BEIRUT (AP)
-- Al qaida related Hard-line Islamic rebels captured a small town in northwestern Syria
near the Turkish border as part of their offensive in the rugged coastal
region that is a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad,
activists said Monday.
Fighters from an array
of armed opposition groups seized the predominantly Armenian Christian
town of Kassab on Sunday. The rebels, including militant from the
al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front, have also wrested control of a nearby
border crossing to Turkey.
The advances, while
minor in terms of territory, provided a welcome boost to a beleaguered
rebellion that has suffered a string of battlefield losses in recent
weeks. Forces loyal to Assad have captured several towns near Syria's
border with Lebanon as part of a government offensive aimed severing
rebel supply lines across the porous frontier and securing the border.
Rebels
launched their offensive on Friday in Latakia province, which is the
ancestral home of the Assad family and a stronghold of his Alawite sect.
Since then, the fighting has focused around Kassab and the nearby
border crossing.
Rami Abdurrahman, the
director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said
rebels were in control of the center of Kassab on Monday but that
clashes were raging in the hills outside of town.
Government
warplanes were conducting airstrikes on several positions in the area,
including Nabeh al-Murr and the scattering of homes and fields
surrounding Kassab, the Observatory said. There was no immediate word on
casualties.
In an amateur video posted
online, two opposition fighters stand on a rooftop in Kassab and raise
their arms in celebration. A checkpoint near the post office, replete
with sandbags and oil drums painted like the Syrian flag, sits
abandoned. The streets are deserted. The camera pans past the base of a
smashed statue that the narrator says was of Assad's late father and
Syria's former leader, Hafez.
The video appears genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting.
This is not the first significant rebel offensive in Latakia.
Last
August, a mix of moderate and extremist rebel brigades captured around a
dozen villages in the Latakia mountains, before a government
counteroffensive expelled them.
Afterward,
Human Rights Watch said nearly 200 civilians, including children, the
elderly and the handicapped, were killed in the attack. It said rebel
abuses during the operation amounted to war crimes.
Now
in its fourth year, Syria's conflict has killed more than 140,000
people, forced more than 2 million people to seek refuge abroad, and
triggered a massive humanitarian crisis across the region.
The
U.N. Security Council last month demanded immediate access everywhere
in Syria to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of people in need. It
also called for an end to sieges of populated areas, and a halt to all
attacks against civilians, including indiscriminate shelling and aerial
attacks using barrel bombs in populated areas.
In
a report released Monday, Human Rights Watch said the Assad government
has continued its sweeping aerial campaign against opposition-held areas
of the divided city of Aleppo in defiance of the U.N. resolution.
"New
satellite photos and witness accounts show the brutality unleashed on
parts of Aleppo," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for the
New York-based group.
"Use of barrel bombs in
residential neighborhoods has done the expected: killed hundreds of
civilians and driven thousands from their homes," she added.
Barrel
bombs are makeshift devices packed with hundreds of kilograms (pounds)
of explosives as well as scraps of metal. Pushed out of the back of
helicopters, the crude weapons cause massive damage on impact.
The
HRW report said it used satellite imagery to identify at least 340
places in rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo that were damaged between
early November and Feb. 20. The majority of the sites bore signatures of
damage consistent with barrel bombs, the group said.
The
New York-based rights group also called on the Security Council to
impose an arms embargo on Syria, including on the purchase or servicing
of helicopters. It said such a measure would limit the government's
ability to carry out airstrikes.
---
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.
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