Syria- 'Any solution must get rid of Assad'

(MENAFN- Arab News)  BEIRUT: Syria's main opposition bloc said yesterday it will fight on to topple President Bashar Assad, and that any political solution to the conflict must lead to the fall of the regime. The National Coalition's statement comes after G8 leaders said they were "committed to achieving a political solution" to the Syrian conflict. The coalition also called on the UN to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces in rebel-held areas. "The Syrian National Coalition is committed to any political solution that puts an end to the bloodshed, and achieves the Syrian people's aspirations to bring down the Assad regime," it said in a statement. The group added it "reserves the right to use all means at its disposal" to bring Assad down, "chiefly military action." "The Assad regime has continuously killed civilians using ballistic missiles, chemical weapons and warplanes. It is the only source of terrorism in Syria. Meanwhile, at a principals meeting in the White House situation room, US Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate US airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar Assad's Syrian regime - specifically, those fields it has used to launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces. It was at this point that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly. According to several sources, Dempsey threw a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to know just exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing out that the State Department didn't fully grasp the complexity of such an operation. Dempsey informed Kerry that the Air Force could not simply drop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets inside Syria: To be safe, the US would have to neutralize Syria's integrated air-defense system, an operation that would require 700 or more sorties. At a time when the US military is exhausted, and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagon budget, Dempsey is said to have argued that a demand by the State Department for precipitous military action in a murky civil war wasn't welcome. Separately, the United Nations and Washington have separately asked the Philippines not to withdraw its more than 300 Filipino peacekeepers from the Golan Heights, warning of "maximum volatility" in the region after a number of countries decided to pull out their peacekeeping forces amid escalating violence, the Philippines' top diplomat said yesterday. Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and John Kerry appealed to him in recent talks. He said he told them security for the Filipino forces should be bolstered for the Philippines to consider to keep them in the volatile buffer zone between Syria and Israel.