(Image Source: BBC )

 

BY JOHN O’CONNOR

ANCHOR CANDICE AVILES

 

The Syrian National Council has elected a new leader that they hope will unite opposition groups on the ground. The BBC has the story .

“The Syrian National Council has chosen a new leader who hopes to unify all opposition groups. Abdel Baset Saida, a Kurdish activist, was elected as SNC president at a meeting in Turkey.”

The SNC formed last year with the goal of uniting activist groups, similar to the broad-based front that helped Libyan rebels oust Moammar Qadafi.  But the Los Angeles Times reports the fragmented nature of the SNC has made it difficult for them to garner international support.

“[T]he Syrian council has been beset by divisions, internal rivalries, accusations of Islamist domination and complaints from fighters inside Syria that it was too detached from the battle. Scores of largely autonomous militias inside Syria are spearheading the struggle to oust Assad.”

The SNC has also been widely criticized for not representing the full diversity of minority groups in Syria, particularly alienating Kurds, who have remained mostly inactive during the Assad revolt. The Wall Street Journal reports.

“They've long been treated as second-class citizens in the country... But President Assad offered citizenship and other benefits to Kurds in the wake of the uprising... (So) the group has remained divided and Kurds haven't joined the rebellion in the large numbers opponents of the regime had hoped for.”

But despite Saida’s Kurdish background, an analyst for Al Jazeera says the friction between the SNC and Syrian Kurds may not be so easy smoothed over.

“May be an impossible goal for him because of course the very fact that he is willing to work with the Syrian National Council, something that other Kurds have considered intolerable, is going to count as much against him as it will as he tries to talk them around.”

According to CNN, Saida says he is committed to reaching all opposition groups.