The Syrian army has taken control of several hills southwest of the former rebel stronghold of Yabroud as it seeks to secure territory between the city and the Lebanese border, a security source said Tuesday.
Two days after it seized Yabroud following a month of shelling and air strikes, backed by fighters from Hezbollah and local militias, it is now moving to secure the area along the nearby border with Lebanon, which has been a key supply route for the opposition, allowing them to transport fighters and weapons.
The source in Damascus told AFP that the army was focusing on a string of villages in the mountainous Qalamoun region – Ras Al Ain, Rankous, Flita and Ras Al Maara – while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Hezbollah fighters and army troops had entered parts of Ras Al Ain after fierce clashes with rebel groups.
North of Yabroud, rebels fought with army troops, paramilitaries and Hezbollah fighters on the outskirts of Nasirieh, disabling a tank and causing an unspecified number of casualties, the Observatory said.
Elsewhere, airstrikes and barrel bombs rained down on the city of Aleppo, killing at least 16 people, including six children, the Observatory added.
The children and a woman were among 14 killed in airstrikes on the neighborhoods of Karam Al Beik and Sadd Al Loz, while two men perished when a barrel bomb was dropped by helicopter on the neighborhood of Sakhour, it said.
Fierce clashes also raged between regime troops and rebels in several parts of Aleppo, as the Tawhid Brigade detonated an explosive device in a tunnel beneath the city’s Justice Palace, with casualties confirmed in the incident, the Observatory said. Four Islamist rebels and a member of the Nusra Front – an Al Qaeda affiliate – were killed in clashes in the Lairamoun district, while three regime soldiers were killed in fighting near the city’s historic Citadel, the Observatory added.
The violence in Aleppo came as Marcell Shehwaro, a prominent female activist who was detained a day earlier by rebels for refusing to wear the hijab, was released.
The rebels, who had detained Shehwaro and her friend Mohammad Khalili, issued a statement “apologizing in the strongest terms” for the arrests.In the Damascus area, five people were killed by opposition mortar fire in several districts, state news agency SANA and the Observatory reported.
Four people were killed in the Jaramana suburb, southeast of the capital, and another died in the eastern neighborhood of Zablatani, SANA said. Fierce clashes also raged in the neighborhood of Jobar in the capital, activists said.
Rallies were held in the southern province of Deraa, where activists mark March 18 as the outbreak of the uprising, now in its fourth year, while rebels staged an attack on the Gharz prison in the city, according to activists.
