Dara’a pounded as talks fail
Regime forces seize security checkpoint on Jordan border for first time in latest assault
Regime forces seize security checkpoint on Jordan border for first time in more than three years |
The Syrian government and its Russian ally pounded rebel-held areas of the southern province of Dara’a yesterday with the heaviest air strikes of a two-week-old offensive, a monitor reported.
Dark clouds of smoke rose over Syrian rebel-held areas near the border with Jordan yesterday as President Bashar Al Assad’s Russian allies unleashed heavy air strikes and government forces launched ground assaults. Al Assad aims to recapture the entire southwest including the frontiers with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Jordan.
The intensity of the bombardment allowed government forces to seize control of a security checkpoint on the Jordanian border for the first time in more than three years, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
With no sign of intervention by his foreign foes, Al Assad seems set for another big victory in the war after crushing the last remaining rebel bastions near Damascus and Homs.
State television footage showed giant clouds of smoke towering over fields, rooftops and a distant industrial area, accompanied by the sound of occasional explosions.
After four days of reduced bombardment, intense air strikes resumed on Wednesday following the collapse of talks between insurgent groups and Russian officers that were brokered by Jordan.
Russian bombardment
“The Russians have not stopped the bombardment,” Bashar Al Zoubi, a prominent rebel leader in southern Syria, told Reuters in a text message from the Dara’a area, the focus of the government offensive so far.
“The regime is trying to advance and the clashes are continuing.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, monitoring the war through many sources on the ground, said there had been 600 air strikes in 15 hours extending into yesterday’s early hours. The two-week offensive, backed by massive Russian air power, has taken a large chunk of rebel territory northeast of the provincial capital of Dara’a, as a string of towns surrendered.
The fighting and air strikes have already driven around 320,000 people from their homes, including 60,000 in camps along the border with Jordan, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday.
The Observatory said 150 civilians have been killed.
State TV said yesterday’s bombardment had targeted the southern parts of Dara’a, a city long split between rebels and the army, and the towns of Saida, Al Nuaima, Um Al Mayadan and Taiba.
Its correspondent said the army aimed to drive southward through the area immediately east of Dara’a city, where rebel territory narrows to a thin corridor along the Jordanian border. This would split the territory in two.