Aleppo international airport resumes flights

The Aleppo International Airport resumed its domestic and foreign flights after several Syrian ministers arrived at the airport. The first flight after a one-year suspension landed in Aleppo International Airport on Sunday. Several ministers, reporters and other civilians were on board the plane. The Syrian army seized back control over several strategic regions and sites around Aleppo International Airport in February. Aleppo airport in Northern Syria was closed at the beginning of 2013 amid security concerns as militants launched a campaign to seize several airfields in the area. In November, Syria said its military had regained full control of several areas around Aleppo International Airport and could reopen the airport closed for nearly a year. Also in the past 24 hours, over a 1,000 militants fled the town of Yabroud in Damascus countryside after the Syrian army began its clean-up operations in there. Also, the Syrian army started cleaning operations in the strategic town of Yabroud in Damascus countryside on Sunday, media reports said. The army units after regaining control of the Yabroud started operations to purge the town of snipers and defuse the bombs planted in there. Meantime, former Syrian Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah described the recent battles between the Syrian army and the militants in Yabroud in the Damascus countryside a national battle which will determine the future of the war in the country. “The Yabroud battle is a decisive battle that will make clear the path of the Syrian army’s other military moves,” Dakhlallah told FNA on Sunday. He underlined that the war in Yabroud is important because the town provided a linking passage for the foreign-backed militants to Northern Lebanon and was the conduit of the arms shipments smuggled from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar into Syria. Dakhlallah stressed that the military advance in Yabroud displays the growing victory of the Syrian army in its war on terrorism, and said, “This victory will play a decisive role in the future battles of the Syrian army against the militants.” The Syrian army started cleaning operations in the strategic town of Yabroud earlier today. The army units regained control over Yabroud and then started operations to purge the town of snipers and defuse the bombs planted in there. Meantime, thousands of the militants of the Al-Nusra Front fled towards the Lebanese borders after the Syrian army took control of the Yabroud town and killed tens of militants in heavy clashes. Reports said the Army units have made significant progress in their operations in Yabroud, carrying out a series of swift special operations which resulted in the killing of a number of terrorists, mostly from the al-Nusra Front, and in destroying their weapons and equipment. The Syrian army has now brought Yabroud under its full control and the militants are in a difficult situation because they have lost all their positions in the area. The town is located near the Lebanese border and explosives used in fatal bomb attacks in Lebanon were reportedly smuggled from this town. Elsewhere, 15 gunmen on Sunday turned in themselves and their weapons to authorities in the neighborhoods of the old city of Homs. Meantime, Al-Arab newspaper reported that the Syrian foreign-backed opposition is willing to give Israel the Golan Heights and in return Israel will use its air defense to enforce a no-fly zone over Southern Syria. In a report in Al-Arab newspaper, a member of the Syrian opposition coalition is quoted as saying the foreign backed militant groups were willing to sell the Golan Heights to the Zionist regime in return for military aid against President Bashar Assad's army. "Why shouldn’t we be able to sell the Golan Heights because it is better than losing Syria and Golan at once," Kamal Al-Labvani said. The foreign backed opposition wants to use Israel's air defense systems, including American-made surface-to-air Patriot missiles, to enforce a no-fly zone over Southern parts of Syria in order to prevent Assad's air force of bombarding the terrorist groups’ strongholds. The ringleader of the foreign-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC) also earlier called on the opposition’s western allies to deliver on their pledges of supplying heavy weapons to Syrian insurgents. Ahmad Jarba claimed in a Friday interview with state-funded BBC that the anti-Damascus militants were promised by western allies to be supplied with heavy weapons during the recent talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.