Mideast leaders urge Assad to seek asylum

Middle East leaders Thursday urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to accept an asylum offer in the Arab world to avoid the fate of the late Moammar Gadhafi. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman told a Senate panel several Arab states have offered Assad refuge and immunity if he leaves Syria, Britain's The Daily Telegraph reported. "Almost all the Arab leaders and foreign ministers whom I talk to say the same thing: Assad's rule is coming to an end," Feltman said. "It is inevitable. Some of these Arabs have even begun to offer Assad safe haven to encourage him to leave." "He basically has two options," a Jordanian official told the newspaper. "He can either stay in Syria and die in ignominy with his body being dragged through the streets and his country facing bloody chaos. Or he can choose salvation, both for himself and for Syria, and live a quiet life abroad." Libyan strongman Gadhafi was killed by rebels Oct. 20 after a NATO bombing exposed his whereabouts. Deadly fighting was reported Thursday in two Syrian towns, with an opposition group reporting at least a dozen deaths. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five people were killed in Idlib in clashes with security forces and three people were killed in Homs, CNN reported. Four army soldiers died when gunmen stormed a security checkpoint, reports said. CNN said it could not independently verify the reports because of tight media restrictions placed on international journalists by Assad's government. Assad recently promised to abide by an Arab League proposal to end the violence, release detainees, pull all armed elements out of populated areas and allow unregulated access to journalists and to Arab League monitors. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated more than 3,500 Syrians have been killed since the government crackdown on protesters began in mid-March.