23 Syrian Soldiers Reported Killed by Rebels

Scene in Damascus, Syria where a bombing took place near the intelligence headquarters on March 17, 2012. For the past year Syria has been under attack by western-backed rebels who are supported by special forces from the imperialist countries., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

May 14, 2012

23 Syrian Soldiers Reported Killed by Rebels

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and HWAIDA SAAD
New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Nearly two dozen Syrian government soldiers were killed in intense clashes with the opposition over control of the central, rebel-held city of Rastan, opposition groups said Monday, deepening questions about the viability of a cease-fire engineered under United Nations auspices.

The sectarian tensions that erupted in Syria also spilled over the border into Lebanon, setting off a third day of gun battles between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the northern city of Tripoli, according to witnesses and local press reports.

“Where are the monitors?” was the anguished cry of a Syrian man shown on an amateur video from Rastan as one bloody victim of government shellfire after another was rushed into a makeshift clinic.

The United Nations has 189 of an eventual 300 unarmed cease-fire monitors in Syria, as well as about 60 human rights workers. In an attempt to unify the opposition for peace talks, Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, was due to preside over a meeting of its leaders in Cairo starting Wednesday.

But the Arab League issued a news release late Monday saying the meeting had been postponed at the behest of the main opposition groups. Unifying the fractious opposition is a crucial step toward beginning the political dialogue envisioned under a six-point peace plan.

The cease-fire considered essential for such talks was shattered over the weekend by what rebel soldiers described as a government attempt to retake Rastan, near Homs, which the Free Syrian Army has controlled since January. Amateur videos posted online, which are impossible to verify independently, showed flames in the city and an entire street of badly battered concrete buildings.

After enduring days of mortar fire from a government stronghold on Rastan’s outskirts, the rebel soldiers decided to attack the base, said Capt. Iyad ad-Deek, a commander there and a Syrian Army defector. They first used loudspeakers to encourage soldiers to switch sides, he said in an interview via Skype.

Four soldiers tried to defect with a T-62 tank, he said, but the government forces focused their fire on the tank, killing the commander and wounding the three other men.

Captain Deek said the rebel troops had overrun the base, capturing about eight soldiers but losing at least one junior officer. “We are committed to Annan’s cease-fire, but they leave us no choice when they attack,” he said.

Losses on the government side included 23 dead soldiers and five armored personnel carriers either burned or captured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based in Britain. There was no comment from Syria’s state-run media, and the government severely restricts the movement of independent reporters. But the toll would constitute one of the largest single-day losses on the government side since the start, 14 months ago, of what was a peaceful protest movement.

There have been concerns from the beginning about the fighting’s spilling into Lebanon, particularly since the complicated tapestry of sects fighting in Syria overlaps those in Lebanon to some extent. Periodic clashes have erupted in Tripoli, where a Sunni Muslim neighborhood abuts one populated by Alawites, the minority Shiite sect that dominates Syria. It was a volatile place long before the current uprising.

The latest clashes began after the arrest of a Lebanese man, Shady Mawlawi, an outspoken critic of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and several foreigners. They were charged with supporting a terrorist organization, an accusation that their supporters said had been trumped up by Syrian sympathizers in the Lebanese security services.

Protests in Sunni neighborhoods on Saturday escalated into exchanges of machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, leaving at least eight people dead, said Tarek Chindob, the lawyer for Mr. Mawlawi, confirming Lebanese press reports. Mr. Chindob said his client was an activist who had been aiding Syrian refugees. “If you help the Syrian people, does that mean terrorism?” he said.

The city remained tense late Monday, with gunfire echoing in the night and tires ignited in protest at key intersections, local press reports said.