Syrian forces enter last rebel bastion near Lebanese border
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - The Syrian army entered eastern districts of the town of Yabroud, the last rebel bastion near the Lebanese border north of Damascus, on Saturday and tightened its grip on the remaining rebels there from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Soldiers advanced inside Yabroud and "eliminated terrorist strongholds", said a reporter on Syrian state television SANA who was broadcasting live from the town's outskirts.
He said the army had taken control of hills and mountaintops southeast of Yabroud, gaining a strategically advantageous position.
A military source confirmed to Reuters that the army had taken a series of peaks and said it had "fastened pincers around Yabroud."
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/15/uk-syria-crisis-town-idUKBREA2E06M20140315
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alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)The Syrian government is now winning this war.
Assad will have weathered the storm.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Instead we in the West thought the rebel forces could win everything, so we threatened and blustered, organized a sham peace conference which excluded major players like Iran, and we insisted that Assad had to agree to step down as a precondition to any peace agreement. Hubris is again and again the starting point for our current style of international diplomacy.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Syria War: New Push Against Assad Being Planned, Reports Suggest
Source: The Guardian (UK)
After months of battlefield stalemate in Syria, a flurry of reports from Washington, Jerusalem, Amman and the Gulf suggests a major new clandestine effort is under way to open up a "southern front" against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Central to the mooted plan is a renewed push to provide Syria's badly divided and often ineffectual moderate, secular rebel groups with additional funding, upgraded weapons and intelligence support. What use they may make of such support, if indeed it fully materialises, remains to be seen.
The initiative, as reported in the region, is set against a backdrop of secret talks in the US last month between Susan Rice, Barack Obama's national security adviser, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister in charge of covert action programmes in Syria.
According to the usually well informed Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, spy chiefs from Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and other regional countries also attended the discussions, focused on making a "stronger effort" to help the rebels.
<snip>
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/syria-war-international-effort-southern-front-
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Their rickety old regime is not really immune from the kind of events which are sweeping several bordering nations. The same rebels who today receive their assistance in Syria could well be turning their gaze toward Saudi Arabia tomorrow.
As to this new effort to breathe life into the moribund "moderate" rebel movements: It may be well-meaning, but it is in opposition to the reality on the ground. We want to pick and choose who among the anti-Assad factions we help when that choice has clearly been taken out of our hands by events. The only forces likely to prevail against the Syrian government are the more radical, religious groups who we are against helping at all.
I'm afraid any money spent at this late date to assist the "moderate" forces will be wasted. It will only get more people killed on both sides and leave the people of Syria in a worse situation than the already terrible one they now face. It would be far better to spend that money on relief for the millions of internal and external Syrian refugees.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)keep getting the idea we run around stirring up shit all the time. Must just be anti-American rumor mongering.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)the rebels could hold there ground,
as long as it wasn't contested.
...............
the rebels seemed to want the other
rebels to do the fighting.
..............
all the rebels seemed to be good
at killing the helpless
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)The Syrian military has claimed it has recaptured Yabroud, the last rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border. Soldiers were going through the town to root out any remaining militants, the military said in a televised address.
Government forces and Lebanese fighters from the Hezbollah group have besieged the town for weeks, as part of a battle for control of key transport routes.
<snip>
The government launched an offensive in mid-November to oust rebel fighters from the Qalamoun mountains near the Lebanese border. They recaptured the towns of Qara, Deir Attiya and Nabak, to the north-east of Yabroud along the motorway linking Damascus with the city of Homs. In mid-February, Assad forces launched a full offensive on Yabroud, which had been controlled by the opposition for much of the three-year conflict.
"The crushing of the terrorist groups is a continuation of the successes made by the Syria army in Qalamoun," an unnamed military spokesman said on state television. "It completes an important circle in securing the border regions between Syria and Lebanon, and also cuts the supply roads."
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)ARSAL, Lebanon — The battle is not going well for rebels dug in across the nearby brown hills in Syria, where pro-government forces were closing in Saturday on the opposition stronghold of Yabroud.
Syrian insurgents and their many supporters on this side of the border exhibit both bravado and anguish about a battle, and a war, that is fast slipping from their hands.
"We have to keep on fighting to the last man, the last breath," Abu Omar, 21, who lost his left leg to a tank shell outside Yabroud, said from his hospital bed. "We have no choice."
Around him in this threadbare clinic, the bandaged and battered rebel fighters hooked to intravenous tubes testified to the plight of those aiming to topple the government of Bashar Assad.
<snip>
much more at link
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-lebanon-anniversary-20140316,0,295559.story#ixzz2w9GxGAte
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)because there is no way Assad will. He is going to make an example of them.
Good thing we wete able to raise enough of a stink to keep us out of this filthy war.
cqo_000
(313 posts)Xinhua | 2014-3-17 9:34:04
By Agencies
Syrian Defense Minister Fahed Jassem al-Fraij on Sunday visited Yabroud city, north of the capital Damascus, just hours after the military forces recaptured it from the armed rebels, the official SANA news agency reported.
"We are moving from one victory to another. The victory is so close to restore the security and stability to the homeland," al- Fraij was cited by SANA as saying.
Yabroud, located some 80 km north of Damascus, is an important stronghold of the armed rebels on the slope of the mountainous Qalamoun region. It's near the Lebanese town of Ersal, where the rebels obtained weapons and medical treatment.
In mid-February, the army started a major offensive to recapture Yabroud by securing its surroundings before pressing into the city. The battle of Yabroud was part of the wide-scale offensive the Syrian army has waged to dislodge the rebels from towns and cities in the Qalamoun region, which is aimed at securing the vicinity of Damascus and preventing the flow of arms and jihadist fighters from Lebanon in addition to securing the road between Damascus and the central province of Homs and the coastal provinces as well.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/848955.shtml
T. J. Kong
(46 posts)And the Syrian people can start rebuilding, in peace.