Rebels attempting to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have seized control of a strategic military airbase in the unrest-hit Middle East nation's northwest, media reports citing opposition activists said Friday.
The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC), an opposition activist network, said fighters of the Free rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) seized full control of the Taftanaz airbase on Friday morning after days of fierce fighting with government forces.
The strategic military airport in Idlib province was besieged by rebel forces since early November. It lies between capital Damascus and the second city of Aleppo. Syrian military has been using helicopters at the base to launch airstrikes on rebel targets in the north and to deliver supplies to government forces.
Videos posted online by the rebels showed FSA fighters walking inside the sprawling airbase, inspecting equipments and armored vehicles left behind by the government forces. Notably, the military had moved all of its functioning helicopters from the base before retreating, leaving behind only some damaged aircraft.
Syria has been witnessing fierce fighting between government forces and armed rebels opposed to the Assad regime since March 2011. An estimated 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria since the armed rebellion began. Continued violence has forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians to seek refuge in neighboring Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. The conflict is now viewed as a civil war by most of the international community.
Nevertheless, President Assad continues to defy international demands to step down. In a speech delivered Sunday, Assad refused to engage in political negotiations with the rebels and set out the terms of a peace plan that would retain him in power.
Notably, the Syrian conflict is now threatening to spill over to neighboring countries and is increasingly becoming sectarian in nature. Continued efforts by the international community to find a solution to the crisis have been hampered by a deep divide in the UN Security Council, with Russia and China backing the Assad regime and the West opposing it.
Incidentally, the latest development came as Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League special envoy, was engaged in talks with US Assistant Secretary of State, William Burns, and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, in Geneva to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
They are expected to discus ways to implement a peace process based on a declaration issued in Geneva on June 30 after a meeting of the UN-backed Action Group on Syria. The declaration calls for setting up a transitional administration that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and involves members of the present government and the Opposition.
The communique also called on the parties to implement the six-point plan put forward earlier this year by Brahimi's predecessor Kofi Annan, which called for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, release of detainees, start of inclusive political dialogue, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.
The Syria Action Group that adopted the Declaration comprised the Secretaries-General of the UN and the Arab League; Foreign Ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council as well as Turkey, EU, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar.
Incidentally, Brahimi had taken over his current post from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who declined to continue on the expiry of his mandate on August 1 because of increasing militarization of the Syrian conflict as well as lack of unity among members of the Security Council in resolving the crisis.
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