Idriss visits rebels in Latakia, Assad home

 Head of the Free Syrian Army Salim Idriss has visited the northwestern province of Latakia, activists say.

A mature video footage showed the chief of joint staff and head of the supreme military council walking with FSA commander in the rebels-held areas in the embattled countryside of Latakia.

Idriss completely denied the rumors and claims which had been raised recently against the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding lack of supplies of weapons and ammunition for rebels. ''These allegations aimed to defame the Free Syrian army,'' Idriss said.

 Syrian rebels captured 11 Alawite villages on the country's mountainous Mediterranean coast as they battled government troops in one of Bashar Assad's strongholds for the second straight day, activists said.

Idriss vowed all support for FSA fighters with the Islamic battalions in response to the rebels accusations of leaving them alone. 

Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, dominate Assad's regime. The capture of villages in their heartland in Latakia province is a symbolic blow to Assad, whose forces have otherwise been taking territory in recent weeks in central Syria, AP reported last week.

Syria's conflict has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone in the last year, pitting predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels against the Alawite-dominated regime.

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it documented deaths of more than 106,000 people, but warns that actual death toll could be twice.