Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria's main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them "Assad's Dogs", before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria's commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi - whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria's opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad's forces.

"The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in," Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: "I swear I didn't shoot anyone" to which a rebel responds: "Shut up you animal ... Gather them for me." Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war - a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

"More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China's new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi's mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Insight: Putin's Russia - more fragile than it looks

MOSCOW (Reuters) - When Vladimir Putin celebrated his 60th birthday this month, a group of patriotic mountaineers unfurled a portrait of the Russian leader on a 4,150-metre mountain peak. Hailing him as a guarantor of happiness and stability, the climbers' leader explained: "We have stuck Putin's portrait on a rock wall we see as unbreakable and eternal as Putin".

But as Putin nears the end of his 13th year ruling this vast country, Russians feel increasingly unhappy and worries over long-term political and economic stability are growing.

Russia is exporting three things in great quantity, says a leading Moscow banker: natural resources, capital and people.

Only the first could be regarded as healthy and sustainable; the other two imply that oligarchs and ordinary citizens alike are turning their back on Putin's Russia.

Almost a third of city-dwellers would like to emigrate from Russia, according to a poll in September. Among young people the proportion rose to nearly half. The most favored destinations were Europe, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

The reasons for this exodus of talent and money? A growing sense among educated Russians that their country is heading in the wrong direction, and that no change is likely.

It all began very differently. Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin on December 31, 1999. His early years generated hope as the chaos of the Yeltsin era was replaced by order, the economy grew strongly - Russia's GDP has grown nearly 10-fold under Putin - and a consumer boom created a new middle class.

A group of reform-minded ministers led by Alexei Kudrin at Finance and German Gref at Economy raised hopes of real change to increase private investment, modernize industry and infrastructure and reduce dependence on raw material exports.

Fast forward to 2012. Putin began a fresh six-year presidential term this March, with his supporters calling for him to stay in power until a constitutional term limit of 2024 - by which time the former KGB spy would have ruled longer than any Kremlin leader since Stalin.

Outwardly Putin's reform agenda continues. The president and his government repeat the mantra of modernization - a concept beloved of tsars for centuries.

Putin told Russia's main economic forum this summer that his government would implement a program of major transformation to build a new economy, create or modernize 25 million jobs and become an exporter of innovative goods and services.

But the facts on the ground point in a different direction.

POLITICAL THAW REVERSED

A brief and shallow political thaw under Dmitry Medvedev's 2008-12 presidency (in which Putin continued to wield ultimate power from the prime minister's office) is being reversed.

Opposition leaders have been arrested on charges which human rights organizations say are trumped-up, new controls have been clamped on the Internet and a Medvedev repeal of slander laws has been reversed.

Gref and Kudrin are both long gone from the government and unconfirmed rumors swirl in Moscow that Medvedev himself will be fired by Putin before the end of the year.

Growth presses on but at the same time Moscow has the world's biggest population of billionaires, corruption is rampant and the country's huge wealth is very unevenly spread.

Kudrin helped to fund a startling study from the Centre of Strategic Research think-tank, published last week. It concluded from interviews with focus groups in Moscow and regional cities that Russians saw little chance of changing their "predatory" ruling elite through the ballot box.

Most thought a revolution was possible and even desirable.

Medvedev cuts an increasingly lonely figure in Moscow, his credibility with voters gone after stepping aside without a murmur to make way for Putin's return to the Kremlin this year. His supporters privately despair of any chance for real change in an economy that looks increasingly Kremlin-controlled.

One recent mega-deal shows the trend. Last month, state-controlled oil giant Rosneft said it would take over the number three oil producer, TNK-BP. Rosneft will buy out the current owners - four Soviet-born oligarchs and Britain's BP - to create the world's biggest publicly listed oil company.

At a time when Russian oil production is falling and large-scale investment is badly needed to open up new fields, the Kremlin is instead spending $55 billion in cash and shares to acquire control of a major oil company from the private sector.

As the government splurges, Russia's oligarchs are shifting more money abroad because of the poor investment climate. Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Klepach estimates that $50-60 billion of private capital will flow out of Russia this year. Moscow bank Uralsib predicts the figure could hit $80 billion.

"MIXED FEELINGS"

Putin told a group of visiting academics and journalists last week over dinner at his residence that he had "mixed feelings" about the Rosneft takeover of TNK-BP because it increased state participation in the economy.

Russia-watchers, however, had little doubt that the takeover was scripted inside the Kremlin. Rosneft is run by Igor Sechin, a long-time close Putin ally and Kremlin hard-liner who has always favored extending state control over key assets.

The two-hour, seven-course dinner with the Valdai Group of Russia experts was held at Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence in an exclusive wooded suburb outside Moscow.

The occasion was billed as a chance to gain insight into the latest Kremlin thinking and learn Putin's ideas for his new term. But at dinner, the Kremlin chief surprised some attendees with an uncharacteristically flat performance, devoid of the quips and bravado for which he is renowned and lacking in new ideas.

Corruption is one of the biggest problems in Russia for ordinary citizens, businessmen and foreign investors. The country has slid to 143rd place out of 182 on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, tied with Nigeria.

Yet Putin shrugged off a question about corruption with a tired sigh, asking his audience what they expected him to say that was new about such a perennial topic.

Intimations of Putin's mortality have surfaced. The president's press secretary last week denied a Reuters report that the Kremlin leader needed surgery to correct a back injury, then days later squelched fresh rumors about Putin's health, saying he was working from home to avoid traffic congestion.

Such issues are no minor matter in a country where so much power is concentrated in the hands of one man, a man with no visible successor.

President Barack Obama memorably described Putin before their first meeting in 2009 as a leader with one foot stuck in the Soviet past, and signs of a drift backwards are visible in Moscow.

The Kremlin administration is now headed by 59-year-old former KGB spy Sergei Ivanov, who likes to describe himself as "rather conservative on national security but quite liberal on economics". Ivanov previously headed the Defence Ministry and the military-industrial complex.

ZASTOY AND PUTIN

On the lips of many educated Muscovites today is the word "zastoy" (stagnation) - an epithet which came to define the lackluster latter years of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s and early 1980s, but is now increasingly used of Putin.

Despite years of government promises, Russia has yet to build a modern pensions saving system, improve regulation to create a viable financial market trading centre to compete with Dubai or invest in its crumbling infrastructure.

Already weighed down by the cost of hefty public sector pay rises ahead of this year's presidential election, the Russian government's latest budget envisages spending $620 billion by 2020 re-equipping the country's military, while cutting spending on infrastructure and education.

These priorities have upset business leaders, who are desperate for improvements to the creaking road network.

And despite repeated Putin's pledges to cut the economy's dependence on oil and gas exports, the oil price required by the Kremlin to make its budget sums add up has more than doubled over the pasts five years to $110.

In foreign policy, Medvedev's much-vaunted plan to reset relations with the United States on a more constructive track has stalled. Instead Moscow has confronted the West over Syria and given priority to pursuing a free trade area with former Soviet neighbors Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, says Russia wants to be an "independent centre of attraction" for nations in its neighborhood and adds:

"The West made a major mistake wanting Russia to be like the West - Russia wants to be Russia".

PUNISHING PUSSY RIOT

One of the clearest signs of divergence between Russia and the West is the treatment of Pussy Riot - a punk feminist band who staged a protest song in Moscow's main cathedral this year imploring the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin.

Three of its members were jailed for two years - one later released on a suspended sentence - for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred".

Putin said the women had "got what they deserved" because their performance amounted to a vulgar act of group sex and threatened the moral foundations of Russia. Western governments and human rights groups were outraged at what they saw as a grossly disproportionate punishment.

Yet the harsh treatment meted out to Pussy Riot may signify something deeper than moral indignation.

Many analysts see the jail terms as a sign of something deeper - Kremlin insecurity amid rising popular discontent.

While the street protests which swept Moscow last winter have now abated, political analysts say the urban, educated population is increasingly unhappy with Putin's leadership.

Far from the grandeur of Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence, its wrought-iron gates topped with the double-headed Russian eagle, to the north of Moscow lies the featureless dormitory town of Krasnogorsk.

Inside a small, noisy McDonald's restaurant there, a diminutive 30-year-old woman energetically explained her prediction for Russia's future under Putin, as a snowstorm swirled outside.

"The system itself is crumbling," said Yekaterina Samutsevich, the released Pussy Riot member. "It's becoming more repressive ... those in power have very strong fears and their behavior is more and more wild. We could end with a total collapse like the Soviet Union."

Whether the vision of the strong, stable, great power projected by Putin or the apocalyptic prediction of the young punk rocker come to pass remains to be seen.

But in the meantime Russia's people and its business elite are voting with their feet and their wallets. And Putin is not winning.

(Writing by Michael Stott; Editing by Peter Millership)

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British millionaire pleads guilty in Iran missile scheme

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - British millionaire Christopher Tappin pleaded guilty in federal court in Texas on Thursday to charges of attempting to sell missile parts to Iran, prosecutors said.

Tappin, 66, from Orpington, Kent, who had previously pleaded not guilty, reversed that stance in federal court in El Paso as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors that calls for a sentence of 33 months in prison and a fine of more than $11,000, according to U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman.

Federal prosecutors say Tappin, a retired shipping magnate, and two other men sought to ship zinc/silver oxide batteries for Hawk Air Defense Missiles to Iran via the Netherlands.

One of the middlemen turned out to be an undercover U.S. customs agent.

"Mr. Tappin stated under oath that he was guilty of aiding the attempted export to Iran of sensitive military equipment," Pitman said in a statement. "In so doing, the defendant put at risk the national security of the United States and its allies by trying to sell to Iran the batteries that make the Hawk Missiles operational."

The two other men involved in the scheme, which began in late 2005 and ended with Tappin's arrest in early 2007, have been sentenced to terms of 20 and 24 months in federal prison.

Tappin was extradited to the U.S. earlier this year following a two-year legal battle. He is free on bond pending his sentencing, which is scheduled for January 9.

Prosecutors have said they will not object to Tappin's sentence being served in England so he can be close to his ill wife and other family members. He had faced up to 35 years in prison.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Eric Walsh)

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CIA officials in Libya made key decisions during Benghazi attacks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA officials on the ground in Libya dispatched security forces to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi within 25 minutes and made other key decisions about how to respond to the waves of attacks on U.S. installations on September 11, a senior American intelligence official said on Thursday.

Officials in Washington monitored events through message traffic and a hovering U.S. military drone but did not interfere with or reject requests for help from officials in the line of fire, the official said.

The information emerged as officials made available on Thursday a timeline chronicling the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other American officials died. The material appears to refute claims by critics that officials in Washington delayed sending help to the besieged personnel.

The handling of the attack by the Obama administration and CIA has come under sharp criticism by supporters of Republican challenger Mitt Romney during the campaign ahead of the presidential election on November 6.

The senior intelligence official said that CIA officers in Benghazi, "responded to the situation on the night of 11 and 12 September as quickly and as effectively as possible.

"The security officers in particular were genuine heroes. They quickly tried to rally additional local support and heavier weapons, and when that could not be accomplished within minutes, they still moved in and put their own lives on the line to save their comrades," the official said.

"At every level in the chain of command, from the senior officers in Libya to the most senior officials in Washington, everyone was fully engaged in trying to provide whatever help they could," the official said.

"There was no second-guessing those decisions being made on the ground, by people at every U.S. organization that could play a role in assisting those in danger. There were no orders to anybody to stand down in providing support," the official added.

OBAMA, CIA PUSH BACK AGAINST CRITICISM

Intelligence and other administration officials expressed particular dismay about a report on Fox News last week that alleged that armed CIA operatives near the U.S. compound in Benghazi were repeatedly told to "stand down" after asking for permission to assist on the night of September 11 and were also refused military backup by the CIA chain of command.

Following the initial broadcast of the Fox News report, Jennifer Youngblood, a CIA spokeswoman, denied that CIA had ever turned down requests for help from U.S. personnel in Benghazi.

"No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate," Youngblood said.

According to the timeline, around 9:40 p.m. Benghazi time, officials at the CIA's relatively fortified and well-defended base in Benghazi got a call from State Department officials at the U.S. diplomatic mission about a mile away that the less-fortified public mission complex had come under attack from a group of militants, the intelligence official said.

Other official sources said that the initial wave of attacks on the diplomatic mission involved setting fires using diesel fuel. The dense smoke created by the fuel both made it hard for people at the compound to breathe and to organize a response to the attack.

About 25 minutes after the initial report came into the CIA base, a team of about six agency security officers left their base for the public diplomatic mission compound.

Over the succeeding 25 minutes, the CIA team approached the compound, and tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to get local Libyan allies to bring them a supply of heavier weapons, and eventually moved into the burning diplomatic compound, the intelligence official said.

At around 11:10 p.m., a Defense Department drone, which had been on an unrelated mission some distance away, arrived in Benghazi to help officials on the ground gather information. By 11:30, U.S. personnel who had been working or staying at the mission had been rounded up except for Ambassador Stevens, who was missing, the intelligence official said.

When they tried to drive out of the diplomatic compound to return to the CIA base, however, the convoy carrying U.S. evacuees came under fire.

Once they got back to the CIA base, that installation itself came under fire from what the intelligence official described as small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. These patchy attacks went on for roughly 90 minutes, the intelligence official said.

CIA SENT TEAM FROM TRIPOLI

Around the same time, a CIA security team based in Tripoli, which included two U.S. military officers, landed at Benghazi airport. Upon its arrival, however, the team spent some time trying both to arrange local transport and to locate the missing Ambassador Stevens.

After some time trying to solve these problems, the security team that had flown in from Tripoli eventually arranged for an armed local escort and extra transportation, but decided not to go the hospital where they believed Stevens had been taken. In part this was because they had reason to believe Stevens was likely dead, and because security at the hospital was believed, at best, to be "uncertain," the intelligence official said.

Not long before dawn, the reinforcements from Tripoli managed to take themselves and a convoy of vehicles to the CIA base to prepare for an anticipated evacuation.

However, just after they arrived at the CIA base, the official said, a new round of attacks on that facility was launched, this time with mortars. Although the mortar attacks lasted only 11 minutes, two U.S. security officers were killed by a direct hit from one of the shells, the intelligence official said.

Finally, a bit less than an hour later, a heavily armed Libyan military unit arrived at the CIA base to help evacuate the compound of U.S. personnel to the Benghazi airport, the official added.

Over the next few hours, roughly 30 Americans, as well as the bodies of Stevens and the other three Americans killed during the attacks, were loaded on planes and flown out of the city, several U.S. officials said.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Blind Chinese activist's brother says lawsuit rejected

BEIJING (Reuters) - The eldest brother of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng said on Friday a Chinese court had rejected his lawsuit filed against local police and officials for unlawfully barging into his house after his brother's escape.

The rejection of Chen Guangfu's lawsuit on Thursday was an expected outcome, but it underscores the continued pressure on Chen Guangcheng's family in northeastern Shandong province, about five months after Chen Guangcheng left for the United States to study.

Chen Guangfu said he would appeal, and although his legal fight is likely to fail, it could renew international focus on China's human rights and legal system and galvanise lawyers and rights advocates to push for the rule of law in China.

Chinese courts rarely accept lawsuits filed by dissidents or their relatives, and when courts do they invariably find for the government.

The Yinan County People's Court rejected Chen Guangfu's lawsuit on the grounds that he did not provide "any corresponding evidence" and therefore he "cannot prove that his claims are based in reality", Chen Guangfu said by telephone from his village of Dongshigu.

Court officials could not be reached for comment.

Chen Guangfu is trying to sue police and local government officials that oversee his village for "scaling the walls of his home and for wrecking his home" just after midnight on April 27, the day after they discovered his blind brother had escaped.

"This outcome was expected; it's just one of their rogue tactics," Chen Guangfu, 55, told Reuters. "How can they say the evidence doesn't correspond with reality? Kegui is still in their hands."

Chen Guangfu's son, Chen Kegui, has been charged with intentional wounding after he took a kitchen knife and slashed three officials who had barged into Chen Guangfu's home and beat up family members of Chen Guangcheng. Chen Kegui's lawyers have been repeatedly denied access to him.

After breaking free from 19 months of house imprisonment in April, Chen Guangcheng sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, embarrassing the Chinese authorities and sparking a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington. He is now studying law in New York.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Michael Perry)

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U.N. resisting African calls to end Somalia arms embargo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday gave the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia a seven-day extension while its 15 members weigh an African Union request to review a two-decade old arms embargo to help the government defeat Islamist rebels.

U.N. diplomats said that the council remained divided on the union's request to begin allowing the sale of arms to the Somali government. It is also split on calls to permit the export of stocks of charcoal, the Islamist al Shabaab rebels' principal source of funds, from the war-ravaged Horn of Africa nation.

"I expect the arms embargo may remain in place for the time being," a council diplomat said. "There's no consensus on lifting it." Other envoys said they would continue discussions.

The Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.N. mandate of the African Union's AMISOM peacekeeping force, which was due to expire at the end of Wednesday, until November 7. Council diplomats said that they would prepare a resolution by next Wednesday that would extend the mandate for a full year.

Diplomats said they would use the next week to complete closed-door discussions on Somalia that were interrupted with the arrival on Monday of the superstorm Sandy, which brought power outages and chaos to much of Manhattan and caused flooding at U.N. headquarters along New York City's East River.

Due to flooding in the current Security Council chambers, Wednesday's meeting took place in a temporary container-like structure built to house parts of the U.N. secretariat and conference rooms during a years-long renovation of the main buildings due to finish in 2013.

The African Union has appealed to the council to review its arms embargo on Somalia to help the country rebuild its army and consolidate recent military gains against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab.

Somalia wants help strengthening its poorly equipped and often ill-disciplined military that is more of a loosely affiliated umbrella group of rival militias than a cohesive fighting force loyal to a single president.

The council imposed the embargo in 1992 to cut the flow of arms to feuding warlords, who a year later ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged Somalia into civil conflict.

CHARCOAL EXPORTS - A BURNING ISSUE

On Tuesday the African Union issued a statement saying that it "urges the Security Council to look into the issue of the large volume of charcoal found in ... Kismayu by AMISOM." It suggested the council approve an exemption for its export.

Envoys said Kenya also supports approving the sale of stocks of charcoal in the Somali city of Kismayu, which Kenyan forces under the umbrella of AMISOM took control of late last month, despite a U.N. ban on charcoal exports.

Diplomats said that the council was divided on the issue of the charcoal sales, with some countries fearing that the Kismayu merchants lobbying for the sale of the charcoal might still have connections with al Shabaab.

Kenyan troops crossed into Somalia a year ago to crush the militants whom it blamed for attacks and kidnappings on its soil. The Somali port city of Kismayu was al Shabaab's last major bastion before its forces were driven out.

Kenya has troops in Kismayu but has made clear it would like to avoid appearing like an occupation force. Diplomats said the Security Council might find it difficult to allow charcoal exports from Somalia at the moment.

"It's hard to imagine the council permitting the export of charcoal under the circumstances," a diplomat said. "Those who would benefit from the coal may still be funding al Shabaab."

Council diplomats said that the United States was among the countries that would agree to the export of the charcoal if the Somali government approved. But the Somali government has yet to back the idea, the envoys said.

"Negotiations are ongoing and we're closely consulting the Somalis and other regional partners," another diplomat said.

Some residents of Kismayu said that selling their stored charcoal was an urgent necessity.

"There is life and business when there is export and import," shopkeeper Ismail Sabdow told Reuters from Kismayu. "I believe the government ought to lift the ban on charcoal until people have other options."

The council banned the sale abroad of Somali charcoal in February in an attempt to cut off al Shabaab's funding.

According to the Security Council's Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, an independent panel that reports on compliance with U.N. sanctions, charcoal exports from southern Somalia in 2011 generated over $25 million for al Shabaab.

The charcoal export ban was first suggested by the Monitoring Group and envoys said the panel has reservations about the idea of lifting it.

Faced with a military offensive by African Union and Somali forces, al Shabaab has pulled out of a number of urban strongholds in southern and central Somalia. They still hold sway over vast rural areas where the central government and regional administrations have minimal control.

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Nairobi, Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa and Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Syrian rebels arm Palestinians against Assad

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels said on Wednesday they had begun arming sympathetic Palestinians to fight a pro-Assad faction in a Palestinian enclave in Damascus - a move which could fuel spiraling intra-Palestinian violence.

Two rebel commanders told Reuters they expected their Palestinian allies to fight the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) which dominates the Yarmouk enclave - a one-time refugee camp turned sprawl of apartment blocks which is run by the Palestinians themselves.

"We've been arming Palestinians who are willing to fight...We have formed the Liwa al-Asifah (the Storm Brigade)which is made up of Palestinian fighters only," a rebel commander from the Suqour al-Golan (Golan Falcons) brigade said.

"Its task is to be in charge of the Yarmouk camp. We all support it and back it," he told Reuters.

Yarmouk lies at the heart of several southern Damascus districts which have seen heavy fighting between the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

The Palestinians would be expected to attack fighters loyal to PFLP-GC chief Ahmed Jibril, who Syrian rebels accuse of harassing and attacking them to support Assad.

"Now they (the PFLP-GC fighters) are targets for us, targets for all the FSA. All of them with no exceptions," said another rebel commander who asked not to be named.

Syria hosts half a million Palestinian refugees, mostly descendants of those admitted after the creation of Israel in 1948, and has always cast itself as a champion of the Palestinian struggle, sponsoring several guerrilla factions.

But Syria's uprising has split Palestinian loyalties, with many ordinary Palestinians sympathetic to the uprising by their fellow Sunnis.

The Islamist Palestinian Hamas movement closed its offices in Damascus earlier this year.

Palestinians have in any case been riven by factionalism for decades, their differences exacerbated by the 1975-1990 civil war in neighboring Lebanon, where they also have a strong presence. Intra-Palestinian fighting in Syria could lead to similar tensions in Lebanon.

BOMB ATTACK IN YARMOUK

Residents at Yarmouk, home to about 150,000 Palestinians, said gunmen had been seen in the streets and some people kidnapped in recent days, eight of whom had been killed. It was not clear who was responsible.

A bomb exploded on Wednesday under the car of a Syrian army colonel in Yarmouk, although he was not in the vehicle, the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. A Syrian rebel commander claimed responsibility, calling it a "gift to Jibril's people which will be followed by others".

Syria hosts many Palestinian factions which fought Israel and also each other in the 1970s and 1980s. Some like Fatah, the group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, fought Syrian forces in Lebanon during the civil war and its fighters still bear a grudge against Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad.

The creation of a Palestinian rebel group could mark an opportunity to settle historic scores with the Assad dynasty.

Palestinians officials in Syria refused to comment while a Palestinian official in Lebanon said: "We do not want any Palestinian involvement in the incidents in Syria, what is happening there is an internal matter."

Activists estimate that at least 32,000 people have been killed in the 19-month revolt against Assad.

(Additional reporting Oliver Holmes; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Myanmar must protect Muslims and halt discrimination: U.N.

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar on Wednesday to halt deadly sectarian violence and warned it not to use the conflict as a pretext to remove Rohingya minority Muslims.

Some 89 people have been killed in clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in western Myanmar in the past 10 days, according to the latest official toll.

"This situation must not become an opportunity to permanently remove an unwelcome community," said a joint statement issued by Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar, and independent experts on minority issues and the internally displaced.

They voiced their "deep concern about the assertion of the government and others that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants and stateless persons".

"If the country is to be successful in the process of democratic transition, it must be bold in addressing the human rights challenges that exist," Ojea Quintana said.

"In the case of Rakhine State, this involves addressing the long-standing endemic discrimination against the Rohingya community that exists within sections of local and national government as well as society at large."

The Rohingyas say their homes were burned down by Rakhines armed with slingshots, wooden staves, knives and gasoline.

The United Nations says more than 97 percent of the 28,108 people who have fled the violence are Muslims, mostly stateless Rohingya. Many now live in camps, joining 75,000 mostly Rohingya displaced in June after a previous explosion of sectarian violence killed at least 80 people.

Fearful Buddhists and Muslims are arming themselves with homemade weapons, testing the reformist government's resolve to prevent a new wave of violence.

Rita Izsak, U.N. independent expert on minority issues, said the Rohingya constituted a minority which must be protected according to international minority rights standards.

"The government must take steps to review relevant laws and procedures to provide equal access by the Rohingya community to citizenship and promote dialogue and reconciliation between communities," she said.

The U.N. refugee agency has called on authorities to restore law and order so as to prevent further bloodshed and displacement. An estimated 6,000 people are stranded on boats or on islets along Myanmar's western coast, it said on Tuesday.

"We are appealing to neighboring countries, Bangladesh being very much one of them, to keep borders open. It is clearly important that people do have access to safe haven," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Martin Petty in Rakhine; editing by Andrew Roche)

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U.N. Security Council relocates due to storm damage: envoys

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council was forced to relocate on Wednesday for a meeting on Somalia and other issues because of extensive water damage to parts of the United Nations complex from the storm Sandy, U.N. officials and diplomats said.

It was not immediately clear how badly the U.N. buildings were damaged by the storm. The U.N. press office sent a statement to reporters announcing that the U.N. headquarters would reopen Thursday after a three-day closure and outlining which areas would be accessible.

The statement also said senior U.N. officials would brief reporters on Thursday about the damage the U.N. sustained during the massive storm Sandy, which flooded many parts of lower Manhattan and left nearly 2 million residents of New York state without electricity since Monday.

Diplomats said flooding in basement areas at the U.N. was severe enough to require the 15-nation Security Council to move to a temporary container-like structure built to house parts of the U.N. secretariat and conference rooms during a years-long renovation of the main buildings due to finish in 2013.

"The council chamber was hit, IT (information technology) was apparently damaged, possibly some documents as well," a council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another council envoy confirmed the diplomat's remarks.

The U.S. Northeast began crawling back to normal on Wednesday after Sandy crippled transportation, knocked out power for millions and killed at least 45 people in nine states with a massive storm surge and rain that caused epic flooding.

When the Security Council met on Wednesday, it approved the extension of its mandate for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia for one week before meeting again next week to vote on a 12-month extension for the force, known as AMISOM.

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Mohammad Zargham, Bernard Orr)

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Expect feisty defense from China's disgraced Bo Xilai

BEIJING (Reuters) - Disgraced former top Chinese politician Bo Xilai can be expected to mount a feisty defense of himself when he finally comes to trial, but a guilty verdict is not in doubt, a lawyer who had a front seat at China's last major show trial said.

Zhang Sizhi was defense lawyer for Mao Zedong's widow, Jiang Qing, leader of the "Gang of Four" that wielded supreme power during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. She was given a suspended death sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands during that period of chaos.

As such, Zhang was witness to Jiang's spirited though ultimately fruitless defense, and thinks Bo could do the same.

"Bo Xilai will be given the right to defend himself, but will he be able to use it? I cannot say for certain," the still sprightly Zhang told Reuters in an interview in his spartan apartment in central Beijing late on Wednesday.

"I would expect though that he will defend himself to the fullest extent, according to what I know about the man," said the 85-year-old.

There is little doubt about a guilty verdict.

"It will be another show trial," Zhang said.

Bo, 63, was widely seen as a contender for top leadership before his career unravelled after his former police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to a U.S. consulate for more than 24 hours in February and accused Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, of murdering a British businessman.

Gu and Wang have both been jailed over the scandal stemming from the murder of Neil Heywood. In September, the government accused Bo of corruption and of bending the law to hush up the murder.

While formal charges have yet to be filed, China's prosecutors and courts come under party control and are most unlikely to challenge the party's accusations.

The Bo scandal has rocked Beijing, exposing rifts within the party - elements of which are strong supporters of Bo's populist, left-leaning policies - at a time when the country is preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership change.

"LITTLE GIRL"

Zhang said he did not expect Gu, 53, to try and kill herself like Jiang did in 1991.

"Her killing herself was a political act. She did not fear death," he said. "Gu is not like this. She's just a little girl."

Zhang, who was sent to toil on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, has never given up his fight for legal and political reform in China.

Zhang has campaigned against censorship and, more recently, lobbied for Wu Ying, a self-made businesswoman convicted in a multi-million dollar scheme to bilk investors, in a contentious fraud case that sparked sympathy for the peasant's daughter. Her death sentence was overturned this year.

With China approaching the leadership change at a Communist Party Congress which opens in Beijing next week, calls for reform have grown in state media and amongst government-linked academics.

But Zhang said he was pessimistic, especially for legal reform in a country where courts are controlled by the party.

"The most important reform China needs to become a country with rule of law is independence of the judiciary," he said.

"I don't talk about this very often for one reason - it will not happen ... It cannot happen as long as we live in a one-party state."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

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