Fresh splits within Syria rebel ranks

Brigades in Deir Ezzor break away from Free Syrian Army, complaining of bad leadership and lack of weapons.

Syrian rebels have stepped up their offensives in major cities across Syria, including the capital Damascus and Aleppo.
With the increase in fighting, there have also been more divisions within the Free Syrian Army, the country's largest armed opposition movement, over a lack of support to specific armed groups.
Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reports.
 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/20138177464396633.html

Syrian rebels ask Kerry to send U.S. arms quickly

 

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK | Thu Jul 25, 2013 7:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - The head of Syria's opposition told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday the country's situation was "desperate" and called for the United States to arm the rebels quickly and to push harder for a political settlement.
The United Nations says more than 100,000 people have been killed since Syria's civil war erupted more than two years ago pitting President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels seeking to end his family's four-decade rule.
President Barack Obama, having withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq and seeking to wind up the U.S. war in Afghanistan, has been reluctant to get involved in the conflict in Syria.
However, U.S. congressional panels this month agreed to a White House plan to provide arms to the rebels despite lawmakers' questions about its chances of success and concerns the arms might be used against Western targets.
A U.S. official has said funding for the classified program runs out on September 30, when the U.S. fiscal year ends. That means the White House will have to seek Congress' blessing again for arming the rebels, the official said, possibly setting up a renewed confrontation over Washington's policy on Syria.
"The U.S. commitment of military support to the Supreme Military Council is vital, but it needs to happen fast, and in a way that allows us to defend ourselves and protect civilians," Ahmed al-Jarba, the Syrian National Coalition's newly elected leader, said in a statement released as he met Kerry in New York.
"The situation in Syria is desperate. We urgently need American action to push the international community to demand a political transition," he added. "American leadership and drive is essential to end this war and bring the democracy that the large majority of the Syrian people want."
REBELS TO MEET U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL
Jarba and three other senior SNC members - Burhan Ghalioun, Najib Ghadbian and Michel Kilo - are in New York to meet informally with the 15-member U.N. Security Council on Friday.
Jarba and rebel military commander General Salim Idriss met with French President Francois Hollande and other French officials in Paris earlier this week to appeal for diplomatic, humanitarian and military aid.
The Syrian rebels are frustrated that U.S. plans to send weapons to them have been held up by congressional concerns.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have been supplying the rebels with arms, security sources and diplomats say.
"Military and violent actions must be stopped by both parties, and it is thus imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after meeting with Kerry on Thursday.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations are still working to convene a meeting in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition groups to try to broker a peace deal.
So far, attempts to organize a so-called "Geneva II" peace conference on Syria to revive a political transition plan agreed in the Swiss city in June 2012 have been futile. U.N. diplomats say it is looking increasingly unlikely that such a conference will take place anytime soon, if at all.
Kerry told reporters that his almost hour-long meeting with the Syrian opposition leaders had been "constructive."
"The Syrian opposition committed that they believed Geneva II is very important and they agreed to work over the course of the next couple of weeks to pinpoint the terms, the conditions under which they think it could work," he said.
(Additional reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

US plans to arm Syrian rebels to slow for funding runs out in two months, further delaying the flow of weapons

US plans to arm Syrian rebels passed one congressional hurdle but may face more when funding runs out in two months, further delaying the flow of weapons, US officials and other sources told Reuters news agency.
The House of Representatives and Senate intelligence panels this month agreed to a White House plan to provide arms to rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite lawmakers' reservations about the its chances of success.
But a US official involved in the issue told Reuters that funding for the classified program runs out on September 30, the end of the government's fiscal year. That means the White House will again have to seek Congress' blessing for arming the rebels, the official said, possibly setting up a renewed confrontation over Washington's policy in the crisis in Syria.
Obama administration representatives have told the Congress that they are setting up a mechanism to vet rebels - including interviews - before handing over weapons, which could also lead to delays.
Sources close to the Syrian rebels said they fear the American arms delivery will be a drawn-out process in which they get a modest amount of arms in an initial tranche, and congressional committees will have to approve more later.
Despite their approval of the White House plan, several US lawmakers expressed doubts on Tuesday that increased American support will be enough to help rebels turn the war's tide, which has shifted sharply to Assad's Iranian-backed forces.
There is also deep concern that the arms could end up in the hands of radical Islamist fighters who are among the rebels' strongest factions.

Syria update 23.07.13

Rebels have seized the villages of Obeida and Hajireh southeast of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have said.
The takeover comes amid a rebel attempt to cut off the army's main supply route linking Hama in central Syria to Aleppo in the north.
Meanwhile in Damascus, the loyalist air force staged two strikes against the eastern district of Jobar, home to sizeable pockets of resistance to the army, the London-based Observatory said.
(Al-jazeera)

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported violence in southern Damascus and said the entrance to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp had been closed, a day after an army assault on rebel positions in the district.
More than 85 percent of Palestinians living in Yarmouk camp have been displaced due to the violence in the last two years, said Filippo Grandi, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), on Monday.
“Out of 150,000 Palestinians living in Yarmouk, 130,000 have been displaced,” Grandi told reporters in a press conference in New York.
Amateur video released by the Syrian opposition purports to show that government foreces shelled the camp on Monday.
You can read more on how Syrian war threatens Palestinian refugees by clicking here. 
 (Al-jazeera)

Egypt said on Monday it would cancel visa fees for Syrians, the latest effort to ease diplomatic tensions between the two Arab states after the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi this month.
Morsi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, had cut off diplomatic relations with Syria, led by President Bashar al-Assad, a follower of the Shia Alawite sect, last month at a rally packed with hardline Sunni Islamists calling for holy war in Syria.
[Reuters]

Turkey's deputy prime minister says his country supports Syria's territorial integrity and will not tolerate the creation of a "de facto" Syrian Kurdish entity on its frontiers.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Bulent Arinc would not spell out what Turkey would do prevent any such entity from coming about but said it would act carefully and in a cool-headed manner.
  (Al-jazeera)

Increasing divisions within the armed Syrian opposition

There are increasing divisions within the armed Syrian opposition with different factions fighting each other.
But one of the strongest groups, Ahrar al-Sham, has managed to stay out of the infighting, but now says it will have to take sides if the interests of the Syrian people are harmed.
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Idlib province.

Islamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

(Reuters) - The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
However, the pro-opposition activists gave conflicting reports of how the Islamist brigade commander in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border had come to be free.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamist rebels had exchanged 300 Kurdish residents they had kidnapped for the local head of their group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). Other activist groups challenged this account, saying Islamist fighters had freed Abu Musaab by force, with no Kurdish hostages released.
Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas.
The trouble highlights how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents' ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could also destabilize neighboring countries.
The factional fighting could also help Assad's forces, who have launched an offensive to retake territory.
BELT OF TERRITORY
Assad has been trying to secure a belt of territory from Damascus through Homs and up to his heartland on the Mediterranean coast and, with the help of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, has won a string of victories in Homs province and near the capital.
On Sunday his forces ambushed and killed 49 rebels in the Damascus suburb of Adra, the Observatory said.
The town was once a critical point along the route used by rebels to bring weapons to the capital, but Assad's forces recaptured it a few months ago and have been working to cut off rebel territories in the area.
To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week.
The Observatory said the alleged prisoner exchange was part of a ceasefire agreed after a day of fierce clashes in Tel Abyad, but other activists said there was no deal and reported that many Kurdish residents were being held by ISIS fighters.
The Observatory said the fighting in Tel Abyad started when the local ISIS brigade asked Kurdish Front forces, which have fought with the rebels against Assad, to pledge allegiance to Abu Musaab, which they refused to do.
Other activists said the clashes were an extension of fighting that broke out last week in other parts of the northern border zone.
Opposition activists also reported the killing of at least 13 members of a family in the Sunni Muslim village of Baida on Sunday, in what they described as a second sectarian massacre there.
FIGHTING NEAR THE COAST
The killings followed a rare eruption of fighting between Assad's forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an enclave of Assad's Alawite minority sect that has remained largely unscathed by the civil war.
Syria's marginalized Sunni majority has largely backed the insurrection while minorities such as the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have largely supported Assad, himself an Alawite.
The Observatory said four women and six children were among those killed in Baida.
"A relative came to look for them today and found the men shot outside. The women's and children's bodies were inside a room of the house and residents in the area said some of the bodies were burned," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory.
In May, pro-Assad militias killed more than 50 residents of Baida and over 60 in the nearby town of Banias. In those killings, some bodies, many of them children, were found burned and mutilated.
The anti-Assad revolt has evolved from its origins as a peaceful protest movement in March 2011 into a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people and turned markedly sectarian.
The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad's forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.
The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world's largest ethnic community without a state of their own.
(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Jonathan Burch in Ankara; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Islamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

(Reuters) - Clashes between Islamist rebel forces and Kurdish militias spread to a second Syrian province on Saturday, activists said, as factional tensions rose in the north of the country.
The fighting is further evidence that the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule has splintered into turf wars that have little to do with ousting him and highlight the risk of regionalized conflicts that could have an impact on neighboring countries.
The new round of fighting broke out in Tel Abyad, a border town near Turkey in the rebel-held Raqqa province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes began after Kurdish militias in the area discovered fighters from an al Qaeda-linked rebel group trying to rig one of their bases with explosives.
The Kurds retaliated by kidnapping several fighters, including the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham, one of the most powerful Qaeda-affiliated forces fighting in Syria.
The country's revolt has transformed from a peaceful protest movement into a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people and become increasingly sectarian.
Syria's marginalized Sunni Muslim majority has largely backed the rebellion against four decades of Assad family rule. Minorities such as Assad's own Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, have largely supported the president.
Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority, meanwhile, has been alternately battling both Assad's forces and the rebels. Kurds argue they are backers of the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.
Divided between Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group without a state of their own.
Activists also reported on Saturday a rare eruption of clashes between Assad's forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an Alawite enclave and Assad stronghold with only a few pockets of revolt.
The fighting broke out near the Sunni town of Banias, the site of a massacre of dozens of people only a few months earlier when militias loyal to Assad stormed the area after a rebel attack on their fighters.
COUNTER-ATTACKS
An activist from the area said Assad's forces launched a new assault after discovering more rebels operating in the area.
The Observatory reported a massing of security forces and militias loyal to Assad both near Banias and the Sunni village of Bayda, which was also the site of a massacre of dozens just days before the Banias killings.
Assad's forces have been on the offensive the past two months after a string of victories. They are trying to cement control of a belt of territory between the capital Damascus and his Alawite stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.
Security sources have said Assad's next move will be to push on to rebel-held territories near the border areas of northern and southern Syria, for which they are slowly trying to build up forces in the area.
Assad's offensive has been dogged by rebel counter-attacks in the north, even as a string of government victories elsewhere in Syria has shifted the battlefield tide in his favor after more than two years of bloodshed.
Activists said opposition forces advanced on the northern town of Khan al-Assal on Saturday and appeared close to seizing one of the last towns in western part of Aleppo province still held by Assad's forces.
Elsewhere in northern Syria, Assad's forces launched a third day of heavy air strikes on the town of Saraqeb in Idlib province.
Some activists suggested the army may be trying to hammer areas near a critical road leading to Aleppo in order to distract the rebels and bring in supplies to its forces.
Rebels have been blockading government-held areas in Aleppo city, Syria's largest urban centre. Aleppo has been mired in a bloody stalemate since rebels launched an offensive in the province last year.
Hardline Islamist rebels also appear to be leading the fight to seize Khan al-Assal. Western powers such as the United States are alarmed about the rising power of radical Islamist groups, particularly since Washington has pledged to offer military support to Assad's opponents.
No military aid has been given yet due to political deadlock over the Islamist issue in the U.S. Congress.
"Perhaps the Islamists are trying to stay out of the spotlight. They've been regrouping and naming themselves with numbers, things like 'the 9th Division' and so on, but these are the same Islamist radical groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham or the Islamic Front to Liberate Syria," one opposition activist said, declining to be named.
(Editing by Alison Williams)

Syria rebels reinforce key suburb in Damascus battle

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels poured reinforcements into a key Damascus suburb on Tuesday in an attempt to push back government troops who have renewed their campaign to secure the capital and build on battlefield gains elsewhere in the country.
Fighting centered on Qaboun, a rebel-held district where Syrian troops backed by tanks and artillery had made inroads on Monday as part of efforts to consolidate control over Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's power base.
After two years of rebel gains in a war that has cost more than 90,000 lives, the tide has turned somewhat for Assad's forces, allowing them to seize the city of Qusair last month and press on with a campaign to link Damascus to Assad's coastal strongholds.
In facing down the mainly Sunni rebels seeking to oust him, the Syrian leader has received important backing from Shi'ite Iran and from Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon as the war takes on an increasingly sectarian aspect.
At the same time, the rebels are plagued by infighting between Islamist groups and members of the more liberal Free Syrian Army, which is backed by the West and some Arab nations.
The increasingly fragmented and brutal nature of the war was illustrated by an incident in Homs province, where gunmen loyal to Assad shot dead at least six mediators sent to try to reconcile warring sectarian groups in an area where opposing sides had until now been able to coexist.
Residents said the killings on Monday evening in the village of Hajar al-Abyad highlighted the growing challenge of mediating between towns held by rebel groups and those controlled by pro-Assad militias known as "shabbiha".
In a separate incident near the Turkish border in the north, Islamist rebel fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front clashed with Kurdish armed men, who generally support the creation of an autonomous region within Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, said the fighting broke out after Nusra fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol and took a gunman hostage.
The Kurds said they had killed eight Nusra Front militants in what they said was a territorial dispute.
PRESSING CAMPAIGN
Assad's forces are pressing their campaign at a time when the Free Syrian Army has yet to receive weapons promised by Washington but delayed by objections by U.S. lawmakers.
A U.S. official said on Monday that the Obama administration had made progress in overcoming these concerns but some details remained unresolved.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers fear the weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist militants, and would not be enough to tip the balance against the better-equipped Syrian government anyway.
Britain, meanwhile, said it would give Syrian rebels equipment to protect themselves against chemical and biological weapons as "a matter of special urgency".
Britain has said forces loyal to Assad have made limited use of chemical weapons, which the Syrian government denies.
In an attempt at unity, the Syrian opposition now intends to create a 10-member executive council that can to draw together disparate factions into a more structured army with better financing and weapons, Michel Kilo, a senior opposition figure, told Reuters in Paris.
In Damascus, the latest fighting comes almost a year after one of the rebels' most spectacular attacks in the capital - a bomb attack last July 18 which killed several of Assad's most senior security officials and led some commentators to predict Assad would soon fall.
Abu Nidal, a rebel spokesman in Damascus, said on Tuesday that his fighters were trying to prevent the army advancing further into Qaboun, which it entered on Monday.
"Rebel reinforcements are entering the area," he told Reuters by Skype. "We expect the army to advance further into the area but they will be stopped."
The intensity of the fighting could be seen in footage posted on the internet by opposition activists.
The amateur video showed a large grey plume of smoke rising from a densely built residential area of Damascus. Mount Qasioun, which overlooks the capital, can be seen in the background.
Text accompanying the footage posted on Tuesday said the smoke came from a ground-to-ground missile fired into Qaboun.
ARMY CHECKPOINT
Elsewhere in the city, nine people including a child were killed at an army checkpoint, the Observatory said in a statement. Quoting activists in the area, the British-based group said they were all shot in the head.
It added that mortar bombs were being fired by the army into the southern district of Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of central Damascus that has fallen in and out of government and rebel control during the past year.
Activists and residents said also that at least five mortar shells hit the Damascus neighborhood of Masaken Barze, injuring several people.
Clashes and bombardment were reported by activists in nearly every province on Tuesday, from central Homs city to the northwestern farming province of Idlib to the eastern desert city of Deir al-Zor.
In the south of Syria near the Israeli border, the Observatory reported clashes between rebels and government forces in the village of al-Qahtaniya.
"Initial reports indicate that several fighters in the regime forces were killed, and some armored vehicles were destroyed," the Observatory said.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Prominent Assad supporter assassinated in Lebanon.

BEIRUT (AP) -- Gunmen assassinated a prominent Syrian pro-government figure at his home in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in the latest sign of Syria's civil war spilling over into its smaller neighbor, security officials said.

Mohammed Darrar Jammo was gunned down, shot nearly 30 times, in the coastal town of Sarafand, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group, the officials said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Assassinations of politicians, army officers and journalists who support President Bashar Assad's regime are not uncommon in Syria, but the killing of a well-known Syrian in Lebanon is rare.

Violence linked to Syria's civil war is increasingly washing across Lebanon, threatening to unleash large-scale fighting in the country. On Tuesday, a roadside bomb struck a Hezbollah convoy near the Syrian border, while last week a car bomb in south Beirut wounded 53 people in the heart of the militant group's bastion of support.

Syria's conflict has cut deep fissures through Lebanon and exposed the country's split loyalties. Many Lebanese Sunnis support the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad in Syria, while Shiites generally back Hezbollah and the regime. Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have left scores of people dead in recent months, and the violence has escalated as Hezbollah's role fighting alongside the regime has become public.

Jammo, a 44-year-old political analyst who often appeared on Arab TV stations, was one of Assad's most vociferous defenders. In frequent appearances on television talk shows, he would staunchly support the Syrian regime's strong-armed response to the uprising and in at least one case shouted down opposition figures and called them "traitors."

His hard-line stance earned him enemies among Syria's opposition, and some in the anti-Assad camp referred to Jammo as "shabih," a term used for pro-government gunmen who have been blamed for some of the worst mass killings of the civil war.

Lebanon's state news agency published a photo Wednesday of a shirtless Jammo lying on a blue sheet stained with blood, his chest riddled with bullet wounds.

The Lebanese security officials said Jammo's Lebanese wife and daughter were both in the house at the time of the attack. His daughter was later rushed to the hospital after suffering from shock, the officials said.

They added that a Lebanese man was detained near Jammo's house in Sarafand shortly after the shooting and was being questioned.

Sarafand is in predominantly Shiite southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway and Assad enjoys wide support among the local people.

The militant group has taken on a major role in Syria's conflict on the side of Assad's forces, which has contributed to a spike in Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon. It has also prompted warnings from Syrian rebel groups, who have threatened to retaliate on Hezbollah's home turf.

Inside Syria on Wednesday, Kurdish gunmen captured most of a town near the border with Turkey after a day of fighting against jihadi groups in the area, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Such clashes have been common over the past moths in rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

The Observatory said the fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn between the pro-government militia of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and members of al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant left at least 11 dead people dead, including nine extremists.

The Observatory said the fighting was taking place a few hundred meters from a border crossing with Turkey. It said members of jihadi groups had to withdraw from the town to nearby villages. It said Kurdish gunmen captured a number of fighters in the area.

The fighting broke out Tuesday after the Islamic fighters attacked a Kurdish patrol in the area, capturing a Kurdish gunman. Wide clashes broke out later in the day after the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant rejected a truce offer, according to the Observatory.

By BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press

Rebel infighting each other in Syria undermining revolt

BEIRUT (AP) -- On Syria's front lines, al-Qaida fighters and more mainstream Syrian rebels have turned against each other in a power struggle that has undermined the effort to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

After violent clashes and the assassination of two rival commanders, one of whom was beheaded, more moderate factions are publicly accusing the extremists of trying to seize control of the rebellion.

The rivalries - along with the efforts by extremist foreign fighters to impose their strict interpretation of Islam in areas they control - are chipping away at the movement's popularity in Syria at a time when the regime is making significant advances on the ground.

"The rebels' focus has shifted from toppling the regime to governing and power struggles," said a 29-year-old woman from the contested city of Homs. "I feel that the lack of true leadership is and has always been their biggest problem." She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from the fighters and the regime.

The infighting, which exploded into the open in the country's rebel-held north in recent days, is contributing to a sense across many parts of Syria that the revolution has faltered. It threatens to fracture an opposition movement that has been plagued by divisions from the start.

The moderates once valued the expertise and resources that their uneasy allies brought to the battlefield, but now question whether such military assets are worth the trouble - not to mention the added difficulty in persuading the West to arm them.

"We don't want foreign fighters. We have enough men and we want them out of Syria," said Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, head of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group for dozens of brigades.

In strikingly blunt comments in an interview with Al-Arabiya on Monday, Idris, a secular-minded army defector who has the backing of foreign powers, accused members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of being regime agents and "criminals."

That group, formed in April and made up of al-Qaida's branches in Iraq and Syria, has taken on an increasingly dominant role in the Syrian civil war. Many of its fighters are north Africans, Iraqis, Afghans and Europeans who have flocked to Syria to join the overwhelmingly Sunni uprising against Assad.

Gunmen from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were behind the killings of the two rebel commanders, the highest-profile casualties of the growing tensions between jihadi fighters and Western-supported rebels.

Kamal Hamami, known as Abu Basir, served in the Supreme Military Council. Activists say he was shot late Thursday in a clash that erupted after militants tried to remove a checkpoint he set up on the Jabal al-Turkoman mountain in the coastal province of Latakia. Two of his men were seriously wounded in the shooting.

Also last week, members of the extremist group killed Fadi al-Qish, the local commander of a group affiliated with the mainstream Free Syrian Army, or FSA. The fatal attack took place in the village of Dana in the northern province of Idlib near the Turkish border. Activists say the militants decapitated al-Qish and another fighter and left their severed heads on the ground as a lesson to other rebels who challenge their rule in the area.

The executions have enraged FSA commanders, who are demanding that the killers be handed over to stand trial.

Activists also say extremists have recently been sweeping into villages previously controlled by the FSA, taking over crucial resources such as bakeries, oil wells and water pumps to secure people's loyalties. In several cases, the militants were said to seize weapons from army bases and keep them from other rebels.

But what alienates the general population is the brutality. The extremists have carried out summary executions, public floggings and mass arrests, fueling the backlash against them.

In one prominent case in Aleppo last month, al-Qaida-linked militants executed a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Qattaa, accusing him of being an "infidel" for mentioning Islam's Prophet Muhammad in vain. Gunmen shot the boy dead in front of his parents near a stand where he sold coffee in a killing that sparked rare local protests against them.

In many parts of Aleppo and Idlib and Homs, where a suffocating stalemate has been in place since last year, residents say their support and patience for the rebels is fraying.

In Aleppo last week, residents staged a protest at a checkpoint against a blockade imposed by the militants on government-held districts, because the blockade created food shortages at the onset of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. The protest led to a physical quarrel between supporters and opponents of the siege and ended with gunshots fired in the air to disperse protesters.

Syria's uprising started in March 2011 as an Arab Spring-inspired revolt against the decades-long Assad family rule. It eventually transformed into an insurgency and civil war in response to a brutal government crackdown against the protests. More than 93,000 have been killed and millions uprooted from their homes.

The rebels are a disparate mix of ordinary citizens who took up weapons, army defectors, moderates and hard-liners, and increasingly, jihadists who have trekked to Syria from all over the world. A shortage of weapons and the inability of external players to interfere in the conflict to tip the balance in favor of one side or another has worked against the rebels.

Some FSA commanders are trying to tamp down the dispute with the al-Qaida militants, mindful of the damage the infighting has done to their cause.

"Their actions are despicable, but we will not be drawn into a fight with them," said one commander, who declined to be named so as not to aggravate the situation.

FSA spokesman Loay al-Mikdad was less delicate.

"I think they should come out in public and tell the Syrian people why they are in Syria. Is it to fight Bashar Assad or to impose a specific agenda on the Syrian people?" he asked.

"We never see them on the battlefield anymore," he said of the al-Qaida militants. "We only see them in liberated areas either next to oil wells or trying to impose specific agendas on territories."

The dispute is not restricted to Islamic militants versus moderates. In the north, there has also been deadly infighting between Kurdish and Arab groups over control of captured territory along the border with Turkey.

"This infighting is very dangerous and is undermining our revolution," said Mohammed Kanaan, an activist based in the northern province of Idlib. "People are fed up and tired. ... They are starting to hate both sides," he said via Skype.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the al-Qaida militants are working to entrench themselves and secure a place in a post-Assad Syria.

"They are trying to control everything, they have a lot of money," most of it from private donations, he said.

Still, al-Mikdad ruled out a scenario similar to the Iraqi one, when U.S.-allied groups of Sunni fighters battled al-Qaida.

"Until now, the FSA does not consider itself in confrontation with these groups. Our weapons are directly only against Bashar Assad's troops," he said in a TV interview.

"But if a fight is imposed on us, we will defend ourselves," he said.

...............

 AP correspondent Yasmine Sakr contributed to this report.

forcibly ejected 30 Syrians patients by lebanese hospital.

A Lebanese hospital has "forcibly"  ejected 30 Syrians patients wounded in violence in their country, an activist  said on Monday, while the hospital said they were discharged over unpaid bills.
"The Alameddin hospital in Minieh threw out 30 wounded Syrians from Qusayr"  on Sunday, Khaled Mustafa, director of an office helping refugees in northern
Lebanon, told AFP.
The hospital, in northern Lebanon, has hosted dozens of Syrians from the  town of Qusayr, a former rebel stronghold that fell to government troops last  month, prompting an exodus of residents.
"They were forcibly expelled and were insulted," Mustafa said, adding that  "80 percent of them were fitted with splints because of their serious  fractures."
"The splints were removed without any concern for their health."
"They wouldn't even let them take their personal belongings or their  x-rays," he added.
Mustafa said the patients - some of whom were observing the fasting month of Ramadan - were left to sit on a pavement for two hours before Red Cross ambulances arrived to take them to another hospital in the nearby city of Tripoli.

  AFP reports.

Syrian regime attacks on villages in north kill 29

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian government troops pounded rebel-held villages around the northern city of Idlib with rockets, artillery and airstrikes, killing at least 29 people, including six children, activists said Monday.

After seizing the momentum in recent months in Syria's civil war, President Bashar Assad's forces are on the offensive against the rebels on several fronts, including in Idlib province along the border with Turkey. Government forces are in firm control of the provincial capital of same name, while dozens of rebel brigades control the countryside.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said government shelling overnight targeted five villages near Idlib city. Eight women and six children were among the 29 people killed, according to the Observatory.

The group, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the deadliest attack took place in the village of Maghra, where a rocket slammed into a row of houses, killing 13 people. Three nearby villages - Bara, Basamis and Kafr Nabl - were hit by artillery shells that killed another 13 people. Three others died in an airstrike on the village Iblin, the Observatory said.

In central Syria, a car bomb exploded outside a police headquarters in the town of Deir Atiyeh, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Damascus, killing 13 people, including 10 policemen. One child was among the dead, the Observatory said.

Syria's state news agency confirmed the attack late Sunday, but said a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car in a residential area of the town, causing an unknown number of casualties. It said "terrorists" were behind the blast - a government term for rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad's regime.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but radical Islamic groups, including those with links to al-Qaida, frequently target Syrian government institutions, security installations and troops with car bombs and suicide attacks.

Last month, a Syrian branch of al-Qaida known as Jabhat al-Nusra claimed responsibility for multiple suicide attacks on security compounds in Damascus that killed at least five people.

The Nusra Front and other Islamic extremist groups have been the most effective fighting force on the opposition side in the past year, spearheading many of the rebel offensives that have captured military bases, towns and villages.

The U.N. estimates that more than 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since the revolt began in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests against the Assad regime. It turned into a civil war after opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown.

By BARBARA SURK
Associated Press

Syrian troops advance against rebels in Damascus

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Government troops fired tank shells and artillery in heavy clashes between Syrian forces and rebels Sunday on the edge of Damascus, where the military has been pushing its offensive to retake key districts that have been in opposition hands for months.

The Syrian army has seized the momentum in the civil war over the past three months, wresting back territory lost to rebel forces and solidifying its hold over contested areas, particularly on the fringes of Damascus. Two of the embattled districts are Jobar and Qaboun, from which rebels frequently launch mortar rounds on the heart of the capital.

A Syrian military commander said forces loyal to President Bashar Assad have recaptured 60 percent of Jobar, south of Qaboun, and were trying to retake the rest. The commander talked to reporters Sunday during a military escorted tour of Jobar organized by the Information Ministry. His claim could not be independently verified.

An Associated Press reporter on the tour saw widespread destruction that pointed to heavy fighting in the neighborhood. Marble tile factories were destroyed. Reporters made their way in the devastated area by climbing through holes knocked in walls because of warnings of rebel snipers in the area.

At least two bodies, apparently those of rebel gunmen, lay on the floor of a bunker described by the official as a "terrorist" hideout.

"The army is advancing rapidly in Jobar ... the area will be secured in the next few days according to a well-studied plan," the commander said. He declined to be named in line with regulations.

Jobar is near the road linking Damascus with its eastern suburbs known as Eastern Ghouta. Rebels have been using the road to transport weapons and other supplies to the capital, the seat of Assad's power.

The commander said the Jobar-Qaboun axis was important to "cleanse Ghouta from terrorist groups."

Assad's government routinely describes the rebels fighting to overthrow him as terrorists playing out a foreign conspiracy hatched by Israel, the United States and some of its Arab allies in the region, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

During the tour of Jobar, reporters were taken to a hideout the army said it seized a day earlier after killing 30 rebels and their leader there. Reporters were shown RPG mortar rounds and explosive devices, as well as an alleged chemical material with a strong odor.

Arabic graffiti on the walls read: "The al-Tawhid Brigade," and "the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" - names of militant groups fighting to topple Assad.

Sunday's tour came as Syria's main Western-backed opposition group claimed that 200 civilians were trapped in a mosque in Qaboun as fighting raged outside between rebels and Assad's army. It warned that thousands of civilians in Qaboun could be "massacred" by Assad's army as armored vehicles and elite forces move in.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said dozens of people were held captive Saturday by regime forces in the basement of the al-Omari mosque, but they were able to escape when clashes broke out between rebel and regime forces in the perimeter of the mosque, and the troops retreated.

It said 13 people, including seven fighters, died in the shelling of Qaboun Sunday.

"They (troops) are using tanks and artillery and are trying to break into Qaboun. The shelling is very intense and there is a lot of smoke," said an activist in the area, speaking via Skype on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.

"This is day 26 of a bombing campaign, and they still haven't been able to break Qaboun," he said.

Later Sunday, a powerful bomb explosion rocked the Deir Atiyeh town north of Damascus, killing and wounding a number of people, activists said. The bomb went off near a police station in a densely populated area, but most of the casualties were civilians, according to the Observatory and the Military Council for Damascus and its Suburbs, a rebel group.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Israel targeted advanced anti-ship cruise missiles near Syria's principal port city in an airstrike earlier this month, according to a report by The New York Times. It cited the officials as saying the attack on July 5 near Latakia targeted advanced Russian-made Yakhont missiles that Russia sold to Syria.

There was no immediate comment from Assad's government, whose key political ally and arms supplier is Russia.

Asked about the reports on the CBS-TV show "Face the Nation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to confirm or deny Israeli involvement.

He insisted that he will not allow "dangerous weapons" to reach Lebanon's Hezbollah militants.

 Halaby reported from Amman, Jordan. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

From AP.

Tensions increase within Syria rebel ranks

Free Syrian Army and al-Qaeda-linked fighters clash at Aleppo checkpoint, days after commander was shot by rival group.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Qaeda-linked fighters have clashed again, just days after a leader of the FSA was shot dead at a checkpoint after a row between fighters from the two groups.
Activists told Al Jazeera that the FSA and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Saturday fought for control of a strategic checkpoint in Aleppo city's Bustan al-Qasr district, a strategic gateway between rebel and government controlled territory.
Some members of the groups now fear that tensions will escalate, hampering rebel efforts to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say divisions between Syria's rebel groups are partly to blame for giving Assad's forces the chance to regain the upper hand in the conflict.
Leaders of the Western- and Arab-backed FSA told Al Jazeera that they did not consider the ISIL an enemy, but that they would defend themselves.
"They are welcome if they help us fight the regime," Colonel Abdel Rahman Suweis, a member of the FSA Supreme Military Council, said.
"But if they want to cause strife, impose a new understanding of religion and make Syria another Afghanistan, we will take the necessary measures."
While FSA units sometimes fight alongside groups with different ideologies, rivalries have increased and al-Qaeda-linked groups have been blamed for assassinations of commanders of moderate rebel units.
Families trapped in Qaboun.
Meanwhile, hundreds of families were trapped in a northeastern district of Qaboun in Damascus by government troops who fought fierce battles with rebel forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based anti-government rights group, reported.
"There is a siege because regime snipers are posted on the outskirts of Qaboun and this makes any attempt to leave difficult," the group said on Sunday.
"Violent clashes are underway between regime forces and rebels in Qaboun," in northeast Damascus where battles have raged for months as the army tries to boot out rebel forces, the Observatory said.
"The area has also been bombed by the army," added the watchdog, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground.

Source:    Al Jazeera and agencies

Syrian opposition: 200 civilians trapped in mosque.

Syria's main Western-backed opposition has said that 200 civilians are trapped in a mosque in a suburb of the Syrian capital as fighting rages outside between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The Syrian Coalition called on the United Nations in a statement on Sunday to send "a strong warning'' to Assad that he "must immediately release'' the civilians in the Damascus suburb of Qaboun.
It did not say if the 200 had sought refuge in the mosque or were already there praying when fighting began.
It warned that thousands of civilians in Qaboun could be "massacred'' by Assad's army, as armored vehicles and elite forces move into the neighborhood.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes in Qaboun that began after midnight had caused casualties.
[Reuters]

Rival rebel factions fight in Syria's largest city

BEIRUT (AP) -- Western-backed opposition fighters and a faction of al-Qaida-linked rebels turned their guns on each other Saturday in Syria's largest city, battling for control of a key checkpoint in the latest eruption of infighting among the forces trying to topple President Bashar Assad's regime, activists said.

The clashes between rebels affiliated with the Free Syrian Army and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant underscored the growing phenomenon of rebel-on-rebel violence that has sapped strength from the broader anti-Assad movement. It also underscores the rebels' inability even more than two years into the conflict to unite around a unified command, as well as the deepening rift between more secular opposition fighters and Islamic extremists in the rebel ranks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday's clashes were focused on the strategic checkpoint in Aleppo's Bustan al-Qasr district that serves as the sole gateway between rebel-held eastern districts and the government-controlled areas in the west. Earlier this week, al-Qaida-linked militants seized the checkpoint and closed it for several days, cutting the flow of food supplies to the government-held quarters of the city. That spurred protests by residents suffering from food shortages at the start of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.

The Observatory said the fighting rattled the neighborhood throughout the morning, but subsided by the afternoon as the al-Qaida-linked rebels pulled out of the area. It was not clear which group was in control of the checkpoint, where residents were staging a protest to vent their anger at soaring food prices. The area also witnessed clashes between rebels and government troops.

One of the most troubling outbursts of infighting among opposition fighters took place Friday, when the FSA said one of its commanders, Kamal Hamami, was shot dead by al-Qaida militants in the Jabal al-Turkoman mountain area in the coastal province of Latakia. Hamami, known as Abu Basir, served in the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, a group headed by a secular-minded moderate that has the support of Western powers.

Activists monitoring Syria's more than 2-year-old conflict have previously reported sporadic infighting among rebel groups over control of the territory they've captured in the north along the border with Turkey. Those clashes were mostly between Kurdish and Arab rebels, and have subsided since a ceasefire agreement was reached earlier this year.

The fighting between moderate and jihadi groups that have for months battled Assad's regime together have become more frequent in recent weeks. The clashes have largely focused on border crossings with Turkey and vital installations, like bakeries, water wells, petrol stations and checkpoints in the north, according to the Observatory.

Another activist said the fighting is aimed at establishing control over the flow of food and aid to the residents. Each group is also trying to set up governing structures over the territory in the north the opposition has controlled for a year and take a cut of money from goods being smuggled into Syria over the border with Turkey.

The activists did not want to be quoted by name for fear of reprisal from both groups.

Militant Islamic groups, including those with links to al-Qaida, have been the most effective fighting force on the opposition side in the past year, spearheading many of the attacks that captured military bases, towns and villages and whole neighborhoods in Aleppo. In late February, Islamic battalions led the assault and conquered the eastern city of Raqqa, making it the first Syrian city to entirely fall under rebel control. Moderate factions are now fighting jihadi groups for a say in running of Raqqa.

In the central province of Homs, video emerged Saturday that appeared to show a government airstrike on the Krak des Chevaliers, one of the world's best-preserved Crusader castles. Government troops have been pressing an offensive against rebels in the province in recent months, and the town, which goes by the same name as the castle, has been under attack by regime troops for the past four days.

The Observatory said Syrian warplanes carried out at least three airstrikes in the area on Friday, but the activist group could not confirm whether the fortress itself had been hit. It also said government forces have ordered residents to evacuate the town, apparently in preparation for a full-scale attack on the area.

The imposing Krak des Chevaliers, which towers above the surrounding countryside from its hilltop perch, has a storied history. It held off a siege by the Muslim warrior Saladin nearly 900 years ago, and was lauded centuries later by Lawrence of Arabia for its beauty.

The fortress has already been damaged over the course of the civil war, but if the hit it took Friday is confirmed, it would mark the worst destruction to the building so far.

An amateur video posted to YouTube appeared to show a missile striking one of the castle's towers, sending a plume of smoke and dust into the sky. The off-camera narrator says the date is July 12, 2013. Another video purportedly taken from inside showed a hole in the thick stone ceiling of the castle, and a mound of debris and heavy stones under the open roof.

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.

Many of Syria's archaeological sites have been badly damaged by the country's civil war. Aleppo's centuries-old covered market was gutted by fire last year, while in April, the 11th-century minaret of the famed Umayyad Mosque that towered over the narrow stone alleyways of Aleppo's old quarter collapsed during fighting between troops and rebels.

By BARBARA SURK
Associated Press