One Million Syrians Have Fled Country, UN Says

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images(GENEVA) -- As expected, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Wednesday that the number of Syrians who have fled the country, which has been embroiled in a bloody two-year civil war that has cost more than 70,000 lives, has reached one million.

In a statement, António Guterres said, "With a million people in flight, millions more displaced internally, and thousands of people continuing to cross the border every day, Syria is spiralling towards full-scale disaster.  We are doing everything we can to help, but the international humanitarian response capacity is dangerously stretched.  This tragedy has to be stopped."

The commissioner had predicted the toll would hit the one million mark last week.

The UNHCR says more than 400,000 Syrians have become refugees since the beginning of the year, with the majority fleeing to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

Those neighboring countries have been greatly impacted by the mass exodus, Guterres says.  Lebanon has seen its population rise by as much as 10 percent, while Jordan's energy, water, health and education services have been severely strained.  Turkey, meanwhile, has already invested over $600 million establishing 17 refugee camps, with more planned.

"These countries should not only be recognized for their unstinting commitment to keeping their borders open for Syrian refugees, they should be massively supported as well," Guterres said.

Guterres is expected to travel to the region later this week to visit UNHCR operations in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

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President Assad: Only the Syrian People Can Tell Me to Step Down

Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images(LONDON) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is rejecting calls from many members of the international community that he should step down to facilitate the end of a bloody two-year civil war in his country that has cost more than 70,000 lives and threatens to further destabilize the Middle East.

In an interview published in The Sunday Times of London, Assad said “only the Syrian people can tell the president, stay or leave.  Come or go.  No one else.”

Assad blasted the British government for British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s recent comments that he would not rule out supplying arms to the rebels who are battling Syrian government forces.

Assad remarked, “How can we ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarize the problem?   How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists?”

The Syrian president told the newspaper, “The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria.”  Assad said his country was “fighting al Qaeda” and its associates.

In comments to the BBC, Foreign Secretary Hague said he could not rule out anything in the future: “If this is going to go on for months or years or more, tens of thousands of people are going to die and countries like Iraq and Lebanon and Jordan are going to be destabilized. It is not something we can ignore.  These are the reasons why we just can’t sit it out in Syria.”

Assad told The Sunday Times he was “ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms.”

“We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists.  We can engage in dialogue with the opposition, but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists.  We fight terrorism,” Assad said.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would send food rations and medical supplies to the Free Syrian Army that is battling Assad’s government forces.  The Obama administration is still not ready to provide Syrian rebels with military equipment.

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UN High Commissioner for Refugees Warns of ‘Unmanagable Crisis’ in Syria

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The UN High Commission on Refugees chief António Guterres spoke to the UN Security Council on Wednesday and warned that a “moment of truth” was approaching in Syria.

Noting that the refugee crisis is “accelerating at a staggering pace,” Guterres told the council that the international community could not allow the situation in the embattled country to deteriorate any further, and that the resulting disaster could “overwhelm the international response capacity -- political, security related and humanitarian."

“This must not be allowed to happen,” he stressed.

The head of the UNHCR also explained just how much the refugee crisis had already escalated. In April of 2012, about a year after the crisis began, there were only 33,000 registered refugees in the region.

"As of [Monday], we had registered -- or given out registration appointments -- to 940,000 Syrians across the Middle East and North Africa," he said, adding that since early January, more than 40,000 people had fled Syria every week.

Within Syria, an estimated 2 million are internally displaced and more than 4 million are affected by the fighting. Three quarters of the refugees are women and children.

"The children pay the hardest price of all," Guterres said. "Thousands of young lives have been shattered by this conflict and the future generation of an entire country is marked by violence and trauma for many years to come."

"Countries of asylum have been very generous and kept their borders open, but their capacity to do so is under severe pressure," said the High Commissioner.

Guterres concluded that the situation in Syria was likely to "deteriorate further before it gets any better," and that if the international community failed to prevent these worst-case scenarios, it would need to further step up its humanitarian response.

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US to Send Direct Aid to Syrian Rebels

Scott Peterson/Getty Images(ROME) -- For the first time, the United States will provide direct support to Syrian rebel fighters, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Thursday.

"I am proud to announce that the United States of America will be providing an additional $60 million immediately in non-lethal assistance to support the coalition," Kerry, who was in Rome meeting with leaders of Syria’s opposition council, said.

The U.S. has already provided about $50 million of non-lethal assistance to Syria’s political opposition, including providing communications equipment like radios and computers to advocates and political opposition councils.

The new aid will consist of more non-lethal supplies, like food and medicine.  It will be given to fighters who have been carefully vetted to have no ties to terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda.

"This funding will allow the opposition to reach out and help the local councils to be able to rebuild in their liberated areas of Syria," Kerry said.

Ahead of his announcement Thursday, Kerry acknowledged that the Syrian opposition needs more help.

Speaking in Paris on Wednesday, Kerry said the United States still believes that a political solution is the best way to end the bloodshed, but after two years of conflict it’s clear that the process needs to be sped up.

“That may require us to change President Assad’s current calculation.  He needs to know that he can’t shoot his way out of this,” he said.  “We need to convince him of that, and I think the opposition needs more help in order to be able to do that.  And we are working together to have a united position with respect to that.”

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Syrians in Exile Can Have Passports Renewed

BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images(DAMASCUS, Syria) -- Millions of Syrians living abroad have also been affected by the two-year conflict going on in their homeland.

Since the violence started, the expatriates have been unable to have their passports renewed, preventing them from international travel or visa applications.

Damascus has told Syrians abroad to come back and do the necessary paperwork although many fear they will either be arrested by the government or caught up in the warfare being waged by government and rebel forces.

Now, in what appears to be a major concession by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, those expatriates with expired passports will have them automatically renewed, thanks to the efforts of the opposition umbrella group, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

Moaz Khatib, the leader of the coalition, won the concession from al-Assad as a precondition of his group meeting with government officials in an effort to end the conflict that has cost 70,000 lives over the past two years.

Khatib is also demanding that al-Assad free tens of thousands of prisoners in Syrian jails and is awaiting a response.

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US Says Iraq Looking the Other Way as Iran Ships Weapons to Syria

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The U.S. is losing patience with Baghdad for allegedly permitting Iran to use its airspace for flights to Syria.

An unidentified American official complained that Iranians are supplying weapons to government forces in Syria as President Bashar al-Assad tries to hold onto power in a conflict that is now entering its third year.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the Obama administration last October that Iranian planes would be regularly searched but the official claimed that there have only been two searches since then that the U.S. knows of.

However, according to al-Maliki's government, there isn't much it can do to prevent the flyovers.  Meanwhile, two Iraqi lawmakers contend that the prime minister knows about the weapons transfer from Iran to Syria and chooses to do nothing about it.

The Shiite government in Iraq is fearful that if Sunni Muslims take over Syria, it will pose a threat to their regime, the same concern Iran has.

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Obama Administration Expected to Directly Aid Syria’s Rebels

Scott Peterson/Getty Images(ROME) -- Secretary of State John Kerry will meet on Thursday with leaders of Syria’s opposition council and other nations that have been supporting the opposition at the Friends of Syria meeting in Rome. The outcome of that meeting is expected to move the United States towards more direct involvement in the nation’s conflict.

Kerry is expected to announce for the first time that the Obama administration is prepared to provide direct support to vetted members of the Free Syrian Army, the military wing of the opposition effort.

On Wednesday in Paris, Kerry acknowledged that the Syrian opposition needs more help. Kerry said the United States still believes that a political solution is the best way to end the bloodshed, but after two years of conflict it’s clear that the process needs to be sped up.

“That may require us to change President Assad’s current calculation.  He needs to know that he can’t shoot his way out of this,” said Kerry.  “We need to convince him of that, and I think the opposition needs more help in order to be able to do that.  And we are working together to have a united position with respect to that.”

U.S. officials confirmed to ABC News that the United States is considering providing “non-lethal” help to selective rebel fighters that will include communications equipment, medical and other supplies. Under the U.S. legal definition of non-lethal assistance, any aid that is not weaponry or ammunition qualifies. That means the U.S. could also provide body armor, military training, armored vehicles and help with intelligence.

“What you’re doing is you’re giving them the capability to manage their force without giving them the weapons,” former Gen. James Cartwright told ABC News.

The United States has been providing about $50 million of non-lethal assistance to Syria’s political opposition, including providing communications equipment like radios and computers to advocates and political opposition councils.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said on Wednesday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that he thinks the United States should go further, providing ammunition for the rebel fighters. Rubio’s comments followed his recent trip to the region, where he met with the former prime minister of Syria who defected to Jordan last August.

“There are plenty of weapons in Syria. What the opposition really needs is access to ammunition,” he said. “Ammunition is something we can provide that is not weaponry per se, but is essential. That’s the stuff I’m prepared to advocate for.”

But providing weapons and ammunition to Syria’s rebel army comes with risks. Extremist elements of the opposition, including groups with ties to al Qaeda in Iraq, have emerged in the conflict. More than 50 people, many of them women and children, were killed last week in a terror attack in Damascus, Syria, carried out by a suicide bomber.

Kerry acknowledged during his Paris news conference that extremist elements within the opposition have filled what Syrians perceive as a vacuum of assistance from the U.S. and its allies.

“Some folks on the ground that we don’t support and whose interests do not align with ours are delivering some of that help,” said Kerry.

He told reporters that the United States needs to address the problem by helping Syria’s opposition do a better job to meet the needs of the Syrian people in areas they control.

“We need to help them to be able to deliver basic services…where you have a vulnerable population today that needs to be able to resist the pleas to engage in extremism,” he said.

Cartwright said that the Obama administration’s caution over the United States’ level of involvement in Syria’s drawn-out and complicated conflict isn’t surprising.

“There are people there that are clearly not from inside Syria that are participating,” Cartwright said.

“They’re either in agreement with one side or the other, or they’re there to be postured when the conflict comes to an end [so] they will be able to influence the state affairs at the end,” he added. “Not knowing that makes it very difficult to stick your nose into someone else’s fight.”

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Former Gen. Cartwright Says US Should Be Wary of North Africa

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- While John Kerry is making Syria the focus of his first international trip, the newly-minted secretary of state has likely already discovered that Syria is only one among many volatile situations around the world.

From the “genocidal type” war in Syria to the growing presence of al Qaeda affiliates in Northern Africa, former Gen. James Cartwright tells the ABC News/Yahoo! series On the Radar that he’s concerned about the growing number of potentially volatile regions around the world.

“They're spreading rather than consolidating,” the retired general says of the dangerous areas around the world, known as hotspots. “Africa is probably the biggest one that we are…are seeing in the media right now with the Mali challenge, but that's not limited to Mali.”

The growing threat of Africa can be traced in large part to the expansion of al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups such as al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) — the group behind the recent hostage situation at a natural gas facility in Algeria. Cartwright says the threat posed by offspring al Qaeda groups in Africa shouldn’t be underestimated.

“It's got the same potential to be as violent, certainly, as what we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, with even less governance than what they had in Afghanistan and Iraq,” says Cartwright of North Africa.
As for the Middle East, Gen. Cartwright warns that the continued civil war in Syria, which he describes as “genocidal type activity,” poses a long-term strategic threat to the security of the region.

“The longer this goes on, the less likely, or the longer it's going to take to recover from it. And that's probably more worrisome than anything else,” says Cartwright. “You're going to have a Syria which sits in a very strategic position basically in a condition of disruption for tens of years.”

To hear more about the greatest threats Gen. Cartwright identifies to international security, including how soon he thinks Iran could have a nuclear weapon, check out this week’s On the Radar, an ABC/Yahoo! News series.

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John Kerry and Russian Counterpart Discuss Syrian Conflict

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(BERLIN) -- Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Berlin on Tuesday regarding the conflict in Syria.

Washington and Moscow have long been at odds at how to best end the two-year civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people and threatens to further destabilize the Middle East.

Kerry, who is on his first overseas mission since becoming America's top envoy, has convinced Syria's main exile opposition group to attend a Friends of Syria conference in Rome this week to help seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Lavrov said the talks were "constructive" and he hoped Kerry would keep pushing Syria's opposition to speak directly with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government in order to stop the violence that seems to escalate week-to-week.

Al-Assad is now expressing a willingness to speak with Syria's armed opposition after months of refusing to talk with the fighters he calls "terrorists.

In other developments, there were published reports on Tuesday that the Obama administration may provide non-lethal military equipment, such as body armor and vehicles, and possibly strategic military training, to carefully selected rebel fighters as well as offering humanitarian assistance to the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

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Syrian Refugees Flood Lebanon to Escape Civil War

ABC NewsBy Bob Woodruff

(NEW YORK) -- With no safe haven, more than 1,200 Syrian refugees pour into Lebanon daily. Most of them are mothers and children with no idea where they will live. Because there are no refugee camps in Lebanon, the government is concerned that could create a long-term crisis.

One family of 20 from Homs had waited all day to cross at the Syrian-Lebanon border, while another woman said they would stay in Lebanon as long as the situation was bad in Syria.

“We have nothing. We will live with what we can,” she said. “I think we will build a tent and live there.”

The parents’ only worry: keeping their children safe no matter where they ended up.

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, families lived anywhere they could.

Aid workers from Save the Children tell ABC News there are refugees living in an abandoned prison. At the former jail, a woman who spoke English told ABC News that five people lived in one cell.

She said that she’d been an English teacher in Damascus; her husband, a banker. Their beautiful home was destroyed in Syria and now she lives in a small cell.

The former prison is now home to more than 60 children. There are bars on the windows and bare cement floors — stark reminders that they are no longer home.

Hamid, 10, saw his neighborhood bombed by President Bashar Assad’s forces. Dead bodies littered the streets.

“I want to see my dad,” he told ABC News.

Another little girl nodded when asked whether she missed her father as well. It has been months since these children have seen their dads.

More than half of the refugees in this crisis are children, according to the United Nations. Many of them have been out of school for nearly two years.

Programs like Save the Children have stepped in to fill some of the need. Save the Children told ABC News that $20 could purchase an entire student kit including pencils, paper and a backpack — everything they need for a school that the organization has set up nearby.

“We are teaching them the basics so they don’t fall behind,” one teacher said.

Funding is limited and only 550 children are able to receive services there. Thousands still wait. For a little more money, a child can get clothes and shoes.

When night falls, the families struggle to stay warm in the dark. It is so cold that families have to cook inside their tents.

Two days ago, 17 of the tents burned to the ground. The families lost everything: clothes, food, blankets, pictures, all of their documents.

“Yes, everything,” one man said. “I can’t even provide for my children....I can’t even buy them a toy if I want. I have nothing to offer them.”

The nights are long and with limited electricity, the families must turn in early. Many of the children are sick. They cough as they go to bed. In the morning, the coughing only gets worse.

Many suffer from respiratory infections and are struggling because of the smoke from the stoves. Despite freezing temperatures, they have only thin clothing and sandals. There is a real need for more food and fuel for cooking, and warmer clothing, including shoes.

Everyone told ABC News that they missed their homes, their families and their ways of life. They are without money and cannot afford phones.

In the former prison, the ABC News crew lent the mothers cellphones so they could call their families in Syria. It had been months since they’d spoken with their relatives.

The sound of “Hello” over the phone line and the smiles that followed said everything.

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