Syrian Leader Vows to Fight Regime-Change Plot

Syrian President Bashir al-Assad in portrait with Nasrallah of Lebanon beneath. Assad is saying he will not leave office in the face of imperialist intervention., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Syrian Leader Vows 'Iron Fist'

Assad Blasts Arab League and Says He Won't Exit, in Address Opponents

By NOUR MALAS

BEIRUT—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Tuesday he wouldn't relinquish power and is determined to steer the country through a historic crisis, in a rare address that several regime opponents saw as setting the stage for redoubled violence.

President Assad vowed to use an "iron fist" to fight terrorists, the government's characterization of its opponents.

He also slammed the Arab League publicly for the first time since it sent observers into Syria last month to oversee a ceasefire agreement, casting further doubt over the prospects for the one on-the-ground diplomatic initiative trying to help end the deadly conflict. He mocked the pan-Arab body as historically incompetent and called its wealthy Gulf Arab monarchies unfit to advise on democratic reforms.

As the president was speaking, activists reported, security forces opened fire in observers' presence in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, killing 16 people from among a crowd of protesters. The Arab League also said some of its own observers have come under attack, and accused Syria's government of a "significant breach" of its obligation to protect the monitors.

Some 400 people have been killed in Syria since the observers arrived, the United Nations said Tuesday—at a rate of about 40 per day, it said, higher than before the monitors entered.

The U.S. suggested the speech showed Mr. Assad's truculence and efforts to deflect attention from his commitments under the Arab League deal. He has seemed to "aggressively deny any responsibility or any hand in the role of his own security forces," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. "Assad manages to blame a foreign conspiracy that's so vast with regard to the situation in Syria that it now includes the Arab League, most of the Syrian opposition, the entire international community."

In just his fourth address since Syria's protests broke out in March—and the first since a peaceful uprising deteriorated into a violent conflict months ago—the president defended political reforms he has promised as key to helping overcome Syria's crisis. Protesters and opposition members have dismissed the proposals as superficial.

He appealed to Syrians to remain steadfast against what he called the greatest challenge to face Syria in its modern history, describing it as "a real test of patriotism" for the people and "a race between terrorists and reforms."

He called the protest movement an "anonymous revolution" that the vast majority of the population has rejected.

"I am in this position based on the will of the people, and I will leave this position by the will of the people," he said from a podium at the Damascus University auditorium, to loud applause. "I won't step down."

As if underscoring his broad support in his diverse country, audience members in the auditorium's front row included a veiled woman, a woman with her head uncovered, a man in a suit and a man in tribal dress.

In the nearly two-hour speech, Mr. Assad compared the conflict to a 1980's Islamist rebellion crushed by his father, former president Hafez al-Assad. The crackdown culminated in an attack on the city of Hama that killed an estimated tens of thousands of residents, and remains the bloodiest in the modern Middle East.

Regional Upheaval

Some opponents saw the parallel to that period as a warning that the president doesn't intend to pull back the military or security forces as committed under an Arab-brokered plan, but instead remains intent on crushing the uprising.

Omar Idlibi, a spokesman for activist network the Local Coordination Committees, said the speech appeared aimed at "supporters on the inside, and to send a message to the outside world."

"We fear that by attacking the Arabs the way he did, and by speaking of a military solution to the crisis until the very last second, he could be sending a message that we should brace for more violence," Mr. Idlibi, who is also a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said by telephone from Cairo.

Two bombings in Damascus over recent weeks have shattered the relative calm and security of Syria's capital, turning a violent new page in the crisis. They have hardened the battle lines between a government that blames terrorists, and an opposition that accuses authorities of staging attacks to justify its crackdown on protesters.

As the violence has dragged on, some activists say Mr. Assad's potential departure from power has become a virtual sideshow to a complicated, unpredictable conflict involving a multi-layered and powerful security and intelligence apparatus, and a now-deeply divided society.

"His staying or leaving, originally, was never the full solution," said Louay Hussain, a writer and longtime dissident in Damascus. "Even if that was initially a demand, the regime isn't only Bashar al-Assad. Nor does he embody the entire problem."

At least 30 people were killed by security forces across the country Tuesday, according to activist network the Local Coordination Committees.

The Arab League last week conceded that security forces were continuing to shoot at protesters and said Sunday it would nearly double the number of its monitors on the ground to 300 from 165.

In a statement Tuesday, Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Araby said the monitors in Syria have been subject to a "malicious campaign" ever since the league on Sunday reported that violence against protesters was ongoing.

The statement said some members of the mission were attacked, and their equipment severely damaged, by government loyalists in Lattakia on the western coast and in Deir el-Zour. In other places, the statement said, opposition activists attacked other monitors.

Kuwait's state news agency said two of those injured were Kuwaiti army officers who were treated in a hospital and returned to work.

Syria's government said it would "continue to shoulder its responsibilities for protecting the observers and preventing anyone from obstructing their work."

Syrian activists, though willing to wait out the Arab mission's work through a final report it is due to present on Jan. 19, were skeptical from the start that the government would comply with the plan to stop the crackdown, or that the monitors would be able to affect much change on the ground.

Unlike previous speeches, which focused on what Syria's government views as a Western-led foreign conspiracy, Mr. Assad on Tuesday blasted what he described as a leading Arab role in a broader campaign to weaken Syria—an important ally for Iran in the regional power struggle against Israel and its Western backers. But he also said Syria wouldn't "close any doors" on an Arab initiative as long as it didn't violate Syria's sovereignty.

He again promised a constitutional overhaul that would lead to multi-party parliamentary elections and a government that would include "all political forces," this time specifying that a national referendum in March would decide a new constitution, before elections to the People's Assembly would be held in the months after that.

In closing, before walking through the auditiorium to greet audience members, Mr. Assad said: "Victory is near."

Write to Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com

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