DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- Syrian government forces captured a historic mosque in the
central city of Homs on Saturday, expelling rebel forces who had been in
control of the 13th century landmark for more than a year and dealing a
symbolic blow to opposition forces.
State-run
news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that
troops took control of the Khalid Ibn al-Walid Mosque in the heavily
disputed northern neighborhood of Khaldiyeh.
Syrian
TV aired a report Saturday night with footage from inside the mosque,
showing heavy damage and the tomb's dome knocked out. The footage showed
debris strewn on the floor and a portion of the mosque appeared to have
been burned.
The mosque, famous for its nine
domes and two minarets, has been a symbol for rebels in the city that is
known as "the capital of the revolution." On Monday, government troops
shelled the mosque, damaging the tomb of Ibn al-Walid, a revered figure
in Islam.
After capturing the strategic town
of Qusair near the Lebanon border last month, government troops launched
an offensive on rebel-held areas in Homs, Syria's third largest city,
late in June. They have been pushing into Khaldiyeh and other
neighborhoods in the Old City that have been under opposition control
since 2011.
A Homs-based activist who
identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Bilal, for fear of
government reprisals, said troops entered the mosque area from the east.
He said regime forces now control more than 60 percent of Khaldiyeh.
"There
are very fast developments in Khaldiyeh," Abu Bilal told The Associated
Press via Skype. He said he had no further details from local rebel
commanders.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy fighting around the mosque,
saying the government troops are backed by members of Lebanon's
Hezbollah group.
A journalist embedded with
Syrian troops told the AP that a reporter for Iran's Arabic-language
Al-Alam television station was wounded near the mosque. A sniper's
bullet struck the thigh of journalist Roa al-Ali, the journalist said,
asking his name not be made public as he wasn't authorized to give
information to other media outlets.
On top of
its symbolic value, Homs is also a geographic lynchpin in Syria. The
main highway from Damascus to the north as well as the coastal region,
which is a stronghold of President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, runs
through Homs. Both rebels and the regime place a high strategic value on
the city.
And although Assad's forces have
been on the offensive in recent months, activists say the regime wants
to capture the entirety of Homs to include it in a potential future
Alawite state - stretching from Homs to the coast - where Assad could
make his last stand if the civil war swings against him.
Assad
is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while
most of the rebels fighting to topple his regime are Sunnis.
Khaldiyeh
had a population of about 80,000 but only some 2,000 remain there today
as residents fled the violence. The heavy fighting over the past two
years has destroyed wide areas and knocked down entire buildings.
Earlier
Saturday, Syria's state media said talks between the Syrian government
and a United Nations delegation tasked with investigating chemical
weapons allegations in the nation's civil war have "resulted in an
agreement on ways of moving forward."
Assad's
government invited a U.N. team to visit Damascus earlier this month
after requesting that the world body investigate an alleged chemical
attack in Khan al-Assal, a village in the north. The Syrian regime and
the rebels fighting to topple it accuse each other of using chemical
agents in the March 19 incident, which killed 31 people.
Assad's
government refused to have a possible inquiry include other alleged
chemical attack sites in Homs, Damascus and elsewhere.
A
joint statement by the foreign ministry and the U.N. that appeared
Saturday on SANA's website said the meetings were "comprehensive and
fruitful and resulted in an agreement on ways of moving forward."
It did not elaborate. The U.N. team couldn't be reached for comment.
Saturday's
announcement on the possible U.N. probe agreement on Khan al-Assal
coincided with government allegations that the rebels committed "a
massacre" in the village, killing 123 "civilians and military
personnel," according to a SANA report. SANA said others are still
missing.
The report said "terrorists" were
behind the recent killings in Khan al-Assal, a term the government uses
for rebels. The Observatory previously said at least 150 government
soldiers were killed on Monday and Tuesday there, some after they had
surrendered.
A statement released by
al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra - or the Nusra Front - said 150
soldiers, pro-government gunmen and Shiite militiamen were killed in
Khan al-Assal. The statement said fighters captured 63 soldiers alive
but 55 of them fled. Nusra Front said its members killed 15 of them
before 40 surrendered. The statement did not say if the 40 were still
alive.
The conflicting claims could not be independently reconciled.
In
Aleppo, a rocket fired by government forces into a rebel-held district
killed at least 29 including 19 under the age of 18 and four women, the
Observatory said Saturday. The attack happened Friday during government
shelling in the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood of Aleppo.
Syria's
conflict began in March 2011 largely as peaceful protests against
Assad's rule. It escalated into a civil war after opposition supporters
took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown on dissent.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict, according to the U.N.'s recent estimate.
---
Associated Press writer Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report. Mroue reported from Beirut.
No comments:
Post a Comment