Insurgents Continue Advance in Syria, Keeping Pressure on Government Forces
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Version 0 of 1. BEIRUT, Lebanon — Insurgents continued to advance in the Syrian province of Idlib on Tuesday, fighters and antigovernment activists said, keeping up pressure on government forces despite President Bashar al-Assad’s vow to force them out of territory they have seized in recent weeks. The advance was carried out by the same coalition of Islamist groups, including the Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, that seized the provincial capital, the city of Idlib. Other, more nationalist rebel groups, including some that have received weapons through a covert American program, also took part. The rebel forces moved one village deeper into the remaining finger of territory that the government controls, a strip south of the city that links to the government’s coastal strongholds. Insurgents swept into the village of Mastoumeh and a military camp there in a two-day offensive this week, according to antigovernment activists and videos that showed fighters celebrating amid burning military vehicles. Syrian pro-government television channels appeared to acknowledge the advance, reporting that the air force was bombing areas in Mastoumeh that had fallen to rebels and that military units from there had retreated to the town of Ariha farther south. The capture of the village holds symbolic importance for all sides. Wednesday is the fourth anniversary of an episode in which antigovernment protesters gathered in Mastoumeh to organize and pray before a planned march on Idlib, and were fired upon by security forces, according to people who participated. One local man, an activist who asked to be identified only by his first name, Alaa, for his safety, said that he had fond memories of the military camp there, where youth groups, like scouts, had gone for entertainment activities. “I had nice memories from this place,” he recalled yesterday over Skype. “But after the revolution it became painful, after we lost the first martyr and we got attacked from the security there.” At the same time, the area is a rallying point for loyalists. Mr. Assad and some of his top officers have vowed that government forces will soon be back to help soldiers trapped in a military hospital in the nearby town of Jisr al-Shoughour, also taken by insurgents. The shrinking contested strip also divides the battles in Idlib from the coastal provinces, whose population has been swollen to more than double their prewar size by people displaced from other parts of Syria. There are fears that insurgents could take revenge on loyalists there. The coastal provinces have the country’s greatest concentration of Alawites, the sect to which Mr. Assad belongs and that contributes disproportionately to the military. And some fear that in the bloody struggle between government forces and a mostly Sunni insurgency, they will face retribution as a group. Some factions, like Nusra, have openly called for revenge on Alawites. Antigovernment activists have reported stepped-up bombing campaigns over towns and villages in Idlib Province, in the northeast corner of the country, as they are taken by insurgents. By contrast, government forces have managed to hold the line in the central city of Palmyra against the extremist forces of the Islamic State, which has pulled back from some areas of the city that it seized last week. Yet anxiety continued to run high in Palmyra, which is home to tens of thousands of people, unable to flee the fighting because roads are closed. Palmyra lies along key routes across Syria and near gas fields. It also has some of the world’s most magnificent ancient ruins, raising fears that the Islamic State, which has destroyed ancient sites elsewhere, could attack them. Government airstrikes have also hit targets near the city’s medieval citadel. |