Rebels claim advances against regime airbases

Fierce fighting raged in northern and eastern Syria Friday as rebels opposed to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad stepped up their targeting of security posts and air bases. Meanwhile, Turkey’s appeal to the U.N. Security Council for a safe haven inside Syria fell on deaf ears, amid increasing concerns about a fast-deteriorating humanitarian situation for Syrians refugees inside and outside their country. Activists said that Free Syrian Army rebels had begun a major operation in the Aleppo region, aiming to strike at security compounds and bases around the country’s largest city. It would be evidence that weeks of intense bombardments by the Syrian military, including airstrikes, have failed to dislodge the rebels. The rebel offensives in Aleppo are led by a brigade made up mostly of army defectors who specialize in operating artillery and tanks, said Mohammad Said, an activist based in the city. He said the first attacks began shortly before midnight Thursday and lasted until Friday, when the “Brigade of Free Syrians” launched coordinated strikes on several security compounds in Aleppo. “The new operations aim to strike at regime forces’ centers and air bases throughout Aleppo [province],” Said said via Skype. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one of Friday’s targets was a compound in the Aleppo neighborhood of Zahraa, killing and wounding a number of troops. A spokesman said rebels attacked four security buildings around Aleppo, using tanks, rocket launchers and machine guns. Rebels attacked a security service building in west Aleppo before dawn, and clashes erupted in the districts of Saif al-Dawla and Salaheddine in the southwest and Hanano in the northeast, the Observatory said. The state-run news agency, SANA, said regime troops killed and wounded several gunmen in the clashes. Rebels took parts of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial capital, last month. Since then, government forces have been trying to recapture them. The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, reported clashes and shelling between troops and rebels in other areas, including the southern province of Deraa, around Damascus and in the central region of Homs. The Observatory also reported heavy clashes inside the Abu Zuhour air base in the northwestern province of Idlib, saying that anti-government gunmen were advancing, and storming officers’ housing units. The clashes in and around Abu Zuhour air base have been going on for the past two days. The reports could not be confirmed independently, although rebels posted a video Friday of the aftermath of a battle in Abu Zuhour, claiming to have captured military equipment, including anti-aircraft weapons. Syrian rebels said they shot down a Russian-made MiG fighter jet over Idlib Thursday. The rebels also claimed attacks against the Hamdan military airport in the city of Deir al-Zour, and in the city of Albu-Kamal, on the border with Iraq. They said rebel troops overran an air defense site in Albu-Kamal, capturing soldiers and officers. The LCCs said 85 people had been killed Friday, including 25 in Damascus and surrounding areas, 15 in Homs, and 19 in Aleppo. The Syrian Revolution General Commission, another anti-regime group, cited a total casualty figure of 96 people. Meanwhile, activists said thousands of people took to the streets for protests after Friday prayers in dozens of locations, under the slogan of “Support for Tripoli and the Free People of Lebanon,” after recent fighting between pro- and anti-Assad gunmen in that country’s second largest city. Groups of protesters demonstrated in main cities such as Damascus, Deraa, Hama and Aleppo, chanting anti-regime slogans, as well as in a number of smaller towns and villages. “We will not surrender, despite your tanks and guns!” they shouted in Assali, a Damascus district, while chants like “Treacherous soldier, shame on you!” echoed in Deraa as protesters accused regime troops of killing civilians. In New York, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Security Council late Thursday to act “without delay” to set up safe havens, warning that 80,000 Syrians were already in camps in his country, with 4,000 crossing the border each day. “How long are we going to sit and watch while an entire generation is being wiped out by random bombardment and deliberate mass targeting?” Davutoglu asked, slamming the Security Council’s failure to act. But world powers failed to reach agreement on his proposal, which would imply authorizing a highly controversial protective military operation. Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad told Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television: “Turkey nowadays trains and allows in terrorists, allows in Al-Qaeda. Most of the terrorists in Syria come from Turkey.” Syria ally Russia again called Friday for an immediate end to the violence. “The violence in Syria has to be ended immediately,” and work begun on a “political settlement to end the suffering of the civilian population,” the Foreign Ministry. In Tehran, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told Syria’s premier that Damascus must stop using heavy weapons in the conflict, and the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of a fast deteriorating humanitarian situation. (daily star)