| Wall Street Journal | - |
DAMASCUS—Rebels
led by Islamist groups—some with links to al Qaeda—are trying to
strengthen their control in northeastern and eastern Syria along the Iraqi border as the Assad regime decides whether to dispatch its overstretched troops to remote ...
Islamists Try to Tighten Grip on Syria Regions
By SAM DAGHER
DAMASCUS—Rebels led by Islamist groups—some with links to al Qaeda—are trying to strengthen their control in northeastern and eastern Syria along the Iraqi border as the Assad regime decides whether to dispatch its overstretched troops to remote areas.Nearly a week after Islamist groups announced the capture of most of the city of Raqqa and the northeastern province bearing the same name, fierce clashes to gain control of the few outposts the government holds there continued Sunday, said opposition activists. Regime forces are battling insurgents on multiple fronts, including near Damascus, the capital.
Associated Press
Rebels last week pulled down a statue of ex-President Hafez al-Assad in the northeastern city of Raqqa.
"For sure, it's the duty, doctrine and honor of the Arab Syrian Army to defend every inch of Syrian land against the invaders, but it is also the duty of this army not to open new battle fronts that would delay victory in other areas," said the Syrian daily al-Watan in a front page op-ed published in Damascus on Sunday.
The paper, widely seen as close to President Bashar al-Assad, said there was "no urgency" for the army to be dispatched to Raqqa, advocating instead "precision" aerial and rocket strikes against what it called terrorist positions there. It also said the tribes of Raqqa, which the regime armed several months ago, should be left to defend themselves because some tribal and religious elders refused to fight and surrendered the city to rebels to avert bloodshed.
In new video footage opposition activists posted online Saturday, Raqqa's governor and the local head of the governing Baath Party were shown praising the al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, which is part of a coalition of Islamist groups that control most of the province and several areas close to the Iraqi border.
"They are fair to those that seek their protection and they safeguard properties and defend civilians," said Gov. Hassan Saleh Jalali.
In separate footage the pro-rebel television station Orient said it filmed March 4, the same two officials were shown with Islamist rebel commanders inside the local government building justifying their negotiated surrender.
A person close to senior security and military leaders in Damascus said the regime also confirmed this and said it was one of the main reasons why it wasn't dispatching troops to Raqqa.
"For the regime, cowardice and treason are one," he said.
The regime is focusing its overtaxed military and security forces on defending Damascus, not losing the northern city of Aleppo and preserving reclaimed territory in the central provinces of Hama and Homs.
The challenges were underscored Sunday, with rebels in Homs launching a surprise attack on government forces in the neighborhood of Baba Amr, said the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group tracking the two-year conflict. It said this triggered clashes and aerial bombardment by the regime. Rebels were driven from Baba Amr one year ago after a bloody siege by regime forces. Syrian state media reported that rebels infiltrated Baba Amr from nearby farms but were chased out by government forces.
In Damascus, meanwhile, the sound of heavy artillery was heard throughout Sunday as government forces continued their monthslong campaign to keep rebels hemmed in on the outskirts. But rebels gained a foothold in the northeastern neighborhood of Jobar in early February and have been trying to make deeper forays into the capital.
Ignoring rebel advances in less-strategic areas along the borders with Iraq and Turkey poses other risks for Syria and its neighbors, particularly the threat from militants.
The same Islamist coalition—including the Nusra Front— that claimed the "liberation" of Raqqa also said over the weekend that it was in control of the town of Yarubiyah in Hasaka province, close to the Iraqi border.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Syrian officer who was in charge of Yarubiyah border crossing said a man identifying himself as a leader of one faction in the Islamist rebel coalition called him on March 1 demanding he and his men surrender.
He said when he refused, the poorly defended border outpost, which only had 70 people despite being one of the three main ones along the Iraqi-Syrian border, came under intense attack, resulting in the deaths of six of his men.
He said this forced him and the remaining men to retreat to the Iraqi side. The Iraqis then organized a convoy to transport the 64 Syrians to another border crossing that remains under Syrian government control hundreds of miles to the south.
The officer and three other people who were in the convoy said they were ambushed by multiple roadside bombs. They said the gunmen sprang out from behind the hills along the road and attacked the trucks carrying the Syrians with a barrage of gunfire. Those who survived were taken to Baghdad and flown to Damascus last week.
An Iraqi border official said the assailants were most likely from al Qaeda's Iraq franchise known as the Islamic State of Iraq. U.S. officials believe the Iraqi group played an instrumental role in the emergence of the Nusra Front in Syria more than a year ago.
At another border front, 21 Filipino peacekeepers detained by Syrian rebels near the Golan Heights for three days were released Saturday to Jordanian border guards, ending a chaotic episode that has raised concerns over the sustainability of the United Nations observer force along the Golan Heights amid Syria's conflict. The abduction, the first such incident since the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force started patrolling the border along the Golan Heights in 1974, also dented the credibility of a Syrian opposition that has struggled to convince its international backers it has organizational control over the rebel militias fighting regime forces.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed their release on Saturday and emphasized "to all parties the impartiality of United Nations Peacekeepers."
Rebels had initially accused the peacekeepers of helping Syrian government forces re-enter a southern town, Al-Jamlah, which rebel fighters had briefly controlled last week. They later said they would only release the peacekeepers once government troops pulled out of the town, a demand they appeared to drop during negotiations.
—Nour Malas in Beirut and Ali A. Nabhan in Baghdad contributed to this article. Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com
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