Rebels assume control of Yabroud, deny retreat- activists

 Syria rebels in Qalamoun have denied reports that Assad’s forces entered the embattled city of Yabroud.
“Yabroud did not fall,” Yabroud local coordination said in statement posted online, “Assad's forces and Iran proxy Hezbollah have retreated due to the patriotic resistance of rebels.
Activists have denounced reports of withdrawal, saying, rebels have full control of Yabroud again after a heavy fight near the hospital.
Assad army and Hezbollah sources said that regime forces backed by fighters from Hezbollah entered the rebel bastion of Yabroud near the Lebanese border Friday, , triggering fierce street-to-street fighting, according to Daily Star newspaper.
“The Syrian army Friday entered the town of Yabroud north of Damascus from the east, and advanced along the town's main street,” an army source said.
“The rebels are fleeing toward Rankus village” to the south. “If their flight continues, the capture of the city is only a matter of days.”
State television confirmed the army entered the city: “Syrian army units have advanced in the Yabroud area and now control its eastern approaches and northeastern boundary.”


The broadcaster said the offensive had caused a “breakdown in the ranks of terrorist groups,” the government term for rebels battling Assad.
Hezbollah, spearheading the fight to dislodge insurgents from Yabroud, and Syrian forces “drove the rebels off the hill of Aqaba” outside the town, said the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on civilian, medical and military sources for its information.
“This is the closest point ever reached by Hezbollah and the army” to Yabroud, Observatory chief Rami Abdel-Rahman told AFP.
“Fierce fighting is also taking place on the northern edge, between the town of Sahel and Yabroud,” he said.
“They want to completely encircle the Yabroud rebels to dislodge them.”
The Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group Nusra Front earlier admitted “one position at Aqaba has fallen ... causing brother fighters to fall back to rear bases.”
But it denied that rebels were retreating, insisting reinforcements were on the way.
An activist in the region confirmed to AFP the army and Hezbollah had taken a position at Aqaba some 5 kilometers from Yabroud.
The battle for the town is vital for Hezbollah, which first admitted its fighters were fighting alongside Assad’s forces in spring 2013.
Hezbollah wants to sever a key rebel supply line to the Sunni Arsal across the border in eastern Lebanon.
It says car bombs that have been used to attack it were loaded with explosives in Yabroud and driven via Arsal to their targets in Lebanon.
In relevant development, activists that the Kuwaiti Jihadist, who appeared recently in nuns swap carrying the old nun, has been killed in Yabroud.  He operated under Nusra Front, activists said.  with Daily Star