Diplomat defects over Syrian bombardment

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad suffered its first major diplomatic defection on Wednesday when the country's serving ambassador to Iraq quit in protest at the brutality of the government onslaught.

As Western powers scrambled to a secure a new UN resolution to resolve the crisis, rebels said that Nawaf al-Fares, a Syrian government veteran with close ties to Assad's security establishment, had switched sides. They said he was on his way to seek asylum in Turkey.

The loss of the ambassador, who was born in Deir al-Zor, a town where the government crackdown has been ferocious, suggests the loyalty of officials from Syria's Sunni majority is starting to crack. It follows last week's defection of General Manaf Tlas, also a Sunni, who was regarded as a close friend and confidant of Assad.

The Syrian opposition last night claimed that more senior diplomats would follow suit, although there is no sign yet of waning loyalty among high-level members of Mr Assad's Alawite minority, the regime's real power-brokers.

"This is just the beginning of a series of defections on the diplomatic level," Mohammed Sermini of the main exiled opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said. "We are in touch with several ambassadors."

The defection came as Russia and the West embarked on a fresh tussle over Syria, with Moscow and Britain both preparing rival UN Security Council resolutions to decide the fate of Kofi Annan's observer mission to Syria.

The Kremlin sought to outflank Western powers by circulating a draft resolution that would extend the mandate of the 300-strong monitoring force for a further three-month period, overriding British and American objections that it no longer serves a useful purpose.

Britain meanwhile stepped up work on an alternative resolution that would drastically reshape Mr Annan's remit as the UN and Arab League's special envoy.

A possible compromise would result in the UN team being halved to 150, with on-the-ground monitors replaced by a political negotiating team that would nurture talks between the Assad regime and opposition forces to form a transitional government of national unity.

"We want to make the Annan plan more effective and capable of delivering on its negotiating objectives," one Western diplomat said. "There needs to be a reconfigured Annan team that can foster political negotiations between the regime and the opposition."

Any hopes of the resolution threatening the Syrian government with mandatory sanctions under Chapter VII of the UN charter however, are almost certain to be thwarted by Russia, which opposes Mr Assad's removal.

Activists yesterday reported a new bombardment of rebel areas of Homs - a hotbed of opposition to Assad - as well as fighting in many other parts of the country. Syria's army also fired live missiles in an exercise aiming at showcasing its ability to "destroy any enemy targets", state media reported. The tests concluded five days of war games, which analysts say are a warning to Assad's foes.