160 killed as Syrian rebels chip away at Assad blockade
Fighting is fierce near Damascus
BEIRUT — Fierce fighting to the east of Damascus has killed more than 160 people in the past two days as Syrian rebels struggle to break a monthslong blockade by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, activists said Sunday.
It began Friday when rebel units attacked military checkpoints encircling the opposition-held suburbs in an area known as eastern Ghouta, under siege for more than six months. Local and international aid workers say Assad’s forces appeared to be trying to starve residents, affecting civilians as much as rebel fighters.
The blockade has cut off rebels’ weapons supplies and helped turn the tide of fighting around the capital in Assad’s favor.
The battle
has
also drawn in hundreds of foreign fighters on both sides, underlining how Syria’s civil war has stirred SunniShiite sectarian tensions across the region.
“It is a ferocious fight between the two sides because it’s a struggle over our ultimate fate here,” said Bara Abdelrahman, a media activist with the rebel Islam army brigades in the area.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 100,000 people, according to the United Nations.
Foreign powers are trying to bring together the warring sides for a peace conference in Switzerland before the end of the year. On Sunday, Syria’s peace envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, met with members of the opposition to discuss the talks, which many rebel groups have rejected without a clear guarantee that Assad will step down.
Assad’s government says it welcomes talks but will not accept preconditions.
Meanwhile, Assad’s forces, emboldened by gains in central Syria in recent months, have been seizing back towns in the rebels’ northern stronghold.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had advanced in eastern Ghouta in recent fighting, seizing some small villages and the once-governmentheld town of Deir Attiyeh.
Assad’s forces responded with three air raids, it said.
The Sunni Muslim rebels have drawn support from radical Sunni groups such as al-Qaida and other foreign militants. Shiite governments and militias have thrown their weight behind Assad, who is from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism.
Rebels say Lebanon’s Shiite guerrilla movement Hezbollah has joined the eastern Ghouta battle on Assad’s side, as has the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, a militia that includes Shiite fighters from around the Middle East.