Syria Direct: News Update: 9-30-2013

*“Of course we will comply with the resolution. History proves that we commit to all of the treaties we have signed,” said President Bashar al-Assad in his first public statement since the adoption of U.N. Resolution 2118 outlining the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. “I could be the hope of Syria, not any other one,” asserted Assad, presumably referring to the fact that he has no intention to resign, in an interview aired on the Italian RAI news channel on Sunday.

*Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem dismissed speculation on Sunday that Assad’s fate would be on the table at the proposed Geneva II conference planned for November. “The Syrian president intends to complete his current term and run for another term in 2014,”al-Moalem told pro-government broadcaster al-Mayadin.

*The Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army announced its rejection of U.N. Resolution 2118 on Syrian chemical disarmament on Sunday. “The decision does not threaten putative action and represents a disparaging disregard for the sacrifices, scale of suffering and great human tragedy borne by the Syrian population,” the opposition officers said in a statement.

*Farah Attassi, a member of the Democratic List faction of the Syrian National Coalition, welcomed the unification of a number of military brigades in the Free Syrian Army on her Facebook page on Sunday.  She wrote, “the decision of a number of military brigades and battalions to unify their ranks and strengthen their military work to face the regime is the largest, honest and natural reaction to the strange and suspicious deals of the Russians, Americans and Iranians.”

*SANA reports one civilian killed and a number of others injured in a car bomb that exploded Monday in the suburban Damascus town of Shibani. Meanwhile, the state-media agency quotes a police source describing a number of mortar shells falling on the capital Monday morning.