That dichotomy between the representation and the reality of Morocco drives Slattery’s charming paean to a country he clearly loves and makes “Casablanca, Mon Amour” a thoughtful rejoinder to U.S. popular culture.

Two young Moroccans spend three weeks travelling their native country, filming what they see on a digital camera while passing by studios and locations that have formed the backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters, an industry Morocco has cultivated.

The film is spliced with shots of endearingly bemused or nervous ordinary people giving their thoughts to the camera about Hollywood and its global stars, as well as clips from classics such as “Casablanca” featuring off-the-cuff anti-Arab slurs like “you can’t trust them” and “they all look alike”.

“We had the idea of going on this trip and to be this stupid American film crew going to make this traditional movie using Morocco, but we wanted to subvert that,” Slattery said after a screening at the Dubai international film festival this week.

“There was not really a script but the trip was their trip and so wherever they went we followed them. So that way they were really directing the film.”

Shot by Hassan, who narrates the road trip in French, the images shift from scenes of daily life caught on camera, to his comically testy relationship with his travelling companion Abdel, to a troupe they stumble upon in Meknes that plays traditional Moroccan “malhoun” music.

Hassan, a real-life film school student at the time, is using the road trip for a class project, while Abdel wants to visit a dying uncle on the other side of the country.

Slattery includes footage from Moroccan television from the Marrakech film festival in which comic actor Bashar Skeirej declares that “a country without its own art will never have a history”.

It’s a subtle suggestion that the government should do more to promote domestic film rather than just rent out landscapes for Hollywood misrepresentation.

Morocco has formed the backdrop for a fictionalized Orient in “Ishtar”, doubled as Abu Dhabi in the “Sex in the City 2″ and been various distant planets in Star Wars films.

“National cinemas in many countries are being destroyed or have been destroyed because of this massive power of marketing that is Hollywood,” said Slattery, a California-based American of Irish origin. “They destroy little films, they destroy the possibility for little stories.”

The film, a labor of love that took Slattery seven years to complete, borrows from the book “Reel Bad Arabs”, author Jack Shaheen’s study of Hollywood’s anti-Arab stereotypes. Its title references Alain Resnais’s 1959 French New Wave classic “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”.

“(When) I would say ‘Morocco’, people would say ‘were you scared’, or a polite ‘what was that like?’,” Slattery said, recounting reactions in the United States when he would talk about his first experiences as a peace corps volunteer.

“There was that whole category of fear in the responses, or ‘Morocco, you must have seen Lawrence of Arabia’, or ‘Blackhawk Down’! – all these film titles. That stuck with me, this fear and movies were the two references for Morocco.”

Yet Slattery’s first day in the North African country could not have been more mundane, he said.

A colleague whisked him off to a rural home near Rabat where he met farmers who reminded him of Ireland.

“This guy opens (his door) in a tweed jacket that was all torn up. This is how these old farmers dress in Ireland, and his hands were all calloused and dirty. It just felt very familiar to me,” Slattery said.

“His grandmother had a television hooked up to a car battery for electricity. I spent the weekend there, hanging out with these people, cutting hay and stuff, and I just thought ‘this is Ireland’.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Six years later “The Attack” is garnering interest on the festival circuit, winning praise in Toronto, an award in Marrakech, and wowing audiences at the Dubai international film festival in the United Arab Emirates this week.

“When they got the script they rejected it, and they not only rejected it, they pulled the project and kept the script. We had a three-year legal battle to try and get it back,” Doueiri, whose 1998 debut “West Beirut” drew praise at Cannes, said after a screening.

“I understand the sensitivity of the film and I knew at the start it had a lot of landmines along the way. We knew we were going to have people who oppose it on the Arab side and the Jewish side.”

Now he has distribution in 40 countries including the United States for a dark love story where an Arab Israeli surgeon, Amin Jaafari, who is a model of successful integration in Jewish society is on a mission to find out if his wife Siham was the suicide bomber who killed 17 children at a birthday party.

In the opening scene he is honored at a ceremony for his work, offering platitudes in a speech about Arab and Jewish coexistence, the next day he is thrown into brutal detention as the suspect husband of a terrorist.

Eventually released after police realize he knew nothing about the attack, the surgeon, played with gripping understatement by Ali Suliman, begins to see that perhaps his wife of 15 years had done it after all.

He follows clues that lead to Nablus in the Palestinian territories where he finds Siham’s posters plastered on walls as a martyr and locals treating him as a turncoat.

Towards the end he takes a trip to Jenin – site of an Israeli operation in 2002 that left dozens of Palestinians dead – in a scene that Doueiri said was meant to signify that Amin understood what drove his wife though he didn’t condone it.

Doueiri said graffiti on the ruins of homes in Jenin reading “Ground Zero” – a reference to the site of New York towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001 – was one scene that particularly riled his original U.S. collaborators.

Amin also realizes that while he was a part of Israeli society, his wife had felt like an outsider.

“It’s about this man who is absolutely attached to his wife, who believed at the beginning of the film that he could be very well-integrated into Israeli society,” Doueiri said. “Only, at the end there’s that truth that comes up that the bottom line is there’s us and there’s them.”

The film has already drawn sharp reactions in the Arab world, with some Algerian media accusing Doueiri of defiling the novel that inspired it, by Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, and Moroccan Islamists accusing it of being pro-Israel.

Much of the film’s dialogue is in Hebrew.

Doueiri and fellow scriptwriter Joelle Touma altered a number of elements in Khadra’s ending, in which Amin dies in an Israeli drone strike as he confronts the sheikh who mentored his wife.

The film has the surgeon return to Tel Aviv, living with his guilt but shunned by friends for not revealing what he knows to the authorities – a shift reflecting Doueiri’s ambitious intersection of the personal and the political.

“We wanted to show that Amin has an incredible moral problem by his wife killing innocents. If she had blown herself up at a military checkpoint, Amin would not have had such a big problem,” Doueiri said.

“I challenge anyone to tell me I took the side of the Israelis. I just wanted to make a film where I did not shout slogans and soundbites. We had that for years.”

The Attack has echoes of “Paradise Now”, another suicide bomb film – also starring Nazareth-born Ali Suliman – which won international acclaim.

“It was shown in Toronto and when American producers saw it they wanted to distribute it again,” Doueiri said. “I thought we really nailed the script, so we didn’t give up the fight.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

The king appointed an Islamist as prime minister last year after holding early elections and instituted constitutional reforms that, on the face of it, limited royal control to military, security and religious affairs.

But a recent tour of Gulf Arab states that was led by the king exposed where real power lies, said Fathallah Arsalane, a senior member of al-Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Spirituality), a sect-like organization steeped in Morocco’s Sufi Islamic tradition that opposes the Alawite family’s rule.

“People are now convinced the steps taken in Morocco are more or less superficial, which is exactly how the regime responded to pressure in the past,” Arsalane told Reuters. “It’s become clear that it is the monarchy in control.”

The king led the large delegation to the Gulf in October to seek financial help after a decline in tourism and remittances from Moroccans living abroad.

Without foreign aid, the government would be faced with cutting state subsidies that help the population buy essential goods, raising the risk of a new wave of protests.

The king and his advisors appeared to dominate proceedings, confirming the view of many that the government led by Abdelilah Benkirane and his Islamist PJD party has slipped into the secondary role occupied by previous cabinets.

“The Gulf trip was clear – the advisors of the king were there on the first rung and ministers were on the second,” said Arsalane, a member of his group’s Guidance Council.

An advisor to King Mohammed said during the Qatar leg of the visit that Morocco expected to receive the first tranche of $2.5 billion in aid promised by wealthy Gulf states early next year.

Gulf rulers want to shore up the fellow monarchy after Arab Spring uprisings brought down the leaders of four Arab republics – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, in the last two years.

“They are monarchies in the Gulf and they are like dominoes. If one goes, the others will go too. They are sticking together and they don’t want any weak link among them,” Arsalane said.

BANNED FROM POLITICS

While the PJD accepts the monarchy, Al-Adl Wal Ihsane and its ageing leader Sheikh Abdessalam Yassine refuse to recognize the king’s status as ‘Commander of the Faithful’.

The group, which is banned from formal politics, does not say how many Moroccans support it, but diplomats believe it is the only opposition organization capable of mass mobilization.

Many Sunni Muslim clerics disapprove of al-Adl Wal Ihsane because of its traditional North African Sufi character, with its veneration of saints and shrines and unique religious rituals dismissed by Sunni Muslim clerics as superstition.

The PJD is ideologically closer to Arab Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood organization that is widely believed to enjoy the backing of Qatar.

Such groups came to power in Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring uprisings, while the PJD remains in uneasy alliance with a palace that found it expedient to allow it into government.

Morocco recently said it would allow Qatar’s Al Jazeera television to reopen offices that were shut in 2010 and Arsalane said he expected the leading Arab broadcaster to continue to sideline his group.

He said Arab media were ignoring almost daily protests by unemployed graduates in the capital Rabat. Morocco’s Arab Spring protest movement, known as ‘February 20′, has largely petered out after al-Adl Wal Ihsane quit over disputes with secularists.

Arsalane avoided criticism of Benkirane, often ridiculed in the establishment press as lacking power, but said state media had reverted to linking all development in Morocco to the king.

The country ranks 130 out of 187 countries on the U.N. human development index, 56 percent of adults among its 33 million population are illiterate and its cities are blighted by slums.

“The PJD and Benkirane’s idea is reform from within,” said Arsalane, adding that poverty and democratic progress elsewhere in north Africa would maintain pressure on the monarchy.

“Morocco used to appear as the liberal, open country before. But now these countries have gone beyond Morocco and Morocco is embarrassed,” he said.

(Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

“Shame on you, you have squandered the budget!” a small
group of several dozen chanted during one march a few days
before parliament voted on the first draft of next year’s
budget.

They never made it to the parliament building, however,
because police, aware of the protest through social media, were
waiting with truncheons to beat them back.

Though King Mohammed’s royal expenditure is higher than
those of European monarchies, it amounts to less than 1 percent
of Morocco’s budget.

The monarchy – whose descent from the Prophet Mohammed has
been a powerful deterrent to popular challenges to its authority
- instituted constitutional reforms last year in the wake of the
Arab Spring in the Middle East, deferring more of its power over
political, economic and security affairs to the elected
government.

But trying to correct deteriorating public finances without
inciting more protests, which would probably include political
demands to make the monarchy more of a symbolic ruler, looks an
increasingly tough task for the authorities. That is making them
reluctant to heed IMF demands and cut massive subsidies on
staple goods and is forcing them to seek new sources of
government revenue.

Public finances in Morocco, a country of 33 million, are in
dire straits because of the financial crisis in the euro zone,
the country’s main economic partner, and after the government
increased social spending last year to help contain protests
after uprisings brought down the rulers of Egypt and Tunisia.

Subsidies on food and energy have shot up this year to 52.3
million Moroccan dirhams ($6.14 million), from 48.8 million in
2011 and 29.8 million the year before.

Trade deficits are at levels not seen since structural
adjustment programmes of the 1980s when Morocco saw riots over
food prices that left hundreds dead.

The trade gap was 10 percent higher in October than a year
ago at 163.9 billion dirhams, accelerating from a 5 percent
year-on-year increase in September – largely due to a surge in
key imports of energy products and wheat, which the state passes
on to Moroccans at heavily subsidised prices.

In August the IMF approved a $6.2 billion precautionary line
of credit for Morocco over two years and urged action to reform
the subsidy system, although it did not formally tie that to the
aid.

“The government effectively defused large-scale protests by
implementing referendum-approved constitutional reforms,”
Standard & Poor’s said last week, giving a BBB- rating to a
maiden U.S. dollar bond proposed by the Moroccan government.

“Although this process has preserved the country’s
traditional social cohesion, managing popular expectations amid
comprehensive subsidy reform or an economic slowdown will remain
a challenge.”

In October S&P warned it could lower Morocco’s BBB-
investment grade credit rating, citing the need to significantly
narrow the fiscal shortfall and current account deficits, which
averaged more than 7.5 percent of gross domestic product during
2011-2013.

GULF AID

In the face of simmering unrest the government is hurriedly
trying to find cash to avoid having to roll back subsidies,
which account for 15 percent of total public spending.

One solution it has come up with is Morocco’s first
international dollar-denominated bond, a $1 billion, 10-year
issue launched on Wednesday.

But economists say that won’t solve structural fiscal
weakness and the situation was worse than is being acknowledged.

“For now, our reserves cover four months of import needs,”
said Najib Akesbi, an economist at the Hassan II Institute of
agronomy in Rabat, referring to foreign currency reserves of 134
billion dirhams in October. “After this bond issue they will
cover four and a half months.”

The government seems to be betting that it can plug the gap
with money from a new funding source: Gulf Arab rulers who have
an interest in propping up a fellow Arab monarchy after revolt
brought down other rulers in the region.

King Mohammed led a delegation on a tour of the Gulf last
month. Though no major deals or loans have been announced,
Morocco expects to receive early next year the first part of
$2.5 billion in aid from Gulf states, an advisor to the king
said during the tour.

“In the short term, Morocco doesn’t have a problem raising
the money it needs, mostly because the Gulf states are going to
finance Morocco’s deficit for the next few years,” said Riccardo
Fabiani, London-based North Africa analyst for political risk
consultancy Eurasia Group. “(The bond) will be heavily
subscribed by Gulf countries.”

With those extra funds bolstering public finances, the
government plans to cut spending on subsidies only slightly in
its 2013 budget, which parliament is expected to sign off on
this month, to be t ween 45 and 49 billion dirhams, or 6.1 percent
of GDP.

Finance Minister Nizar Baraka told Reuters that subsidies
would be lower and more targeted towards lower-income Moroccans
next year, and this would be enough to maintain investor
confidence in Morocco.

“We are thinking of spending around 40 billion dirhams,
which fits with our plans to reduce subsidy spending and to be
more helpful by targeting the poorest class,” he said on the
sidelines of a parliament debate last week. “I’m sure that this
subsidy spending level will not alarm investors in the bond.”

Baraka, who like most government officials rarely explains
policy at length, declined to give more details or say if
Morocco had dipped into the IMF facility.

Economic growth is supporting government finances with Rabat
projecting GDP growth of 3.4 percent this year and 4.5 percent
next year. It aims to cut the budget deficit to 4.8 percent of
GDP in 2013 from 5 percent this year.

Income from tourism, however, which accounts for 7 percent
of GDP and is heavily dependent on visitors from Europe, fell 4
percent in January-October from a year earlier, while
remittances from the 2 million Moroccans living abroad fell 3.1
percent – highlighting the risk of an economic slowdown that
would exacerbate pressure on volatile government finances.

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni said in an interview in Doha that the Brotherhood would hope to reach a consensus on the introduction of sharia but would not impose it.

“In Syria no one party can monopolize. Syria has an ethnic, religious and sectarian mosaic that has lived together for years and this coexistence must continue,” he told Reuters.

“We don’t claim to represent the Syrian people and we don’t claim that this revolution is ours. We are one part of the Syrian people,” he said. “We can say we are present on the street but not what size that is – coming elections will tell.”

His tone echoed that of the Brotherhood in Egypt after the fall of president Hosni Mubarak – a tone seen by critics as more of an attempt to avoid scaring the west than a real change in ideology in an organization which had to operate underground for decades before last year’s “Arab Spring” uprisings.

Some say the Brotherhood is funneling funds to favored groups inside Syria to build its presence, while seeking control of a newly formed National Coalition of opposition groups, in part through influence over independent Islamists.

Bayanouni, a lawyer who left Syria after being imprisoned in the 1970s and stepped down as Brotherhood leader in 2010, said that the organization should not be seen as a threat.

“When we say sharia is a main base for legislation it does not harm any other group since Islamic sharia accommodates other religions and sects… We’ll strive for a national consensus on this,” he said. “But we don’t impose it on anyone, we’ll try to arrive at a national consensus around these principles.”

The Brotherhood, set up in 1936, led an insurrection against Hafez al-Assad, father of President Bashar al-Assad, that was crushed in 1982.

The organization was banned throughout Baath Party rule and has had a much lower profile than in Egypt before the uprising against Assad – which has turned into a civil war that has killed more than 38,000 people.

Many Islamists objected to rule by the Assads, secularists from the minority Alawite sect which they did not consider to be Muslim. Damascus had been the seat of the Umayyad caliphate, an early Arab-Islamic empire.

Rebel groups inside Syria are now increasingly dominated by Salafi Islamists, with whom the Brotherhood have an uncomfortable relationship. Some Salafi militants, including foreigners, have been accused of atrocities and targeting minorities including Alawites.

“INDEPENDENCE OF SYRIAN DECISIONS”

The National Coalition chose Mouaz Alkhatib, a popular Islamist preacher seen as independent from the Brotherhood, as its first leader this week.

AlKhatib has been a regular guest on Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite channel, used by the influential Gulf Arab state to promote Brotherhood-linked Islamists and help facilitate U.S. acceptance of the Islamist network.

Bayanouni rejected suggestions, made by leftist opponents of the rebel movement, that a government in Damascus backed by Shiite Iran would be swapped for a Sunni government backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar if rebels win.

“We know there is international interest in Syria but we insist on the independence of Syrian decisions. Syrian (opposition) unity is a Syrian demand before it is an international or Arab one,” he said.

When asked if Washington had sought guarantees for peace with Israel, which has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967, he said: “With us no one has tried. The Syrian people cannot let go of the Golan. Neither us as Brotherhood nor any political party has the right to give guarantees or let go of occupied land.”

“I think the Syrian revolution is a popular revolution and what the Syrian people want in the future to deal with these international issues is what we will abide by,” he said.

(Writing by Andrew Hammond; editing by Sami Aboudi and Myra MacDonald)

The SNC, dominated by the Qatar-backed Brotherhood, agreed under intense U.S. and Qatari pressure on Sunday to become a minority player in a wider body, the Syrian National Coalition.

The new body will try to win international recognition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and become the main address for political, humanitarian and military support for the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

One diplomat on the sidelines of the Doha talks said the Brotherhood, with affiliates in Egypt and Tunisia that have risen to power during the Arab uprisings of the past two years, had been the “swing block” that could make or break the deal.

Sensing the political wind – as an army of U.S. and other diplomats deployed in the Qatari hotels where the week of talks took place – the Brotherhood endorsed the new structure.

Opposition to the SNC being subsumed in the new coalition appeared to come largely from secular figures such as its new leader, Christian activist George Sabra.

“The Brotherhood will not monopolize power in the political arena and in managing the coming period,” said Farouk Tayfour, a senior Brotherhood figure and deputy SNC leader.

“They will be a part of the overall Syrian framework of rebuilding our country and healing the wounds of Assad family rule.”

DOMINATING THE SNC

As in Egypt in the first months after the fall of veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak last year, the Brotherhood tried to play down its influence on the SNC to avoid scaring Western backers.

But accusations emerged that it controlled the body through influence over independent Islamists and was funneling funds to favored groups inside Syria to build up its presence further.

With the SNC expected to take around two fifths of the 60 or so seats in the new National Coalition, the Brotherhood’s influence is set on paper at least to diminish.

The coalition’s first elected head is Mouaz Alkhatib, a popular Islamist preacher from Damascus.

Khatib, 50, has been a regular guest on Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite channel, used by the influential Gulf Arab state to promote Brotherhood-linked Islamists and help facilitate U.S. acceptance of the Islamist network.

Hassan Hassan, a Syrian commentator based in the United Arab Emirates, said he believed Khatib was a true independent, not under Brotherhood sway, but the jury was still out on whether the group would be able to dominate the new National Coalition.

“This is the million dollar question,” he said. “When the United States presented this new plan, the Brotherhood knew it could not insist on the survival of the SNC, so they started to build a place for themselves in the coalition – and succeeded.”

Many prominent figures resigned from the SNC in recent months complaining that Islamists were sidelining minorities and women. Another three left in Doha, including SNC founder Adib Shishakly, angered over the failure of women to make it onto the SNC’s new general secretariat elected last week.

The Brotherhood, whose Syria branch was founded in 1936, says it is simply an effective organizer, and some opposition figures conceded that much of the grumbling reflects personal grudges from individuals lacking popularity.

“They said it was becoming a Brotherhood council. But honestly I think it was because they were not elected (to the secretariat),” one member said of last week’s walk-outs.

JURY OUT ON ‘COALITION’

Still, respected figures in the new coalition remained mistrustful of the Islamists, whatever their public utterances.

“Right now the Brotherhood is not becoming more open (to other groups). They’ve said in the past that they would be, but I haven’t seen it yet,” said leftist dissident Haitham al-Maleh. “They must be pushed to become more open.”

Secularists are suspicious of the Islamists’ position on women and non-Muslims in an uprising marred by sectarianism.

Assad has drawn support from Christians, Druze, Shi’ites and his own minority Alawites, who fear what the Sunni majority under Islamist influence could have in store for them.

Al Qaeda fighters from Iraq and jihadists from other countries have piled into Syria to join the fight against a ruler they consider infidel because he is an Alawite.

Many Sunni preachers use anti-Alawite rhetoric, spurning the Muslim credentials of a sect distantly linked to Shi’ite Islam.

The Brotherhood clashed with Assad’s father Hafez in 1982, when thousands were killed in a failed uprising. It then worked assiduously to build up grassroots influence through mosques and religious schools, despite being a banned organization.

Syria, which once prided itself as a bastion of secular Arab nationalism, has become religiously conservative.

The Brotherhood has distanced itself from jihadi groups and sectarianism on the ground in Syria, and opposition figures in Doha tried generally to play down Western fears of radicalism.

A rebel military commander dismissed concerns over the Al Nusra Front, a Salafi militia which has carried out suicide attacks, describing them merely as “organized Islamists”.

Hassan said opponents remain concerned that, with Qatari support, the Brotherhood could still convince Western powers that it is as influential and powerful on the ground as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a premise he questioned.

“We all of a sudden have a revolution in Syria, and a lot of groups presented themselves as the one with great influence in society,” he said. “But almost 70 percent of the country is outside the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood, if you consider religious minorities, the Kurds and the tribes.”

(Additional reporting by Regan Doherty; Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria, amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. “I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

Russia Today’s web site, which published a transcript of the interview conducted in English, showed footage of Assad speaking to journalists and walking down stairs outside a white villa. It was not clear when he had made his comments.

The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.

The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.

“I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford … It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” the 47-year-old president said.

“I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.”

QATAR, TURKEY CHIDE OPPOSITION

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar’s central role in the effort to end Assad’s rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged the Syrian opposition to set its personal disputes aside and unite, according to a source inside the closed-door session.

“Come on, get a move on in order to win recognition from the international community,” the source quoted him as saying.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu delivered a similar message, saying, according to the source: “We want one spokesman not many. We need efficient counterparts, it is time to unite.”

An official text of a speech by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah showed he told the gathering: “The Syrian people awaits unity from you, not divisions … Your agreement today will prove to the international community that there is a unity … and this will reflect positively in the international community’s stance towards your fair cause.”

Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Turkey’s Hatay border province, two civilians, a woman and a young man, were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

International rivalries have complicated mediation efforts. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

Syria’s conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, whose origins lie in Shi’ite Islam, has fuelled sectarian tensions across the Middle East. Sunni Arab countries and Turkey favor the rebels, while Shi’ite Iran backs Assad, its main Arab ally.

“VICIOUS CIRCLE”

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said London would now talk to rebel groups inside Syria, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week criticized the SNC and called for a new opposition body to include those “fighting and dying”.

But the plan for a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing ran into trouble almost as soon as it was proposed by SNC member Riyad Seif.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups – which include Islamists, leftists and secularists – will have in a proposed assembly. Seif said he hoped for agreement on that on Thursday night, although the talks may continue into Friday.

Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the participants were moving towards consensus: “The atmosphere was positive. We all agree that we don’t want to walk away from this meeting in failure,” he told reporters.

Seif’s proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the devastating conflict.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats – along the lines of Libya’s Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute in Washington told a forum in Doha it would not work for Syria. “It’s not a ridiculous idea, but it’s not going to succeed,” he said.

A diplomat on the sidelines of the talks said international divisions in the U.N. Security council did not help.

“It’s a vicious circle. They are asking the opposition to unite when they admit they are not themselves united,” he said.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)

Speaking in an interview with Russia Today (RT) television
to be broadcast on Friday, Assad said he did not see the West
embarking on a military intervention in Syria and said the cost
of such action would be unbearable.

“I think that the cost of a foreign invasion of Syria – if
it happens – would be bigger than the entire world can bear …
This will have a domino effect that will affect the world from
the Atlantic to the Pacific,” he said.

“I do not believe the West is heading in this direction, but
if they do, nobody can tell what will happen afterwards,” he
added. The remarks were published in Arabic on Russia Today’s
web site. It was not clear when Assad gave the interview.

Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in
Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out
an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside
and outside Syria amid growing international pressure to put
their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The United States and other Western powers have grown
increasingly frustrated with the opposition over divisions and
in-fighting which have undermined the chances of ousting Assad.

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar’s
central role in the effort to end Assad’s rule as the Gulf
state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi,
tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

“I am tougher than Gaddafi,” Assad told his interviewer,
according to a tweet posted by the editor-in-chief of the
station.

‘LIVE AND DIE IN SYRIA’

Assad, who is battling to put down a 19-month old uprising
against his rule, said he would “live and die in Syria”, in what
appeared to be a rejection of the idea by British Prime Minister
David Cameron this week that a safe exit and foreign exile could
be one way to end the civil war in Syria.

“I am not a puppet and the West did not manufacture me in
order that I leave to the West or any other country. I am
Syrian, I am Syrian-made, and I must live and die in Syria,” he
said. Russia Today’s web site showed footage of him speaking in
the interview and walking down the stairs outside a white villa.

Two civilians, a woman and a young man, in Turkey’s Hatay
border province were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria,
according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their
presence along the frontier, where officials have said they
might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria’s war, in which the opposition estimates 38,000 people
have been killed, raises the spectre of wider Middle Eastern
sectarian turmoil and poses one of the toughest foreign policy
challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his
second term.

International and regional rivalries have complicated efforts
to mediate any resolution to the conflict. Russia and China have
vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have
put Assad under pressure.

Regionally, Sunni Muslim Arab countries and Turkey oppose
Assad while non-Arab Shi’ite Iran is backing the Alawite ruler,
whose sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam and whose family has
been in power for over 40 years.

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC),
has been heavily criticised by Western and Arab backers of the
revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in
Syria, and under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain’s Cameron said after Obama’s re-election this week
that the crisis would be among the first topics the two leaders
would discuss and that efforts had so far been inadequate.

Foreign Minister William Hague said Britain will now talk
directly to Syrian fighters inside, after U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton last week slammed the SNC, saying the
Qatar meeting should create a body that includes people fighting
on the ground.

MEETING IN TROUBLE

But the plan to unite opposition groups ran into trouble
almost as soon as it was put on the table by SNC member Riyadh
Seif. The initiative would create a body that could eventually
be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign
recognition and therefore more military backing.

“It’s a consultative meeting, we will discuss all issues
including forming some kind of authority to manage the liberated
areas,” SNC head Abdulbaset Sieda told reporters in Doha, before
the meeting began behind closed doors in a five-star hotel.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the
SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups -
which include Islamists, leftists and secularists – will have.

Qatar’s Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim was due to speak at
the meeting later on Thursday, signalling pressure on the Syrian
opposition to get their house in order from the U.S.-allied Arab
country that has done the most to fund Arab opposition movements
during the Arab Spring uprisings of the past year.

Seif’s proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge
opposition forces to help end the conflict that has devastated
large swathes of Syria, including cities, and threatens to widen
into a regional sectarian conflagration.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council,
a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of
technocrats – along the lines of Libya’s Transitional National
Council, which managed to galvanise international support for
its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

One SNC source said the grouping had only agreed to the Doha
conference under pressure from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the
United States and France.

Western states have been reluctant to offer overt support to
anti-Assad rebels inside the country too, fearing it would open
the door to rule by hardline Islamists among them.

“The Arab League will agree to whatever the Syrians agree,
but there are still differences over which political factions
will dominate (in a new body),” said Arab League
Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby.

The Interior Ministry said the bombs were homemade and
described the blasts as “terrorist acts” – its term for violence
by opposition activists.

But an opposition politician and a rights activist said the
attacks, which came days after the government said it had banned
all rallies and opposition gatherings to ensure public safety,
could have been the work of government forces trying to justify
the ban or a further crackdown.

Injuries to protesters or police are relatively common in
the 21-month-old uprising, but attacks on the public have been
rare on the Gulf island, where the Sunni Muslim Al Khalifa
dynasty rules over a majority Shi’ite population.

The explosions took place between 4:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
(0130 and 0630 GMT) in the Qudaibiya and Adliya districts of
Manama, the BNA agency said, citing a police official. It
described the explosives as “locally made bombs” and said a
third Asian worker had been wounded.

One of the attacks took place outside a cinema, where one of
the street cleaners died after kicking a package that then blew
up. A witness said there was little material damage at that
scene, suggesting the blast had not been large.

ATTACKS ON POLICE

Police say they have been the target of numerous attacks
with homemade bombs since April, including one that killed a
policeman last month, as the government has stepped up efforts
to quell an uprising that has crippled the economy.

Opposition politician Matar Matar of the Shi’ite party Wefaq
said he doubted that opposition activists were behind Monday’s
attacks, noting that leading Shi’ite clerics had called on
followers to avoid escalating the conflict with the government.

He suggested the police or military might have been
responsible, or a rogue unit.

“This incident is strange – why would anyone target
workers?” he said. “I’m worried that police and military are
losing control of their units or it is (preparation) before
declaring martial law.”

Maryam al-Khawaja, acting head of the Bahrain Centre for
Human Rights, said: “As always, we condemn violence but, given
the Bahraini authorities’ background in spreading
disinformation, we call for an independent investigation into
the deaths of the two migrant workers.”

Khawaja, who is based in Denmark, said the attacks were “not
grounds to start a campaign of collective punishment, arbitrary
arrests, and torture, as we’ve see happen before”.

REGIONAL RIVALRY

Shi’ites complain of discrimination in the electoral system,
jobs, housing and education, and say they are mistreated by
government departments, the police and the army. Government
promises of action to address their concerns have come to
nothing, they say. The authorities deny this.

Washington has urged Bahrain to begin dialogue on democratic
reforms with the opposition. But its criticism has been offset
by its support for a country that plays a key role in U.S.
efforts to challenge Iranian influence in the region and hosts
the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which patrols oil shipping lanes.

Bahrain has become caught up in regional rivalry between
Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia – which helped Bahrain to
crush mass protests last year – and Shi’ite power Iran, which
champions the cause of Bahrain’s Shi’ite opposition but denies
accusations of fomenting the unrest.

Thirty-five people were killed in Bahrain during protests in
February and March 2011 and the two months of martial law that
followed. While mass protests in central Manama have been
stamped out, there are still clashes between protesters and riot
police almost every day in Shi’ite districts.

Activists and rights groups say nearly 50 civilians have
been killed in the turmoil since the end of martial law, while
the authorities say two policemen have died.

(Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

The resilience of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), despite increased U.S. drone strikes to eliminate militants, is worrying for top oil exporter Saudi Arabia next door and the security of major shipping lanes in the seas off Yemen.

When a nationwide uprising against autocratic rule erupted last year, tying up security forces and causing a power vacuum, militants charged into the major south Yemen towns of Zinjibar, Jaar and Shuqra and set up Islamic “emirates”.

To broad their appeal, the militants renamed themselves Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), appointed spokesmen to deal with the media and put up signposts and flags. Poverty, unemployment and alienation from a central government seen as aloof and corrupt spurred some young men to join the cause.

Residents said the militants included Saudis, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Chechens and Somalis, hinting at the international scope of the jihadi threat to Saudi and Western interests.

After President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally bowed to popular revolt and stepped down in February, the U.S.-backed Yemeni military swept in and wrested back southern towns from the militants, sometimes after heavy fighting.

But the south, where resentment of tribal domination from the north has long run high and a separatist movement revived in 2007, has since become a more dangerous place, residents say.