Syria rebel groups brand Geneva talks 'treason'

Powerful armed groups in Syria said attending peace talks or negotiating with the regime would be an act of betrayal, as fighting raged today near Iraq and in Homs.
An international watchdog said, meanwhile, that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime handed over on time a detailed plan on destroying its chemical weapons stockpile.
The move was in line with a US-Russian deal reached last month that headed off threatened military strikes on Syria and that triggered an initiative for peace talks to be staged in Geneva next month.
But the initiative has struggled to win the support of the warring parties in Syria, where more than 115,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the 31-month conflict.

In the latest blow, 19 Islamist groups fighting to topple Assad issued a statement casting further doubt on whether the talks dubbed "Geneva 2" will actually go ahead.
"We announce that the Geneva 2 conference is not, nor will it ever be our people's choice or our revolution's demand," said the statement read out by Suqur al-Sham brigade chief Ahmad Eissa al-Sheikh in a video posted online.

"We consider it just another part of the conspiracy to throw our revolution off track and to abort it."
They warned anyone who attends such talks would be committing "treason, and... Would have to answer for it before our courts".

The statement comes as the UN-Arab League peace envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, prepares to travel to Damascus tomorrow, a Syrian government source told AFP.
The talks slated for next month aim to bring rebel and regime representatives to the table in a bid to seek a negotiated end to the conflict.
Under pressure from its Western backers to attend, the National Coalition is to meet on November 9 to decide whether to take part.
But it insists it will only do so if there are guarantees Assad will step down, and its leader Ahmad Jarba has also said no talks can take place unless the regime frees women and children from its jails.

Assad for his part has said "the factors are not yet in place" for such talks, and he has repeatedly rejected negotiations with any group with ties to the rebels or to foreign states.