Syrian Rebels Say They Have Seized an Air Defense Post and Its Missiles
By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: September 1, 2012
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Opposition fighters in Syria
said early Saturday that they had captured an air defense base in the
eastern province of Deir el-Zour, taking at least 16 soldiers captive
and seizing weapons and ammunition in what appeared to be part of a
broader rebel offensive against Syrian military installations in several
parts of the country.
Joseph Eid/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Prisoners walked out of the central police station in
Damascus on Saturday after the authorities released 158 detainees
there.
Multimedia
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Threat to Syrian Civilians Is Growing, Officials Say (August 31, 2012)
Rebel fighters in the province also attacked a military air base,
according to activist groups, the third attack on an air force site in
the past few days. Last week, rebel commanders claimed to have destroyed
several helicopters during attacks on two separate military airports in
the northern Idlib Province.
The latest attacks came as the new Syria representative for the United
Nations and Arab League, seeking to revive stalemated diplomacy, said he
would travel to Damascus in the coming days. The representative,
Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran Algerian diplomat, also said he intended to
base himself in Damascus if that would be more useful.
“Damascus is the right, natural place to be,” Mr. Brahimi said in an
interview at the United Nations during his first official day on the
job. “Whether it will be possible or not is something I’m going to find
out.”
Videos that activist groups said showed the aftermath of the air defense
base attack raised the possibility that rebels had captured
shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, known as Manpads, but it was
unclear whether some had the components to make them functional. One
video, uploaded on Friday, appeared to show a man holding a complete
system.
Rebel groups have been eager to acquire the weapons to counter the
government’s increasing use of warplanes and helicopters. There have
been several recent sightings of Manpads, possibly smuggled from abroad
or seized in raids on government arsenals.
That seemed likely to raise concerns about the spread of the weapons,
which can also be used against commercial airliners.
The videos from the air defense base, in Al Bukamel, near Syria’s border
with Iraq, could not be independently verified. They showed rebel
fighters strolling through a darkened building, with the bodies of at
least two government soldiers lying on the ground.
One of the dead soldiers is covered in what looks like ash. Soldiers
stand over another body, caked in blood, as someone pokes the dead man’s
head with a rifle. After the capture of the base, antigovernment groups
said that several people were killed when government warplanes attacked
the area, raising questions about the rebels’ ability to hold the site.
Also on Saturday, Syria’s state news agency said that the government had
released more than 300 people detained during recent fighting in the
Damascus suburbs, Homs, Aleppo and Dara’a. The news agency said the
detainees had been “involved in recent events,” but had committed no
crimes.
A reporter with Agence France-Presse who interviewed some detainees as
they emerged from a Damascus police station said several appeared to
have been beaten. Some left the station wearing nothing but underwear
and others were shoeless. One detainee said that he had spent 32 days in
solitary confinement for having a damaged identity card.
In recent days, activists and international filmmakers have expressed
concern about the fate of Orwa Nyrabia, a leading figure in Syrian
cinema believed to have been arrested at the Damascus airport on Aug.
23. Mr. Nyrabia, founder and artistic director of the Damascus Dox Box
Film Festival, had been en route to Cairo, said Mohammad al-Attar, a
Syrian playwright and friend.
“He has left the country many times before, for short trips,” Mr. Attar
said. “For me there was no clear reason” for the government to arrest
Mr. Nyrabia. “They have their own plans. You never know when it’s the
time.”
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