US Edition 
Syria: Assad regime is making gains and 'planning a major push'
President Bashar al-Assad has made such significant miltiary gains that arming rebels directly has become a matter of urgency, according to British sources.
Recent military victories have severed rebel supply and retreat routes, allowing the regime to plan a major push to to crush divided opposition forces, a senior British security source told The Daily Telegraph.
"The Syrian opposition is doing badly and there is a risk of [further] defeats, although Assad cannot ultimately win," the source said.
The Syrian National Coalition met in Istanbul on Thursday in a further attempt to create a unified opposition. But it is badly split over a choice of leader, a choice of interim prime minister, and whether or not to take part in a peace conference planned for Geneva some time next month. The conference would take place a year after a transition plan was first agreed by international powers in the Swiss capital, only to be ignored as civil war spread. The SNC acknowledged but showed no signs of accepting a proposal by the outgoing leader, Moaz al-Khatib, for Mr Assad to hand over power to his vice-president, who would oversee a 100-day transition. The regime would also be unlikely to accept this deal at present, partly because it feels it has the diplomatic as well as military impetus. It retains the support of Russia at the UN, while Iran and Hizbollah are providing substantial armed assistance.
Members of the National Coalition of Syrian attending the Istanbul meeting (AFP)
"There is a danger that Assad will go for a big military push in the run-up to Geneva 2 to create facts on the ground that shift the balance of negotiations," the source said. "We have seen this in past conflicts."
The German intelligence agency, Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has warned its government that Mr Assad's military "is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will", according to Der Spiegel magazine.
Similarly to the British assessement, it believes that the president cannot recapture all of the country that he has lost, but thinks he can control the south and that after all that has happened "not losing is winning" for Mr Assad.
Amid the growing concerns, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has made a series of personal telephone calls to EU countries, including Germany, urging them to drop their opposition to Britain's plan to lift legal restrictions on arming the rebels.
European diplomats reported that following ambassadorial talks in Brussels yesterday the consensus was moving Britain's way with the support of France, Italy and Spain for lifting the embargo and with Germany dropping its opposition to take a neutral position. Austria, the Czech Republic Finland and Sweden remained opposed.