DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- Syria's beleaguered opposition forces suffered another blow
Monday when government troops captured a key district in the embattled
city of Homs that has been a rebel stronghold since the beginning of the
country's uprising.
The capture of Khaldiyeh
is a setback for the rebels in the strategic central heartland, bringing
President Bashar Assad's regime closer to its goal of capturing all of
Homs, Syria's third largest city - including neighborhoods in its Old
City that the rebels have held for more than a year.
The
opposition acknowledged the loss of Khaldiyeh, though some activists
said there were still scattered clashes in northern sectors of the
district where rebels were still putting up a fight. A senior member of
the Western-backed Syria National Coalition said the regime's gains in
Homs are not irreversible.
"It will be
difficult, but not impossible to gain back what we've lost in Homs,"
Hadi Bahra, a member of the Coalition's political committee, told The
Associated Press from Saudi Arabia.
Syrian TV
aired live video from the neighborhood, showing troops roaming deserted
streets and waving flags in front of shell-scarred buildings.
State
news agency SANA quoted an unnamed army commander saying the fall of
Khaldiyeh would significantly boost army operations aimed at dislodging
rebels from central areas of Homs. Khaldiyeh is important because it
links other rebel-held districts in the heart of the city through a
network of tunnels the rebel dug to ferry weapons and other supplies,
the commander said.
The U.S. State Department played down the significance Monday.
"While
it is true that regime forces backed by Hezbollah and Iran may have
made some gains on the ground and taken control of some areas within
Homs and the surrounding area, it remains to be seen whether it can hold
them," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
A
month ago, the government launched a sweeping offensive to retake
rebel-held areas of Homs. Its capture would be the second major setback
to rebels in central Syria in as many months.
In
early June, regime forces captured the strategic town of Qusair in Homs
province near the border with Lebanon. Troops have also captured
Talkalakh, another border town in the province.
The
province of Homs is Syria's largest, running from the Lebanese frontier
in the west all the way to the border with Iraq and Jordan in the east.
The city of Homs serves as a crossroads between the main highway from
Damascus and the road to the coastal region, a stronghold of Assad's
Alawite sect.
Khaldiyeh had a population of
about 80,000, but only some 2,000 have remained there as residents have
fled the violence, activists say. The heavy fighting over the past two
years has caused extensive damage, with some buildings reduced to
rubble.
In a report on Monday, Syrian state TV
said "the Syrian army has restored security and stability in the whole
neighborhood of Khaldiyeh in Homs."
A Syrian
TV reporter embedded with troops in the area gave a live report standing
in front of damaged buildings. He interviewed an army officer who said
the troops fought a tough battle against rebels who mined buildings and
fought from tunnels.
"As of this morning, our
armed forces in cooperation with the (pro-government paramilitary)
National Defense Forces have taken control of Khaldiyeh and are now
cleansing the neighborhood," said the officer, surrounded by about a
dozen soldiers and plainclothes security agents.
"The fate of terrorists will be under our feet," he said.
The Observatory has said that government troops are backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militants.
Hezbollah,
which did not acknowledge whether its members are fighting in
Khaldiyeh, played a major role in a battle last month in Qusair and lost
scores of men there.
Observatory director
Rami Abdul-Rahman said regime forces have captured most of the
neighborhood apart from some fighting on its southern areas.
In
the northern city of Aleppo, several rebel factions including the
al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, attacked army posts in
two neighborhoods in a an offensive titled "amputating infidels," the
Observatory said.
It said rebels captured the
neighborhood of Dahret Abed Rabbo and several buildings in Lairamoun
there, and that eight government soldiers were killed.
Rebels
have been on the offensive in Aleppo province and last week captured
the strategic town of Khan el-Assal. Activists and state media said
score of troops were killed there after their capture. The
Western-backed Syrian National Council condemned the killings.
In
the southern region of Quneitra, on the edge of the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights, government troops captured the town of Mashara on Sunday
night after intense fighting, the Observatory said.
----
Mroue
reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Beirut
and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report. (AP)
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