From the Dept. of Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire:
Former Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam and the exiled leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood agreed on Wednesday to join forces to topple President Bashar al-Assad. A source at Khaddam's office said the former official held talks with Ali Bayanouni, head of the Sunni Islamist group, in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday. "There was agreement on a joint vision to save Syria from the crisis that the regime has placed it in," the source told Reuters in Beirut by telephone. "It was also agreed to contact other opposition leaders inside and outside Syria to come up with a joint plan of action." The source said the two leaders also rejected any foreign intervention in Syria: "The responsibility of changing the corrupt regime in Syria lies only on the Syrian people.""No need for any infidel Marines here, nosirree Bob. Keep yer paws off our wimmin and your cluster bombs out of our ammo dumps mosques. Also absolutely NO DIGGING in the Bekaa Valley. That is all." |
The Brotherhood, founded in Syria in 1945, is widely seen as the most serious rival to the Baath Party which in 1980 made membership of the group punishable by death. It became involved in violent opposition to former President Hafez al-Assad's military-backed government in which his fellow minority Alawites held many key posts, culminating in an uprising that was ferociously suppressed in the town of Hama in 1982, where many thousands died. More than 70 percent of Syria's 18 million population are Sunni Muslims.| I could also file this under Politix Makes Strange Bedfellows... |
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