A NATIONAL COUNCIL designed to overthrow President Bashar Assad’s regime was launched in Syria at the weekend.

Syrians took to the streets celebrating the creation of the council by dissidents.

The announcement of the Syrian National Council at a news conference in Istanbul appeared to be the most serious step yet to unify a deeply fragmented opposition.

It follows five days of intense battles between the Syrian military and army defectors in the country’s central region.

Prominent Syrian opposition figure Bourhan Ghalioun read out the founding statement of the SNC and accused the regime of fomenting sectarian strife in Syria to maintain its grip on power.

The opposition movement has until now focused on peaceful demonstrations, although recently some protesters have been reported to have taken up arms to defend themselves against military attacks.

In forming a national council, the Syrians are following in the footsteps of Libyan rebels, who formed a National Transitional Council during the uprising that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Although the mass demonstrations in Syria have shaken one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the opposition has made no major gains in recent months.

The Syrian opposition consists of a variety of groups with differing ideologies, but the new council is the broadest umbrella movement of revolutionary forces formed so far.

Ghalioun said one major benefit of the council to the Syrian opposition would be to provide a single body with which other countries could coordinate.

He urged Syrians everywhere to support it and said it would be a vehicle for democratic change.

Ghalioun is anticipated to become the council’s leader.

The council’s statement said it rejects any foreign intervention or military operations to bring down Assad’s regime.

It called on the international community to “protect the Syrian people” from “the declared war and massacres being committed against them by the regime.”

It said that protesters should continue to use “peaceful means” to topple the Syrian leader.

Syria’s uprising began in mid-March amid a wave of anti-government protests in the Arab world including Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Assad reacted with a force that the UN estimates has left some 2,700 people dead.

Meanwhile, gunmen killed the 21-year-old son of Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, in an ambush at the weekend.

The cleric is considered a close supporter of Assad’s regime.

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