Assad to Speak Monday, Opposition Forms 'National Council'

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is due to make a speech on Monday on developments in his country which has been gripped by four months of anti-regime protests, the official SANA news agency reported.

"President Bashar al-Assad will deliver a speech at noon tomorrow concerning developments in Syria," SANA said in a terse dispatch late on Sunday. It gave no further details.

Monday's address will be the third time Assad has made a major speech since protests demanding greater freedoms and democracy erupted in mid-March.

On March 30 -- two weeks after the start of the demonstrations -- he addressed parliament and described the deadly unrest as a "conspiracy" against Syria fomented by its enemies.

And in a televised address on April 16, Assad announced that the emergency law in force in Syria for nearly 50 years would be abolished, expressed his sadness at the deaths of protesters and called for a national dialogue.

Meanwhile, Syrian opposition activists set up a "National Council" to struggle against Assad's regime, a group of dissidents, including their spokesman Jamil Saib, announced Sunday.

"We announce the creation of a National Council to lead the Syrian revolution, comprising all communities and representatives of national political forces inside and outside Syria," they said in a statement made near the Turkish-Syrian border.

The activists urged opposition forces "to cooperate in all cities and provinces of Syria to achieve the legitimate goal of overthrowing the regime and bringing it to justice."

Saib said council members included notably Abdullah Trad al-Moulahim, one of the organizers of a Syrian opposition gathering in Turkey this month, Haitham al-Maleh, Suhair al-Atassi and Aref Dalila, all three based in Syria, as well as Sheikh Khaled al-Khalaf and Mamoun al-Homsi.

"The purpose of this council is to bring together opposition forces to support the revolution" and ensure that they are heard by the international community, Saib told Agence France Presse.

The council was created "in the name of Syria's free revolutionary youth in view of the crimes the regime perpetrated against the oppressed civilian population, which was holding peaceful protests, and in the face of the silence of the Arab world and the international community," the group said.

Saib voiced frustration that nations around the world swiftly called for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to go after his regime launched a brutal crackdown on its own people calling for democratic reform, but has not reacted similarly in Syria.

"In Libya, after the death of two hundred people, Gadhafi no longer had legitimacy," Saib said.

"Here in Syria, while all human rights groups say that there are 1,500 killed and thousands of injured or people arrested, the international community and the Arab world are silent."

Meanwhile, the Syrian army cut off a key border village supplying people fleeing to Turkey, closing its only bakery and burning surrounding forests, residents who managed to escape said Sunday.

The security operation in Bdama triggered a new exodus to the frontier, several kilometers away, where thousands had already massed, braving a squalid life in the open air but still undecided to cross to Turkey.

Ankara announced it was taking urgent food aid across the border for the displaced Syrians after sheltering more than 10,500 refugees in tent cities on its own territory.

Speaking near the frontier, witnesses said Syrian security forces had set up checkpoints on roads leading to Bdama, which was now largely deserted.

On Saturday, a line of at least six tanks and 15 troop transporters entered Bdama as part of a major crackdown in the northwestern province of Idlib, according to a Syrian activist.

The crackdown has already resulted in bloodshed in the flashpoint town of Jisr al-Shughour, from where most of the refugees taking shelter in Turkey had come.

Raka El-Abdu, a 23-year-old Syrian, told Agence France Presse that his 14-strong family fled Bdama on Saturday but he was forced to go back Sunday morning to get bread, using mountain routes that only locals would know. He found the village virtually empty.

"They closed the only bakery there. We cannot get bread any more. ... I saw soldiers shooting the owner of the bakery. They hit him in the chest and the leg," the outraged man exclaimed.

"The army is controlling all the entrances to the village and checking identities to arrest protesters," he added.

Hamid, 26, said he also escaped from Bdama on Saturday with his family after the security forces opened random fire on the settlement.

"I was outside my house ... They opened fire from far away. We ran into the mountains. I then saw my motorbike burning," he said.

"Yesterday morning, they poured gasoline and set the mountains ablaze to prevent people from fleeing," he added.

His friend Samir said residents had begun to flee Bdama several days ago after militiamen and intelligence officers arrived and fired shots in the air.

"Only 1,000 people had remained and they left yesterday," he said. "The people who stay behind are the ones who work for the regime."

Samir has been on the run for about a month: he sought refuge in Bdama, his hometown, after fear of persecution forced him to flee the coastal city of Latakia, where he had took part in anti-regime protests.

Bdama was the lifeline for thousands of Syrians who had flocked to the Turkish border but hesitated to cross, gripped by uncertainty over their future on foreign land and wary to leave behind properties.

They have braved a rough life in the open air or in makeshift shelters of branches and plastic sheets, surviving on scarce food and water from wells.

"Distribution of humanitarian aid has begun to meet the urgent food needs of Syrian citizens waiting on the Syrian side of our border," Turkey's emergency situations agency said in a statement on Sunday.

It was the first time Turkey had launched a cross-border aid mission.

Abu Muhammad, a white-bearded 47-year-old who has been camping in the border zone for 10 days after fleeing Jisr al-Shughour, said Turkish aid would be crucial for their survival.

"The army is doing that (in Bdama) to strangle us here so that people go back home either to get killed or arrested," he grumbled.

"We are waiting for help from Turkey. Otherwise, we go back and die or stay and die here," he said.

Samir said people were terrified that the Syrian security forces might soon come to clamp down on their makeshift camps.

"There are rumors that the militia will come at night and kill us," he said. "Everybody may cross into Turkey any minute."