Syrian rebels launched an offensive Thursday to capture government-held neighborhoods in the southern city of Daraa, setting off fighting that killed dozens of people, including a man struck by a mortar bomb that slammed into a nearby Jordanian border town.
The attack came as militants from ISIS (Daesh) attacked another provincial capital — the city of Hasakah in the northeast — and sent several suicide car bombers into the Kurdish border town of Ain al-Arab, which they abandoned earlier this year.
The ISIS assault against Hasakah appeared to be an attempt to reverse the group’s recent fortunes, which have seen it lose Ain al-Arab and areas of Raqqa province to Kurdish fighters, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, in recent months.
ISIS militants were also accused of summarily executing more than 20 civilians in Ain al-Arab before the assault eventually stalled.
In the south, the new rebel offensive started around dawn Thursday, aiming to “liberate the city of Daraa,” said Maj. Issam al-Rayyes, spokesman for the Southern Front, a coalition of several dozen moderate rebel groups, many affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.
“If the battle takes time, we are prepared. We have begun the preparatory shelling but we cannot assess the situation right now,” Rayyes added.
The city of Daraa, like the surrounding province, has been split between regime-held and rebel-held areas for several years.
Rebels and government troops were clashing in several locations inside Daraa while several nearby villages in the province also saw fighting between regime forces and rebel militias.
Syrian State TV said rebel shelling attacks on Daraa killed six people and wounded 13. It said power was cut in the city after a main station was hit north of Daraa.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 troops and pro-government gunmen as well as 18 rebels were killed on the first day of fighting. Regime airstrikes pounded both the city and several villages and towns in the province, but no information about casualties was available.
A media activist affiliated with the rebels was also killed while covering the fighting in Daraa, according to anti-regime sources.
Daraa Governor Mohammed Khaled Hannous told Syrian state TV that the attack on the city began at 5:30 a.m. with intense shelling.
“Our armed forces repelled them and inflicted large casualties among them” al-Hannous said. “The situation is under control and they did not advance even 1 meter.”
But the Facebook page of the pro-regime paramilitary group the National Defense force acknowledged that a government checkpoint had been abandoned to the rebels.
A Jordanian security official said one man was killed and four people were wounded when a mortar bomb from Syria struck a market in the Jordanian border town of Ramtha. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters.
The mortar bomb killed a street vendor, wounded several people and damaged some shops, the source said. The market was busy because people were doing their shopping ahead of iftar.
The website of the Jordanian daily Al-Rai said a total of three mortar bombs hit Ramtha and the sound of explosions on the Syrian side of the border could be heard throughout the day. It said the four wounded included two 12-year-old boys.
If the rebels succeed in capturing Daraa, it would be the third provincial capital lost by Assad in the 4-year-old war, after Raqqa in the north – which is now in the hands of ISIS – and Idlib in the northwest, which is held by another rebel alliance, dominated by Islamist groups.
Rebel groups in the south have seized several locations from regime forces in recent months, and are trying to block the main highway leading from Daraa to Damascus. Rebels based in next-door Qunaitra province have also gone on the offensive of late, vowing to put pressure on the capital’s western suburbs.
The Syrian government has lost ground since March in the northwest, the south and the center, where Palmyra fell to ISIS last month.
