Islamist rebels
in Syria have retaken a town from President Bashar al-Assad's forces,
activists said on Friday, in part of an offensive along a stretch of the
main highway linking Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said rebels killed 18 soldiers and disabled two tanks in
the fight for the northern town of Babolin. The
rebel assault coincided with a two-week-old offensive further west in
the coastal province of Latakia, a heartland of Assad's minority Alawite
sect, where fighters seeking to overthrow him have seized a border
crossing and several villages. Assad's
army, backed by local militia and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, has made
steady gains around Damascus and in the Lebanese border areas, but his
forces remain stretched and rebels have sought to seize the initiative
elsewhere. After capturing Babolin,
rebels were battling pro-Assad fighters along a nearby 20-mile (30-km)
stretch of highway between the towns of Morek and Maarat al-Nuaman, the
Observatory, which is based in Britain, said. The
fall of Babolin puts pressure on two military bases on the edge of
Maarat al-Nuaman held by Assad's forces. Rebels had blockaded the bases
for six months, trying to cut Assad's main road link between Damascus
and Aleppo, before they were pushed back in April 2013. More
than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria's three-year-old civil
war, the Observatory said this week. More than 2.6 million people have
fled Syria as refugees and another 6 million have been internally
displaced by the violence. Reuters
Rebels take northern Syrian town on main highway - activists
Zaman Alwasl
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