Assad pulling Syria troops out of cities by Tuesday? (+video)
(Read article summary)Kofi Annan seems to think so. But there are strong grounds for doubt.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, now the UN point-man on the civil war in Syria, says he has full agreement from the regime of Bashar al-Assad that the fighting there will end next week.
"What we expect on April 10 is that the Syrian government will have completed its withdrawal from populated centers ... and then we begin a 48-hour period during which there will be a complete cessation of all forms of violence by all parties," Mr. Annan's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in Geneva earlier today.
This prediction should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
Mr. Assad is in a fight for regime survival. While large chunks of his country have fallen out of central government control, and the opposition has defied his military for over a year now in towns like Idlib, Homs, and Hama, his security establishment has largely hung together and hasn't suffered the sort of mass defections that undermined Muammar Qaddafi's forces during the uprising in Libya.
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