Syrian army to secure capital suburbs

The Syrian army has launched a large-scale operation against the rebels in the eastern countryside of Damascus in a bid to secure the surroundings of the capital and cut off the supply line of the rebels, local media reported Thursday. The operation in the sprawling Eastern al-Ghouta countryside has been dragging on since two weeks ago after rumors had spread that the rebel Free Syrian Army and the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra front were gearing for an all-out attack on Damascus. A colonel in the Syrian army told Xinhua that the rebels were receiving help and ammunition as well as militiamen from neighboring Jordan through the eastern Ghouta area, some 119 km away from the Jordanian frontier. The colonel noted that once the area is totally under the army' s control, the strategic supply line of the rebels will be cut off. "Once we cut off this route, we will deprive the rebels from their strategic supply line on which they are relying to sneak in with arms and ammunition," the colonel said. "With the mettle of the Syrian army, the insurgency here will end within a short time and the security and stability will return to this country," he added. Eastern al-Ghouta combines a number of towns and neighborhoods that recently emerged as strongholds of the armed rebels around Damascus. The state-run Tishreen newspaper reported that the army had discovered the rebels' main supply lines and their main smuggling routes. The Syrian army managed to secure the road from the International Airport of Damascus all the way down to the towns of Kafreen and the industrial city of Adra and Dumair, the report said. Over the past week, Syrians nationwide received text messages on their cellophanes in which the government forces urged the rebels to lay down weapons because "the men of the Syrian army are coming." "Be rational and quick to abandon your weapons," the message read.