Jarba visits Latakia as Coalition offers $500k for “Anfal” campaign

Syrian National Coalition head Ahmed al-Jarba visited newly-captured rebel-held areas of Syria’s northwestern Latakia province Tuesday, including the town of Kasab on Syria’s northern border with Turkey and Tower 45, the highest point in northern Latakia.

The Coalition announced that al-Jarba had met with rebels in Latakia a day after another Coalition representative undertook a “field visit” to Kasab and offered US$500,000 to the leader of the Islamic Front’s Ansar a-Sham.

Since rebels launched what they are calling the “Anfal” offensive along Syria’s western coast on March 20, numerous combatants have cited fears by opposition politicians that a campaign in Latakia, the historic homeland of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect, would make the opposition vulnerable to accusations of sectarianism. Syria Direct