Rebels Take Control Of Strategic Syrian Town

Syrian rebel forces have taken control of a
strategic town in northern Syria, cutting off
government forces’ only supply route out
of the city of Aleppo, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights has said. The Britain-based monitoring group said the
fall of the town of Khanasir, between
Aleppo and Hama, would leave forces of
President Bashar al-Assad besieged in
Aleppo province. The rebel advance came amid reports that a
prominent Alawite religious leader has been
killed in the province of Latakia. The Observatory said on Monday that it had
obtained a photograph showing the
execution of Badr Ghazal by hardline rebels. Some Syrians were sceptical about the
purported killing of Ghazal, saying there
was still no definitive proof, but the
Observatory said rebels from the Nusra
Front shot Ghazal after he was kidnapped in
the northern suburbs of Latakia earlier this month. Meanwhile, residents in the central province
of Homs said rebels also tried on Monday to
retake the strategic town of Talkalakh, 4km
from Lebanon’s northern border. Its capture would allow rebels in the Homs
countryside to replenish their supplies. For weeks, Assad’s forces had been on the
offensive in Homs, a province they consider
vital to securing their hold from Damascus
to the president’s coastal stronghold. The coast is home to a large number of
Assad’s Alawite minority sect, an offshoot
of Shia Islam, who are seen to be supportive
of the president. But the advance near Talkalakh and the
purported assassination of an Alawite cleric
suggest the rebels are tentatively trying to
push back in central Syria. Sectarian violence has increasingly
overtaken a conflict that began as peaceful
protests against four decades of Assad
family rule but has now become an all-out
civil war. The sectarian dimension of the conflict has
drawn in foreign fighters from neighbouring
countries. Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah
has sent fighters to join Assad’s forces,
angering Sunni Muslims in Lebanon and the
region.