Syrian rebels take full control of army base
BEIRUT Syrian rebels took full control of a sprawling military base on Tuesday after a two-day battle that left at least 35 government troops dead, an activist group said.
It was the second major base captured in the country's north by the rebels, who have been racking up victories in the area in recent weeks and making inroads further south toward Damascus, the seat of the government they are fighting to overthrow.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the battle for the sprawling Sheik Suleiman military base, near the northern city of Aleppo, ended when the rebels took over the site's main compound and warehouses that housed a military research center. They had first breached the base perimeter on Sunday afternoon, after weeks of fighting with soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The Observatory relies on a network of activists inside Syria. It did not give figures on rebel casualties from the battle.
Also Tuesday in Aleppo — the country's largest city and commercial center — four mortar rounds hit the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of Sheik Maksoud, killing 11 and wounding a dozen. The dead included three children and two women, the Observatory said.
The Observatory also reported clashes and shelling in several Damascus suburbs, including Aqraba, near the international airport where fighting started early this month.
The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said five people were killed during clashes between troops and rebels in the Damascus suburb of Rankous.
The Observatory and the LCC said there were casualties in clashes in the northwestern Jisr al-Shughour area near the border with Turkey.
The conflict started nearly 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. It quickly morphed into a civil war, with rebels taking up arms to fight back against a bloody crackdown by the government. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.
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The Observatory said fighters from the jihadi groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, Mujahedeen Shura Council and The Muhajireen, took part in the battle for the base.
Jabhat al-Nusra, which counts both Syrians and foreigners in its ranks, is one of the most effective fighting units on the rebel side. But the West is wary that such jihadi groups could hijack the uprising.
On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton designated Jabhat al-Nusra a foreign terrorist organization. The move freezes any assets its members may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from providing the group with material support. The designation is largely symbolic because the group is not thought to have holdings or support in the United States, but officials hope the penalties will encourage others to take similar action and discourage Syrians from joining.
That step was part of a package intended to help the leadership of the newly formed Syrian Opposition Council improve its standing and credibility as it pushes ahead with planning for a post-Assad future.
Officials say the Obama administration is on track to recognize the new Syrian opposition council as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people at an international conference on the crisis in Morocco this week.
The move will pave the way for greater U.S. support for those seeking to oust Assad and follows the blacklisting of a militant Syrian rebel group with links to al Qaeda. That step is aimed at blunting the influence of extremists amid fears that the regime may use or lose control of its stockpile of chemical weapons.
Recognition of the council as the sole representative of Syria's diverse population will bring the United States into line with Britain, France and several of America's Arab allies, which took the same step shortly after the body was created at a meeting of opposition representatives in Qatar last month.
The U.S. had been leading international efforts to prod the fractured Syrian opposition into coalescing around a leadership that would truly represent all of the country's factions and religions. Yet it had held back from granting recognition to the group until it demonstrated that it could organize itself in credible fashion.
In particular, Washington had wanted to see the group set up smaller committees that could deal with specific immediate and short-term issues, such as governing currently liberated parts of Syria and putting in place institutions to address the needs of people once Assad is ousted. Some of those committees could form the basis of a transitional government.
Officials said the U.S. evolution in recognizing Syria's opposition would closely mirror the process the administration took last year in Libya with its opposition.
"I would remind you of how this went in the Libya context where we were able to take progressive steps as the Libyan opposition themselves took steps to work with them, and to advance the way we dealt with them politically," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.
In that case, Libya's National Transitional Council moved from being "a'' legitimate representative to "the" legitimate representative of the Libyan people. While the revolution was still going on, the council then opened an office in Washington, and the administration sent the late Ambassador Chris Stevens to Benghazi, Libya, as an envoy in return. The move also opened the door for Libya's new leaders to access billions of dollars in assets frozen in U.S. banks that had belonged to the Qaddafi regime.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Tuesday that the Obama administration has not seen further intelligence that the Syrian government may be preparing to use chemical weapons.
"We haven't seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way," Panetta told reporters during a flight to Kuwait, adding that U.S. officials "continue to monitor it very closely and we continue to make clear to them that they should not under any means make use of these chemical weapons against their own population. That would produce serious consequences."