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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Five Syrian Opposition Groups Form New Coalition
2012-03-18
[An Nahar] Five Syrian opposition groups on Saturday announced the formation of a new coalition, a sign of how difficult opponents of the Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
regime find it to cooperate, a year after the start of the protest movement.

The five groups, meeting here, said their yet unnamed coalition would act independently from the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition coalition which was set up in August to fight Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's
Light of the Alawites...
regime.

The new group is made up of the liberal National Movement for Change, the Islamist Movement for the Fatherland, the Bloc for Liberation and Development, led by Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal chief, the Turkmen National Bloc, and the Kurdish Movement for a New Life.

Asked about relations between the new coalition and the SNC, Ammar al-Qurabi, leader of the National Movement for Change, told Agence La Belle France Presse his "coalition was not set up in opposition to anyone, other than Assad's regime, but rather to unite the opposition outside the SNC."

"We see the SNC as a temporary structure which will disappear with time, while our own coalition is a more long-term entity that will be there after liberation" in Syria, according to Imamduddin al-Rashid, head of the Movement for the Fatherland.

The SNC has emerged as one of the main voices of the opposition, but is often criticized by activists inside Syria who say the mostly exiled leadership has little connection to protesters on the ground.
Posted by:Fred

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