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Syrian Forces Retake Damascus Suburb In Another Setback For Rebels

Syrian Forces Retake Damascus Suburb In Another Setback For Rebels

By Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times

Syrian forces regained control over a strategic suburb of the capital on Thursday as rebels under heavy bombardment said they were forced to withdraw.

The fall of Mleiha, the Damascus suburb that the rebels had controlled for nearly two years, is a major setback for the beleaguered opposition, which has seen its hold over much of the country weaken over the past year.

With Mleiha in government hands, other rebel strongholds in the Ghouta Sharqia area east of the capital are even more vulnerable to advances by military forces.

Hundreds of rebels in Mleiha were forced to pull out after coming under intense air and mortar bombardment by government forces and Hezbollah militants, said Abu Yazan, a media activist who had been in the town. Other rebel sources said opposition fighters remained in some parts of Mleiha.

“Occupying Mleiha is the beginning phase of occupying the towns inside the besieged Ghouta,” said Abdurrahman, a spokesman with the Islam Army, one of the largest rebel groups in Damascus.

“He will attack piece by piece,” Abdurrahman added, referring to the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The spokesman goes by his first name only for security reasons.

The Ghouta, which has been under government siege for more than a year, was attacked last August with chemical weapons, killing around 1,400 people. The two sides in the conflict blamed each other for the assault, with the United States and other Western allies pinning it on Assad’s forces.

Mleiha is only the latest victory for the regime, which since late last year has gradually retaken territory from the opposition rebels, some through military force aided by an outmatched air power and others through truces after months of dwindling resources and starvation.

State media reported that rebels in Mleiha used it as a base to carry out attacks on civilians. The town lies next to the pro-government and mostly minority suburb of Jaramana, which has come under regular mortar attack.

The army’s general command told state media that with Mleiha now under government control, troops have tightened the noose around the Ghouta Sharqia “and established a springboard from which these terrorists can be eliminated completely.”

The government routinely describes the opposition as terrorists.

AFP Photo/Joseph Eid

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Car Bomb, Mortar Rounds Kill At Least 50 People In Syria

Car Bomb, Mortar Rounds Kill At Least 50 People In Syria

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

BEIRUT — At least 50 people were killed and scores injured Tuesday in Syria during a series of mortar and car-bomb attacks targeting pro-government districts in Damascus and the central city of Homs, the state media and a pro-opposition monitor reported.

The deadliest strike was a car bombing near a busy intersection in war-ravaged Homs that left at least 36 people dead and 85 injured, Syria’s official news agency reported. Some reports indicated that two car bombs may have been involved and that the death toll reached 45.

The assault marked the latest in a series of stepped-up attacks on civilian targets in Homs, which has long been a key battleground in the Syrian conflict, now in its fourth year. A number of neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble in the conflict. Earlier this month, 25 people were killed in a pair of car bombings.

In recent months, Syrian forces have recaptured much of Homs from rebels and cornered remaining opposition fighters into a few enclaves, including the heart of the Old City. The government says that hundreds of rebels have surrendered and negotiations are continuing in a bid to convince remaining fighters in the Old Town and elsewhere to lay down their arms or evacuate. Officials have talked about life in Homs getting back to normal, but gunfire and shelling remain daily occurrences.

Tuesday’s wave of attacks comes a day after President Bashar Assad announced that he would seek a third seven-year term in elections scheduled for June 3. Opposition activists have dismissed the elections as a farce. There was no known direct link between the attacks and the announcement of Assad’s candidacy.

The government blamed all of Tuesday’s attacks on “terrorists,” its standard term for armed rebels fighting to overthrow the government.

In the capital, authorities reported that 14 civilians, mostly students, were killed and 86 injured when two mortar shells struck an Islamic school in the Shaghour district in the Old City. The district is firmly under government control and is patrolled by pro-Assad militiamen. Tuesday’s strike was among the deadliest mortar attacks reported in Damascus.

Rebels based in the capital’s outskirts frequently fire mortar rounds into the city and government-controlled suburbs. Syrian authorities call the attacks indiscriminate. The mortar strikes have escalated in recent weeks as government forces have moved to oust rebels from outlying areas of the capital.

©afp.com / Joseph Eid

Kerry Warns Syria Of Consequences On Chemical Weapons

Kerry Warns Syria Of Consequences On Chemical Weapons

Berlin (AFP) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad he could face consequences for failing to live up to international agreements on removing his chemical weapons stockpile.

Kerry told reporters ahead of talks in Berlin with Chancellor Angela Merkel that Damascus was not complying with a U.S.-Russian agreed timetable for shipping out the arsenal.

“We now know that the Assad regime is not moving as rapidly as it promised to move the chemical weapons out of Syria,” he said.

“I would remind Bashar al-Assad that the agreement that we reached in New York with the (U.N.) Security Council makes it clear that if there are issues of non-compliance, they will be referred to the Security Council for Chapter 7 compliance purposes.”

The United States and Russia agreed a deal last September to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.

The accord included a commitment to imposing measures “under Chapter 7 within the U.N. Security Council,” referring to a U.N. article which sets out possible sanctions including the threat of military force.

The agreement was brokered as a way to avert U.S. missile strikes that Washington threatened after a chemical attack near Damascus that the U.S. and other Western governments blamed on the regime.

Kerry said Syria must respect “a global, legal, international obligation” it made.

“Our hope is that Syria will move rapidly to live up to its obligations,” Kerry said.

He said the civil war in the country was “destabilising the entire region”.

“The world is witnessing human catastrophe unfolding in front of our eyes every single day,” he said.

The world’s chemical watchdog said Wednesday that Damascus had handed over less than five percent of the most dangerous chemicals in its armory.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in The Hague called Friday for Syria to “pick up the pace” in shipping out the stockpile.

Just two small shipments of chemicals have so far left the Syrian port of Latakia, accounting for less than four percent of the country’s declared arsenal of most dangerous chemicals, the U.S. government said this week.

Around 700 tonnes of chemicals were supposed to have left Syria by December 31, putting the ambitious disarmament project weeks behind schedule.

AFP Photo/Lars Magne Hovtun

U.S. Embassy in Syria Attacked

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government supporters smashed windows at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Monday, raised a Syrian flag and scrawled graffiti calling the American ambassador a “dog” in anger over the envoy’s visit last week to an opposition stronghold, witnesses said.

French Embassy security guards in the capital fired in the air to hold back supporters of President Bashar Assad’s regime who were also protesting the French ambassador’s visit to the same city, Hama, in central Syria. Protesters smashed embassy windows and shattered the windshield of a diplomatic SUV outside the compound. The French flag was removed and replaced with a Syrian one.

“God, Syria and Bashar. The nation that gave birth to Bashar Assad will not kneel,” read graffiti written outside the embassy. One witness said three protesters were injured when guards beat them with clubs. The witness asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

There was no immediate word on casualties among protesters at the American Embassy demonstration.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration will formally protest the attack and may seek compensation for damage caused when a mob breached the wall of the compound before being dispersed by Marine guards.

The official said the State Department would summon a senior Syrian diplomat on Monday to condemn the assault and demand that Syria uphold obligations to protect foreign diplomatic missions. The official said no buildings were entered and there were no injuries to embassy personnel. But the official said the attackers damaged the chancery building.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Syrian security forces were slow to respond to the attack.

The Syrian regime called the French and American ambassadors’ visits to Hama last week interference in the country’s internal affairs and accused the envoys of undermining Syria’s stability.

The protests erupted after U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford harshly criticized the Syrian government’s crackdown on a popular uprising.

Some 1,600 civilians and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say. Syria blames what it calls “armed gangs” and Muslim extremists for the violence.

Hiam al-Hassan, a witness, said about 300 people had gathered outside the French Embassy while hundreds others were at the American diplomatic compound.

“Syrians demonstrated peacefully in front of the French embassy but they were faced with bullets,” said al-Hassan.

On Sunday, Ford attacked the Syrian government for allowing pro-government protests while beating up anti-regime demonstrators. The pro-Assad protests in Syria are known as “mnhebak,” or “we love you.”

“I have not seen the police assault a “mnhebak” demonstration yet,” Ford wrote on the embassy’s Facebook page. “On July 9, a “mnhebak” group threw rocks at our embassy, causing some damage. They resorted to violence, unlike the people in Hama, who have stayed peaceful.”

“And how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere,” he said. “I saw no signs of armed gangs anywhere not at any of the civilian street barricades we passed,” Ford added.

Monday’s protests coincided with government-organized talks in Damascus on possible political reforms after four months of unrest.

However the talks did not stop Syrian forces from pressing their crackdown on the opposition.

Before the embassy attacks, Syrian troops stormed the country’s third-largest city with armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, a rights activist. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs, activists said.

The clashes in Homs in central Syria suggest the Assad regime will not ease its four-month-old crackdown on the opposition despite proposing some political changes.

Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa called Sunday for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by the authoritarian Assad family dynasty. But the talks, which wrap up Monday, are boycotted by the main anti-government factions and are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs to immediately end the bloodshed.

The two days of meetings, however, were seen as a major concession by Assad’s regime after the most serious challenge to its rule.

In Homs, an activist in the city told The Associated Press clashes occurred after security forces on Sunday killed the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) Monday.

Street lights were turned off then troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns atop Russian-made armored personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

He said some people cowered in their bathrooms during the height of the assault. At least one person was killed and 20 wounded, the activist said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said forces pushed into parts of Homs.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.