Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost legitimacy and is “not indispensable,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday as tension soared over an assault by Assad loyalists on the US and French embassies in Damascus.
Clinton condemned the Syrian attacks and said Washington did not believe the long-time Syrian ruler would follow through on his promises to reform in the face of escalating protests against his rule.
“From our perspective, he has lost legitimacy, he has failed to deliver on the promises he’s made, he has sought and accepted aid from the Iranians as to how to repress his own people,” Clinton told reporters in an appearance with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Washington.
Clinton’s comments marked a significant sharpening of US rhetoric on Assad, whose security forces have waged an increasingly brutal crackdown against protesters inspired by pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the Arab world.
Several Assad loyalists broke into the US embassy in Damascus on Monday and security guards used live ammunition to prevent hundreds from storming the French embassy, Western diplomats in the Syrian capital said.
They said the attackers tore down US embassy plaques and tried to break security glass in protests fueled by the government against a visit by US and French ambassadors to the city of Hama, focus of protests against Assad’s rule.
“This is a violent escalation by the regime. You do not bring busloads of thugs into central Damascus from the coast without its consent,” one of the diplomats said.
A French foreign ministry official said the Syrian authorities had done nothing to stop the assault.
“[France] reminds [Syria] that it is not with such illegal methods that the authorities in Damascus will turn the attention away from the fundamental problem, which is to stop the repression of the Syrian population and to launch democratic reform,” French Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Bernard Valero said.
France has led Western attempts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s hierarchy for cracking down on protesters.
“Four buses full of shabbiha [Alawite militia loyal to Assad] came from Tartous. They used a battering ram to try to break into the main door,” a resident of Afif, the old district where the French embassy is located, told reporters by telephone.
The US had been reluctant to take that step, but Clinton’s comments on Monday indicated Washington’s patience had run out.
“If anyone, including President Assad, thinks that the United States is secretly hoping that the regime will emerge from this turmoil to continue its brutality and repression, they are wrong,” Clinton said. “President Assad is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power.”
The US condemned Syria for “refusing” to protect the embassy from an assault it said had been encouraged by a pro-government television station and called in a senior Syrian diplomat to deliver a formal complaint.
Human rights groups say at least 1,400 civilians have been killed since an uprising began in March against Assad’s autocratic rule.
Assad loyalists also attempted to attack the US ambassador’s residence in Damascus on Monday after assaulting the embassy compound, but failed to gain entry.
A businessman whose office overlooks the residence said about 50 youths carrying posters of Assad on sticks stopped traffic and started smashing two US embassy cars parked outside with sticks and climbing the walls of the compound.
“One of them stole the headlights as if they were war spoils. The street was full of secret police and military intelligence personnel. They stood just looking and some joined the thugs in shouting abuse directed against the ambassador,” the businessman said.
A US official said US Ambassador Robert Ford was at the embassy compound when the assaults occurred, not at the residence several blocks away.
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