Syrian Parliament speaker's brother killed

The brother of the speaker of Parliament in Syria was assassinated Tuesday by anti-government rebels, state-run news agency SANA reported. The assassination of Mohammad Osama al-Laham came as clashes between the government and the opposition wracked most major cities, The New York Times reported. At least 162 people were killed Monday in Idlib province and Damascus and its suburbs. Laham was the brother of Jihad Laham, the speaker of the People's Assembly. Laham held a doctorate in agriculture and the Syrian Arab News Agency blamed his death on anti-government rebels who are attempting to eliminate people with skills the country needs. Laham's death took place the same day Syria's main opposition bloc voted to add activists and political groups from inside Syria amid U.S. pressure for a more representative and cohesive leadership. The Syrian National Council "agreed to a restructuring plan and to reduce the number of [existing] members of the general secretariat to accommodate 200 new members representing 13 political groups and independents," SNC spokesman Ahmad Kamel said on the second day of a four-day meeting in Doha, Qatar. Existing general secretariat members doing central administrative duties would be reduced to 220 from 313 to accommodate the 200 new members, Kamel said, adding the group was expected to meet in its reorganized form after a vote Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week called for an overhaul of the exile-led opposition political coalition, saying the SNC, based in Istanbul, Turkey, had outlived its usefulness and should be replaced by a new, broader group that could forge a more united front against the regime of President Bashar Assad. She said opposition unity was needed to boost U.S. support and oust the Assad regime. Even while SNC members agreed to broaden their ranks, they berated Washington for linking the overhaul to U.S. support and denied the council bowed to U.S. pressure. "It's nothing to do with Americans," Berlin-based Syrian activist Hozan Ibrahim told USA Today. "This structural [change] was starting four or five months ago." Tuesday's meeting was expected to discuss a U.S.-backed initiative by well-known exiled dissident Riad Seif to create a larger umbrella group the SNC would be part of but not dominate. The new 50-member group, called the Syrian National Initiative, would form the basis of a government in exile. It would include 15 SNC members, with the remaining seats filled with representatives of rebel fighters, opposition military councils and minority groups such as Kurds, Syria's largest ethnic minority, as well as minority Christians and Alawites. Syrian President Bashar Assad and many of his top security chiefs are adherents of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. SNC members planned to meet with Seif and supporters Thursday. Four days of internal SNC meetings are to end Wednesday. The unified government in exile is envisioned being formed as early as next month, the BBC reported. The exile government of technocrats would then hold a conference in Morocco to gain international recognition, Seif said. "Maybe 100 countries [at the Morocco conference] will recognize this new leadership as the legitimate and only representative of the Syrians," Seif said Sunday. The Doha meeting took place as some of the worst violence in months racked Syria, with residents of southern Damascus fleeing heavy shelling and smaller towns shattered by air attacks. The Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, a collection of activist organizations across the country, said 162 people, including seven children and eight women, were killed nationwide. It said 72 people were killed in the northwest Syrian Idlib province, bordering Turkey, and 47 were killed in Damascus and its suburbs. Those killed in Idlib included 32 people massacred in Kafranbel, a farming community known for its figs and olives. People in Damascus told The New York Times the fighting was the fiercest since July. Thousands of residents fled a Palestinian enclave as a pro-Assad Palestinian faction fought against Palestinian regime opponents in three southern neighborhoods. "It's a real war," a Damascus activist who called herself Eman told the newspaper. "Explosions, bombing and gunfire, and of course the helicopters, which have become part of the sky in Damascus now, like birds," she said. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a suicide car bomber killed more than 50 Syrian soldiers in central Hama province. SANA said the blast killed 11 people and wounded dozens.