Syria army launches attack on Aleppo airbase

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A Syrian rebel fires towards regime forces as his comrade ducks for cover during clashes in the old city of Aleppo in northern Syria. File photo: AFP

Beirut, June 11, 2013 by AFP

Syria’s army launched multiple attacks on rebel positions on Tuesday in the northern province of Aleppo, including insurgent-held areas of a key airbase, a monitoring group said.

Syrian government forces shelled parts of the Minnigh military airbase a day after rebels seized its strategic radar tower, months into a battle for the site in northern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 

“Parts of Minnigh military airbase were shelled by regime forces… Rebels are in control of large swathes of the airbase,” the Britain-based Observatory said.

Other areas of Aleppo came under fire, two days after pro-regime media said the army would launch a campaign within “hours or days” to retake insurgent-held areas of the province.

Regime forces also shelled the opposition-controlled villages of Deir Hafer and Al-Bab, while the army used rocket fire to hit the insurgent stronghold of Marea, the Observatory said.

There were unconfirmed reports of a ground-to-ground missile strike in northern Aleppo province, the watchdog added.

The violence came almost a week after troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, aided by fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, seized the strategic town of Qusayr from the rebels.

Armed with a new confidence and boosted by its Lebanese Shiite ally’s help in Qusayr, Assad’s regime will now look to taking strategic rebel positions elsewhere in the country, activists say.

“The regime’s aim is to attack the northern and western countryside of Aleppo, in order to cut off supplies to rebels elsewhere in the province,” said Aleppo-based activist Mohammad al-Khatib, who spoke to AFP over the Internet.

“The regime is indeed preparing for something. There have been signals of this for the past month,” he added, though he dismissed the army’s capacity to advance in Aleppo.

“The regime’s announcement of a campaign is part of the media war,” Khatib said.

Elsewhere in Syria, the army shelled rebel positions in the southern province of Daraa, where insurgents have also made gains in recent weeks, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reports.

Among the army’s targets were districts of Daraa city, which activists refer to as the “cradle of the revolution” against Assad, as it saw some of the first anti-regime demonstrations in March 2011.
 

Source: english.alarabiya.net

Syrian regime in control of Kherbet Ghazaleh - #Syria

Syrian troops have taken control of a town near the main road linking the capital, Damascus, with Jordan, an advance in the regime’s campaign to drive rebels from the south, an activist group has said.

Rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad are trying to carve a pathway from the Jordanian border through the southern province of Deraa in what is seen as their best chance of capturing Damascus.

A few weeks ago they scored significant gains but suffered setbacks after the regime launched a counteroffensive.

In recent days, regime troops and rebel fighters have battled over Khirbet Ghazaleh. Regime forces retook the town near the Damascus-Jordan road on Sunday and rebels withdrew from the area, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Troops reopened the road, restoring the supply line between Damascus and Deraa city, the contested provincial capital, he said. Regime forces were carrying out raids and searching homes in Khirbet Ghazaleh on Monday.

Damascus, still overwhelmingly under regime control, is the ultimate prize in a largely deadlocked civil war. Rebels control large parts of the countryside in northern Syria, but those areas are further away from the capital than the Jordanian border.

Arab officials and western military experts have said Middle Eastern powers opposed to Assad have stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels, with Jordan opening up as a new route.

The uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. Over the weekend, the Observatory issued an estimated death toll of more than 80,000, with almost half of them civilians. In February, the UN said at least 70,000 Syrians had been killed.

Western leaders face growing pressure to find a way to end the conflict – because of the rising death toll and fears that neighbouring Israel or Turkey could inadvertently get pulled deeper into it.

Turkey has blamed the Assad regime for twin car bombs on Saturday that killed 46 people and wounded scores in a border town that serves as a hub for Syrian refugees and rebels.

Turkey said it would not be dragged into the quagmire but tensions between the former allies run high.

This month Israel launched back-to-back air strikes in Syria against what it said were shipments of advanced Iranian missiles. Israeli officials signalled there would be more attacks unless its neighbour refrained from trying to deliver such “game-changing” missiles to its ally Hezbollah, an anti-Israel militia in Lebanon.

For now, the west is placing its hopes on a diplomatic plan that previously ran aground but now appears to have stronger Russian backing.

Last week the US and Russia agreed to revive the idea of negotiations between Syria’s political opposition and members of the regime on a transitional government, accompanied by an open-ended ceasefire.

05/13/2013 - Guardian

Syrian rebels claim to seize border post - #Syria

Opposition fighters say they overran army garrison that defends the country’s main southern border crossing into Jordan.

Syrian rebels say they have overrun an army garrison that defends the main southern border crossing with Jordan on Friday and vowed to press on to take control of the major transit route.

Fighters from the Free Syrian Army said on Friday that they captured the Um al-Mayathen post on the main Damascus-Jordan highway in heavy fighting overnight that ended a more than week-long siege.

Dozens died in the clashes, they added.

“It [the garrison] is a major defence and now we will lay siege to the border crossing and cut their [the government’s] supply lines,” Abu Omar, commander of the Lions of the Sunna Brigade, told the Reuters news agency by phone.

Confirming the development, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said: “Rebel fighters took control of the Um al-Mayathen military checkpoint … in Deraa province in clashes with regime forces.

“Two fighters were killed and others wounded.”

The UK-based watchdog group said there was no immediate word on any army casualties.

The army post is several miles from Syria’s Nasib border crossing which, before the two-year-old civil war broke out, handled billions of dollars of trade between Gulf countries, Turkey and Europe.

Deraa has seen fierce fighting throughout the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

04/05/2013

Source: aje.com

#Syria rebels seize key military base in Daraa

Rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday seized a key air base in the southern Syrian province of Daraa after two weeks of fierce battles with loyalist troops, a watchdog said.

Elsewhere, at least 35 rebels were killed in battles against troops loyal to Damascus that raged near the sensitive ceasefire line with Israel, in the southern province of Quneitra.

“Opposition fighters loyal to Al-Nusra Front, Al-Yarmuk Brigade and other rebel groups seized air defense Base 38 near the town of Saida, on the road linking Damascus to Amman, in the province of Daraa,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The seizure came “after 16 days of fighting,” the Britain-based monitoring group added.

At least seven rebels were killed in their final assault on the base, said the Observatory, which also documented the deaths of at least eight regime troops including an officer.

“Dozens of prisoners were freed from the base’s headquarters,” the watchdog added.

Amateur video filmed by rebels and distributed by the Observatory showed the bloodied, mutilated corpse of a man identified as Mahmud Darwish, an officer.

Activists also distributed footage showing a group of men, most of them bearded, being freed.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of activists on the ground, meanwhile reported the rebel capture of a checkpoint in the town of Sahem al-Golan, also in Daraa.

Amateur video showed rebels seizing at least two regime tanks and several military vehicles after they captured the checkpoint.

“I swear to God, we are coming for you, O Bashar” al-Assad, according to one rebel fighter shown in a video distributed by anti-regime activists.

In Quneitra meanwhile, at least 35 rebels were killed on Wednesday and Thursday fighting troops loyal to Assad, said the Observatory.

Some 20 other fighters were also believed dead after battles in majority Druze villages in Quneitra province, which lays on the sensitive ceasefire line with Israel.

The Observatory’s reports came a day after at least 128 people were killed across Syria — 38 troops, 53 insurgents and 37 civilians.

At least 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since the an anti-regime revolt that broke out in March 2011 morphed into an insurgency after the regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on dissent, the UN says.

03/23/2013

Source: afp.com