DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's new opposition leadership, painfully forged under Arab and Western pressure, set out on Monday to gather recognition and wider backing for the struggle to topple President Bashar al-Assad and take over the country.
Reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz al-Khatib flew to Cairo to seek the Arab League's blessing for the new assembly that unanimously elected him as its leader the day before.
"The first step towards recognition will take place at the Arab League," he told a news conference. The body would then seek endorsement from Arab and Western foes of Assad known as the "Friends of Syria" and from the U.N. General Assembly.
Russia, which with China has foiled U.N. action on Syria and views Assad's opponents as in thrall to the West, urged the new coalition to negotiate and to reject outside interference.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Moscow would keep up contact with Damascus and "the whole spectrum of opposition forces" and promote a constructive approach.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei did not answer directly when asked if China recognized the fledgling opposition body, instead calling on all parties to initiate "a political transition process guided by the Syrian people".
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most Arab League members want Assad removed, although some, such as Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria, take a more neutral stance on Syria, where violence was raging on.
BORDER BOMBING
Syrian jets and helicopters attacked the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain, with some bombs landing just meters (yards) from the Turkish border, sending scores of civilians fleeing into Turkey.
A Reuters reporter on the border said one warplane flew right along the border and appeared to stray across it at one point, as bombs sent up plumes of black smoke.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 people, including seven Islamist militants, had been killed in the air strikes on Ras al-Ain, which fell to rebels on Thursday during an advance into Syria's mixed Arab and Kurdish northeast.
The pro-opposition Observatory, which tracks the violence from Britain, said 140 people were killed in Syria on Sunday. Another opposition group put the death toll at 16. More than 38,000 people have been killed since March last year.
Turkey, whose border security worries were heightened by a sudden influx of 9,000 refugees within 24 hours last week, has consulted its NATO allies about possibly deploying Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deter Syria's air force.
Such a move could be a prelude to enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria, although Western powers have fought shy of this.
Riad Seif, a respected Syrian dissident who proposed the new opposition body, said no such military intervention was needed.
"We will protect ourselves by owning developed weapons and networks of defense missiles," he said, citing what he said was a promise by the Friends of Syria to provide "methods" to counter shelling and air strikes by Assad's forces.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance would "do what it takes to defend Turkey", without referring specifically to Patriot missiles.
"We have all plans in place to make sure that we can protect and defend Turkey and hopefully that way also deter so that attacks on Turkey will not take place," he said in Prague.
Rasmussen also welcomed the new opposition group that emerged from days of wrangling in Qatar among Syrian dissidents, politicians, rebels and ethnic and religious minorities.
Eventually laying aside their disputes, they agreed to join a body called the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces that can form a government-in-exile.
INCLUSIVE APPROACH
Khatib, a soft-spoken preacher who was once imam of the ancient Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, immediately called on soldiers to quit the Syrian army and on all sects to unite.
"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili, Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people," he told reporters in Doha.
It remains to be seen whether the Coalition can overcome the mutual suspicions and in-fighting that have weakened the 20-month-old drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.
"There's still a question of legitimacy," said Michael Stephens, a Doha-based researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, acknowledging that the new body was more inclusive than the widely criticized Syrian National Council (SNC).
"But they've got to show that they have the links on the ground and can get aid to the right people. They need to show that they're able to bring together all the disparate groups."
Nevertheless, for allies who see the new body as emulating Libya's Transitional National Council, the deal was welcome.
Qatar, which has promised to recognize the Coalition, said once a temporary Syrian government had been recognized, there would be no obstacle to it seeking weapons supplies from abroad.
"When they get the legitimacy from the international arena, they can go and contract whatever they want themselves because they would be recognized as full legitimate government," Khalid al-Attiyah, Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told Al Jazeera television.
The United States, which promoted the Doha unity talks, hailed the outcome, promising to support the National Coalition "as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future...".
Assad, whose Alawite minority is rooted in Shi'ite Islam, has support from Shi'ite Iran and its Lebanese Shi'ite allies, but has few friends among the region's Sunni-led nations.
With Syria enduring a bloody military stalemate almost 20 months after peaceful protests first erupted, Assad's opponents hope a more cohesive opposition can turn the tide, winning more military and diplomatic support from allies wary of the growing role of Islamist militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda.
After days of arguing over whether and how to form the new assembly, delegates in Qatar were relatively swift to reach a consensus on Khatib as leader of the opposition coalition.
His deputies will be Seif, the 66-year-old dissident, and Suhair al-Atassi, one of the few women with a leading role.
Khatib, 50, jailed several times for criticizing Assad, fled into exile this year. He has long promoted a liberal Islam tolerant of Syria's Christian, Alawite and other minorities.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Doha, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Jonathon Burch in Ceylanpinar, Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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