Syrian army takes key town along critical highway
DAMASCUS,Syria — Syrian troops seized a key opposition-held town Monday along a major north-south highway critical for transporting the government’s chemical weapons stocks to a port where they can be shipped out for destruction by the international community.
The government has been cooperating with chemical weapons inspectors, and the capture of the town of Nabek may make the transfer of the stocks go more smoothly.
But the head of the global chemical arms watchdog warned that worsening security may make it difficult to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to remove the toxic chemicals from the country.
The Syrian army has been on a offensive in the mountainous Qalamoun region near the Lebanese border and has seized towns and villages near the highway that connects Damascus with the city of Homs to the north.
That road serves as a link between the capital and northern Syria as well as government strongholds in the northwest along the Mediterranean. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said last week that it would consider using the road to transport the chemical weapons to the port of Latakia, from where the arms would be shipped for destruction abroad or at sea.
Troops reopened the highway Sunday, nearly 20 days after it was closed because of the fighting. On Monday, state media said President Bashar Assad’s forces took full control of Nabek, which lies on the edge of the road. Lebanese fighters from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group have aided the troops.
Syrian TV showed a Syrian flag unfurled over a building in Nabek’s main square and dozens of people waving flags. The broadcast showed a young woman telling a reporter: “May God protect our Syrian soldiers. I feel safe now.”
Another woman told the reporter that residents suffered from lack of food and water since the fighting began three weeks ago. “We lived very difficult 20 days,” she said.
Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that government forces are in control of Nabek except for a pocket of resistance in a small area east of town. He added that while the highway is under full control of the government, it can still be targeted by opposition fighters.