statistics show Hungary and Bulgaria granted asylum to roughly half of Syrians applicants between January and June, rejecting some completely and giving others a lesser level of protection than asylum could afford.

The European Union just won the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing peace, democracy and human rights. It tightened sanctions on Syria earlier this week, lamenting the intensification of violence. The refugee crisis “is an opportunity for the EU to put its commitment to solidarity into practice,” Edwards said Tuesday. 

U.S., allies girding for worst-case scenario with Syria's WMD

During a week that witnessed deadly artillery exchanges between Syria and Turkey and a tense showdown over a plane purportedly ferrying munitions from Russia, the arrival of 150 U.S. troops in Jordan was likely to be viewed as token support for an ally coping with a refugee influx from Syria's civil war.

The deployment, though, may be a response to mounting concerns at the Pentagon and among European and Middle East allies that Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of hostile forces if the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is eventually toppled.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed little about the special-forces mission to Jordan when he confirmed it at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on Wednesday. But he noted that the United States has been working closely with Jordan to keep track of Syria's weapons of mass destruction as the 19-month-old rebellion grinds on.

Unlike a decade ago, when bad intelligence on Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons spurred a clamor for U.S. military intervention, defense strategists appear to be approaching the suspected stockpiles of mustard and nerve gases in Syria with more collaboration and caution.

The resistance to preemptive action isn't just a consequence of lessons learned in Iraq. Syria is believed to have one of the world's largest chemical weapons arsenals, with commercial satellite surveillance and intelligence reports suggesting as many as 50 production and storage sites as well as missiles that could carry the deadly agents beyond its borders. Jane's Intelligence Review reported in 2009 that Damascus had embarked on a major upgrade of its chemical weapons facilities, transforming its Safir site near Aleppo, now the scene of intense fighting, into a credible deterrent to any threat from nuclear-armed Israel.

The scope of the Syrian chemical weapons program and the international community's failure to craft a cohesive plan to stop the fighting confront Western military strategists with the need to plan for a worst-case scenario rather than act to prevent it, analysts say. That means preparing allies in the region to launch a massive rapid-deployment operation after the Assad regime collapsed but before Al Qaeda-aligned fighters or rogue elements of the Syrian rebels could get their hands on the WMD.

The U.S. special forces sent to Amman are probably training Jordanian troops in containment techniques and checking their equipment and chemical-biological hazard protection and practices, said Steven Bucci, a former Army Green Beret officer and senior Pentagon official who is now a research fellow in defense and domestic  security at the Heritage Foundation.

"They will probably be running them through training procedures for dealing with this stuff to secure it and get it under control or to respond to it if it gets used" in a calamitous last battle, said Bucci. "This is about the best use of our military we could have now, and hopefully we're also helping out the Turks."

Bucci testified to Congress in July that even a limited operation to secure Syria's chemical weapons would require more than 75,000 troops -- and many more if launched amid the civil war now raging.

It is "not a viable option" to commit masses of U.S. ground troops to such an operation, Bucci told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade. Any effective force, he said, would have to involve troops from allied Muslim countries also at risk of attack with Syria's chemical weapons.

That's why, he said in an interview Thursday, it is essential for the United States to coordinate with Syria's neighbors now to prepare a post-Assad operation that can prevent terrorist groups or smugglers from making off with the WMD.

Raymond Zilinskas, director of the chemical and biological weapons program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, points out that assessments of Syria's chemical weapons program are largely unverified. But he, too, says the United States and its allies should be girding for the worst.

"From what I understand, these depots are pretty well guarded by the Syrian regime's forces, and they would probably be the last to give up their guarding duties," Zilinskas said. "But if there is a total collapse, there would of course be a threat of jihadists getting these weapons."

Talk of airstrikes to remove the threat is nonsensical, Zilinskas said. Syria has formidable antiaircraft defenses built with Russian assistance, and the international community lacks crucial information on the precise locations, quantities and containment of the gases to be able to bomb them without risking spreading the deadly substances.

"Sarin is pretty volatile. If all these other problems could be resolved, the sarin would probably be destroyed or would be so volatile that it would disappear quickly," Zilinskas said. "But that's not necessarily the case with mustard gas. It's much less deadly but much more persistent. And if the Syrians turn out to have VX, which is a persistent nerve gas, that could cause real problems. That is the worst-case scenario they have to prepare for."

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Photo, top: A military training facility in Russeifeh, Jordan, where U.S. forces and a handful of British allies began training Jordanian commandos this week to respond in case of an attack with chemical weapons from neighboring Syria. Credit: Mohammad Hannon / Associated Press

Insert: A scene from U.S.-Jordanian military exercises in the Qatrana desert in June. Credit: Jamal Nasrallah /AFP/Getty Images

Long-elusive Philippines peace accord reflects exhaustion

With 150,000 dead from decades of religious and ethnic fighting and no family in the southern Philippines free of fear they could be the next slain, Filipinos and their fractious leaders have run out of energy for rebellion.

A road map to peace unveiled this week by the Philippine government and the main rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, has been hailed by Muslims and Catholics alike as a glimmer of hope that an end is in sight to bloody clashes that have racked the islands since the 1960s. The deal also eases Western concern that foreign Islamic militants could be drawn to remote Philippine jungle camps, already the scene of kidnappings and beheadings.

Under the accord to be signed Sunday in Manila, the rebels would eventually enjoy self-rule over a yet-to-be-defined territorial entity to be called  Bangsamoro, or Moro Nation. They would also have more control over the region's rich tropical forests and oil and gas reserves.

The agreement lays out a four-year transition to autonomy for the southern islands of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. But huge hurdles remain to be cleared: How does the government integrate Islamic rebels into the mainly Catholic ranks of the national armed forces? Which areas of the ethnically diverse south will be included in the new state? Will sharia law be invoked in Bangsamoro, and can it realistically be applied only to the Muslim population, as proposed during the internationally mediated negotiations?

The most perplexing question may be how police and soldiers can disarm the legions of gun-toting rebels and resisters who constitute the only law in much of the south's remote mountains and jungles.

Having weathered dictatorship, corruption and conflict for much of the 66 years they have been independent, Filipinos are eager to answer those daunting questions, relief officials and analysts say.

The agreement reached this week is less the product of strategic give-and-take during years of negotiations than a white flag of surrender to exhaustion sent up by both the government and the rebels. That is the view of Albert Santoli, president of the Asia America Initiative that for more than a decade has provided relief to the tens of thousands of Filipinos who have fled the fighting.

"People are tired of killing each other. They're tired of never knowing if they're going to have to flee their homes," Santoli said. He pointed to the relative harmony in refugee camps that shelter internally displaced Muslims and Christians together as grounds for confidence that Filipinos are eager to work for peace.

Although he views a 2016 target for creating Bangsamoro as unrealistic, Santoli said the deadline may motivate young Filipinos to take advantage of the apparent sincerity of President Benigno Aquino III to broker an end to the fighting.

"The hope is that if everyone is committed to the process that things will get better, that they'll be able to create an attitude of cooperation among youth," Santoli said. "But in practical terms, it will take a generation."

Michael Buehler, Philippines expert for the Asia Society and a political science professor at Northern Illinois University, sees the potential for success in this latest peace effort of the post-World War II era.

"Mindanao is one of the most resource-rich parts of the country," which is its blessing and its curse, Buehler said. The decades of fighting have prevented the south from tapping its valuable tropical woods, minerals and fuels. They have also provided cover for backdoor deals between business interests in the north and southern provincial kingpins who often have sway over the rebels in their fiefdoms.

"Very often Manila has had a divide-and-rule approach to problems in the south," Buehler said. If autonomy looks to be getting in the way of deals cut on the sidelines of the conflict, "that could provide incentive for them to undermine the peace plan," Buehler said of the de facto rural power brokers unlikely to be eager to step aside for Islamic rebel leaders. 

Still, the new plan is seen as a serious effort to integrate Muslims who have long felt like outsiders in the Catholic-dominated state, said Gerard Finin, a senior fellow at Honolulu's East West Center who has traveled and worked in the Philippines since the 1970s.

He sees two major challenges ahead, though. The mediators -- which include the United States, Europe, Malaysia and other Muslim nations -- must strive to keep the rebels unified behind the Moro Islamic Liberation Front leaders during the difficult negotiations ahead. And all must remain vigilant, Finin said, in protecting any new Bangsamoro government from being undermined by the multitude of political, economic and tribal conflicts of interest fueling the violence.

"There are still many big questions to be answered," Finin said. "But things are looking better today than they have for some time."

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Photo: Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels patrol inside their base at Camp Darapan on the island of Mindanao in 2011. The rebels and other unauthorized gunmen would be disarmed under a peace plan to be signed Sunday in Manila. Credit: Ted Aljibe / AFP/Getty Images

 

Syria shells long-besieged Homs in extended attack

BEIRUT -- The Syrian military on Friday bombarded the central city of Homs for more than 12 hours in the  longest sustained government attack on the city in months, opposition activists said.

Homs, once a city of 1 million people, has experienced some of the heaviest fighting and bombardment during the more than 18-month conflict. Most residents are believed to have fled the city.

“Today’s shelling is as if they are preparing to storm” parts of Homs, said Abu Fidaa, the name used by an opposition activist reached Friday in Homs’ Khaldiyeh district, one of the targets of Friday’s bombardment. “It’s worse than Gaza.”

The shelling lasted from about 7 a.m. until after 7 p.m., he said.

Homs was the principal urban battlefield in Syria long before Damascus and Aleppo, the two largest Syrian cities, became major combat zones in recent months. But Homs has remained a heavily contested area and the site of major clashes despite the media focus on fighting in the other cities.

Some neighborhoods of Homs are largely deserted, filled only by rubble and battered buildings, witnesses say. Yet they say life has returned to some sense of normality in other districts where there has been less fighting.

The official Syrian government news service reported Friday that more than 20 terrorists, the government label for opposition fighters, were killed in military attacks on several districts of Homs.

Elsewhere in Syria, opposition forces said they had shot down a helicopter near Damascus. There was no independent corroboration of the report.

Meanwhile, the Turkish media reported that the Turkish military conducted retaliatory fire  into Syria on Friday for the third consecutive day. The Turkish strike followed word that a mortar from the Syrian side had fallen in the southern Turkish province of Hatay. No injuries were reported on the ground in Turkey. Turkey has vowed to retaliate against Syria for any strikes across the nation’s more than 500-mile border with Syria.

 On Wednesday, an apparent mortar shell from Syria struck the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five people. That incident drew international outrage and prompted Turkish artillery to fire back at Syrian batteries believed to be involved in the incident.

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Photo: An image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on outside reporting, shows smoke rising from houses after government shelling in Homs, Syria, on Oct. 5, 2012.  Credit: Shaam News Network / Associated Press

Syrian refugee crisis is escalating rapidly, U.N. says

BEIRUT -- The number of Syrian refugees fleeing to neighboring nations and seeking aid is rising by more than 2,000 a day and may total more than 700,000 by year’s end, seven times the projection made six months ago, the United Nations said Thursday.

The U.N. refugee agency and nonprofit groups are appealing for almost $500 million to help assist the flood of Syrians escaping violence in their homeland. The appeal went out Thursday to donor nations, the private sector and individuals.

The approach of winter has added urgency to the crisis. There is a crucial need for cold-weather supplies, such as blankets, heaters, warm clothes and weather-resistant tents, the U.N. says

"Many refugees are arriving with only the clothes on their backs," Panos Moumtzis, the U.N.'s regional coordinator for Syrian refugees, said in a statement in Geneva. "They need humanitarian assistance from day one."

About 75% of the Syrian refugees are women and children, according to the U.N. Providing education and healthcare for this vulnerable population is a priority, it says.

Sharing refugees -- a 'good idea' that's gone nowhere

As a teen fleeing a forced marriage in Mali, Ali Konate hopscotched between countries before taking his chances on a boat leaving Libya. He spent two nights at sea, fearful of being tossed into the water -- all the more terrifying because he can’t swim.

He had never even heard of Malta before he ended up on its shores.

“I just wanted anywhere I could live my life in a safe way,” Konate said.

Konate is one of more than 16,000 people who have boarded boats and landed on Malta over the last decade, often by accident. The tiny Mediterranean nation is a refugee destination out of happenstance, as people fleeing North Africa aim their boats at the European continent and land on Malta instead.

These "accidents" have put new demands on Malta, a chain of islands of roughly 400,000 people with less acreage than Bakersfield. Malta hastily erected tents to hold more people and pleaded with other countries to take them in. Some did -- but not nearly as many as it had hoped.

“Malta is smaller than an American town,” said Joseph St. John, its policy development director. “We can only integrate so many people.”

Last year, it had the most refugees per square mile in the world, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency.

European Union countries are bound by an agreement that the first country someone sets foot in is responsible for them. But the drama on Malta is repeated across the globe under international rules. Countries on the fringes of conflict end up with the most refugees, with no guarantee of help.

Huge numbers pour into countries such as Pakistan and Kenya, stretching budgets and testing goodwill as supposedly temporary camps become fixtures. Refugee activists and governments have dreamed of countries sharing the load, but they say the idea is politically stagnant.

Many refugees didn’t really want to go to Malta, and they often feel Malta doesn’t want them. Malta detains people who come by boat for months unless they are deemed vulnerable, saying it must screen for terrorists. Refugee activists argue that the detentions are illegal and dehumanizing; one advocate called it “worse than prison.”

Solutions to poverty, population growth, global warming [Google+ Hangout]

As experts from three continents convene this week at UC Berkeley to discuss rapid population growth, climate change and other intractable problems, The Times will hold a live online video discussion -- via Google+ Hangout -- Thursday on potential solutions.

The newspaper explored such issues around the world in its recent five-part series on population growth in the developing world. Among other topics, the "Beyond 7 Billion" series examined chronic hunger and mass migration in East Africa -- trends that Dr. Malcolm Potts believes will soon extend across the Sahel, an arid region of Africa just below the Sahara desert.

LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION: Join us at 3:30 p.m. Thursday

"What you've been seeing from Somalia is going to happen in all those countries, all the way across from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Potts, a UC Berkeley professor of public health. "You've just seen a fraction of what's going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years."

Potts, who co-organized the conference focused on the Sahel region, will join The Times at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Thursday to discuss solutions to the problems facing this part of Africa and other impoverished nations with soaring populations. He will be joined by Dr. Ndola Prata of UC Berkeley, William Ryerson of the Population Media Center and Fatima Adamu from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria.

We invite you to join the conversation by posting comments or questions below, on The Times’ Facebook and Google Plus pages, or on Twitter using the #asklatimes hashtag.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Somalia refugees, driven from their land by sectarian violence and drought, gather outside the United Nations' camps in eastern Kenya. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

U.N. investigators report more abuses, 'jihadist militants' in Syria

This post has been updated. See the note below for details.

United Nations human rights investigators Monday laid out a grim picture of a rapidly deteriorating Syria, saying atrocities were growing more frequent and numerous as the bloody conflict continued to rage, with foreign "jihadist militants" increasingly joining the fray.

An independent commission laid out its continuing concerns to the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, one month after issuing a report accusing Syrian government forces and rebels of abuses that amounted to war crimes. Commission Chairman Paulo Pinheiro said "gross violations of human rights" had only escalated.

Investigators also confirmed "the increasing presence of foreign elements, including jihadist militants, in Syria," a U.N. summary of the meeting noted. News of foreign fighters joining in the long-running conflict has complicated the situation in the country and alarmed outside observers.

Pinheiro was unable to explain where the foreigners were coming from, the Associated Press reported, but warned that "such elements tend to push anti-government fighters toward more radical positions."