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Syrian Rebels Say They Seized Helicopter Base in the North
(about 9 hours later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian rebels said on Friday that they had seized the largest helicopter base in the north of the country, a key facility in the government’s escalating air war that the rebels had been trying to take for months.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian rebels, led by jihadist battalions, said Friday that they seized the largest helicopter base in the north of the country, a potentially significant blow against the government’s escalating air war that also highlighted lingering questions about the prominent role of Islamic extremists in the uprising.
Fighters from several battalions, including the jihadist groups Al Nusra Front and the Ahrar al-Sham battalion, took over the base as soldiers fled and were captured. The government immediately began airstrikes on the base and nearby town in an effort to drive them out, according to videos purportedly shot at the scene and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an antigovernment group based in Britain that relies on a network of activists inside Syria.
Fighters from several battalions, including the jihadist groups Al Nusra Front and the Ahrar al-Sham battalion, said they had overrun the Taftanaz air base, which rebels had been trying to take for months, as soldiers fled and were captured, according to antigovernment activists and videos identified as having been shot at the scene.
The rebel claims that they had captured the base, Taftanaz in Idlib Province, came as the international envoy on the Syria crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, met with senior Russian and American officials in Geneva in hopes of reviving efforts to find a political solution to the conflict. Mr. Brahimi made clear afterward that no agreement is close.
The Taftanaz base — if not regained by the government — would be a significant prize for the rebels. The victory would show that the rebels can take even strong points the military has stoutly defended and disrupt the airborne reach that has helped the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, retain some control over the province, which separates pro-rebel Turkey from government strongholds along the coast.
In terms of the fighting inside Syria, the Taftanaz base would be a particular prize for the rebels because the airborne reach it affords has helped the government to retain some control over the province, which borders pro-rebel Turkey and separates it from the Syrian government’s strongholds along the coast.
Yet the victory — an emotional one for government opponents who have viewed the Taftanaz air base as the source of fearsome attacks by helicopters dropping so-called barrel bombs — would also underscore challenges for the United States and others that are concerned about the rising influence of jihadists among the rebel ranks.
Even as rebels operate with more and more freedom along the roads of the province, the base has allowed the government to keep them from establishing a secure territory inside Syria; helicopters from the base have been used to attack rebels and supply isolated troops. Holding the base would allow rebels to create something closer to real “liberated” territory, a goal that has eluded them until now.
“Importantly, since this battle was won by Islamist elements, they will benefit from the weapons and ammunition” seized at the base, said Jeffrey White, a military analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They will also get the credit for the win.”
But rebels have frequently overrun air defense or army bases and seized weaponry but have found it more difficult to hold the bases against overwhelming air power.
The victory was claimed by a collection of Islamist-led rebel battalions, some of which belong to or coordinate with the unified military council, recently formed by rebels, that the United States and its allies seek to support. Fighting alongside them were other groups that reject that support, including some that the United States views as dangerously sectarian, like Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda offshoot that the United States recently blacklisted as a terrorist organization.
Video posted by a rebel group showed fighters shouting “God is great,” ripping down a poster of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and milling around armored vehicles and damaged buildings on what they said was the territory of the base. Another video showed about a dozen men who identified themselves as government soldiers who had been captured at the airport.
The rebel claims that they had captured the base came as the international envoy on the Syria crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, met with senior Russian and American officials in Geneva in hopes of reviving efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.
Mr. Brahimi made clear afterward that no agreement was close, and reiterated the need for a political solution to the conflict, which began as a movement demanding democratic reform and transformed into civil war.
The increasingly sectarian rhetoric of Al Nusra Front and other jihadist groups — along with a defiant speech on Sunday by Mr. Assad in which he refused to negotiate with most of his opponents — has made a political settlement seem more remote.
Video posted by a rebel group showed fighters shouting “God is great,” milling around armored vehicles and damaged buildings on what they said was the base’s territory. Another video showed about a dozen men who identified themselves as government soldiers who had been captured at the airport.
“The officers’ morale is down,” one of the men said on camera. The soldiers said that before the base fell, senior officers took a plane and left.
“The officers’ morale is down,” one of the men said on camera. The soldiers said that before the base fell, senior officers took a plane and left.
Members of pro-government militias from a nearby Shiite village, Foua, were also killed in the fighting, the Observatory said. The uprising has largely been led by Syria’s Sunni majority; Mr. Assad’s government is dominated by members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism.
Nick
Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva, and Hwaida Saad from Beirut.
In Geneva, Mr. Brahimi, the senior Algerian diplomat who is the special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League, held talks with Russia’s deputy foreign minister and Middle East envoy, Mikhail Bogdanov, and the American deputy secretary of state, William Burns. It was the second time in the past month that the three men have met, as international concern grows about the stalemate in Syria.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting concluded, Mr. Brahimi said the three had agreed on what he called “the necessity of reaching a political solution.” But he also said “if you are asking if an agreement is around the corner, I’m not sure that is the case.”
There had been speculation over the holidays, when Mr. Brahimi met Mr. Assad in Damascus, that Mr. Brahimi was renewing efforts to broker a deal in which a transitional government with broad powers would take over from Mr. Assad, a formula agreed upon internationally in Geneva in June.
But Mr. Assad rebuffed Mr. Brahimi’s mediation in a rare public speech on Sunday, a move that was believed to have irked Russia, which has long blocked foreign intervention in Syria but has signaled that it is not wedded to Mr. Assad remaining in office.
On Thursday, Mr. Brahimi declared that many Syrians feel that Mr. Assad’s family had been in power too long — 42 years — using phrasing similar to that used recently by the Russian leader, Vladimir V. Putin, who has begun to distance himself from Mr. Assad personally though he still strongly opposes outside intervention to remove or install a Syrian government.
The Syrian conflict began in March 2011, when demonstrators demanded democratic reforms, and became a civil war after government forces fired on peaceful protesters.
Discussions have so far failed to bridge the gap among the powers on the fate of Mr. Assad, despite growing concerns in Washington and Moscow over the threat to regional security posed by the conflict, in which the United Nations says 60,000 people have died, and the deepening humanitarian crisis. But there was little sign that any agreement was close.
In his defiant speech last weekend, Mr. Assad condemned “foreign meddling” and made no concession to the demands of opposition groups described as terrorists or puppets of foreign powers.
The difficulties confronting Mr. Brahimi’s efforts to broker a political solution only increased when the Syrian government on Thursday accused him of “flagrant bias” over remarks he made to the media suggesting Mr. Assad would have to give up power.
Mr. Brahimi, talking to journalists after Mr. Assad’s speech, described it as a missed opportunity and said that “surely he would not be a member” of the transitional government created under the terms of the formula agreed in Geneva last year.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry expressed surprise at Mr. Brahimi’s remarks and said they showed he “is flagrantly biased for those who are conspiring against Syria and its people.”
In Syria, people reacted with intense emotion to the news that the base was taken. Taftanaz is seen as the source of barrel bombs — explosives dropped from helicopters — that had become one of the most feared government weapons in the north.
In Binnish, a town in Idlib Province, a crowd gathered and sang songs and chanted about the liberation of the airport. One man held a small girl on his shoulders, in a video posted by local activists.
“My Taftanaz,” they chanted. “The martyrs of God, our country is winning.”
Fighters, too, appeared emotional in videos they posted of the events. “This mortar used to bomb villages like Binnish,” one said as he filmed a mortar tube set up at what had been a checkpoint on the approach to the air base. “Now it’s under the control of the mujahedeen,” he said, using a term for holy warriors. “Assad’s vehicles and tanks are the spoils of war.”
Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.
