DAMASCUS: Rebels seized a major oilfield and shot down a warplane in eastern Syria yesterday, a watchdog said, notching up new battlefield successes.
The rebel advances in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor came as their positions were pounded by warplanes around the capital Damascus and in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
State media also reported that a blast near the Dama Rose Hotel in the heart of Damascus wounded 11 civilians. It blamed the explosion on “terrorists” — the regime’s term for armed rebels.
The hotel hosted UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi during his visits to Damascus. The office of the Ombudsman, headed by diplomat Mokhtar Lamani, is also there.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the seizure of the eastern oilfield marked a first by the opposition since the revolt against President Bashar Al Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011.
“Rebels in the Jaafar Tayyar Brigade took control of Al Ward oil field, east of the town of Mayadin, after a siege that lasted several days,” it said.
“This is the first time the rebels have taken control of an oil field,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The fighting began at dawn and lasted several hours, said Abdel Rahman, adding that 40 soldiers on guard were either killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
The Observatory later announced rebels in Deir Ezzor had shot down a warplane, citing witnesses.
The group, which gathers its information from a network of activists, lawyers and medics in civilian and military hospitals, said initial reports indicated the pilot had been captured.
Fighting also erupted near a political intelligence office in Damascus province, the Observatory said, adding that warplanes later carried out three raids on the Ghuta region northeast of the capital.
A correspondent in Aleppo province reported three air strikes in close succession on the town of Al Bab, with witnesses saying there were at least four fatalities.
The Observatory gave an initial toll of 96 dead — 35 civilians, 41 soldiers and 20 rebels — nationwide yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Syrian warplane screeched over the centre of town, forcing terrified civilians to run for cover as the deafening bomb explosion devastated families and shattered an otherwise peaceful yesterday.
Ambulances raced through Al Bab, hurtling pell-mell through the clogged traffic, sirens wailing, to recover the casualties.
Overhead, the pilot circled before making another pass.
Rescue workers were already clawing through the rubble, desperately searching for the wounded when the pilot dropped his second bomb.
But even then, it wasn’t over.
When he dropped the third bomb, this time not on a civilian home but on the nearby Islamic school, the huge blast kicked up a cloud of dust, stones and debris flying through the air, across the street and into nearby buildings.
It was a 20-minute sortie that medics said killed at least four people and wounded eight others — the latest victims in a nearly 20-month uprising that has morphed into civil war.
For the families, it means a lifetime of sorrow and a thirst for revenge.
For friends and neighbours who escaped unscathed, it was a reminder that death from the skies can happen to anyone and at any time.
Father of three and 42-year-old engineer Adnan Hamza left home on Sunday morning to chair a civil council meeting in the rebel-controlled town, 35 kilometres (22 miles) northeast of Syria’s second city of Aleppo.
He never saw his wife and children again.
Mourners said he had been on his way to the meeting when he was mortally wounded in the doorway by the first air strike and then finished off by flying shrapnel in one of the other blasts.
The next time Hamza came home he was dead, his head wrapped in a bloodstained bandage and his body in a blanket, laid out on the floor of the front room where his brothers paid their last respects.
A friend said it would have been his last day as head of the council, because the position rotates among members every month.
AFP
