General Salim Idriss (front, second right), head of the rebel Free Syrian Army, during a visit to the coastal province of Latakia in this grab taken from a video and posted on a social media website yesterday.
BEIRUT: The head of the rebel Free Syrian Army has visited the coastal province of Latakia, according to video footage, a show of force in President Bashar Al Assad’s family’s home province.
Several villages in Latakia, which is a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, have been overrun by Sunni Muslim insurgents over the past few days.
General Salim Idriss, who leads the rebel Supreme Military Council, was shown in a video uploaded to the Internet on Sunday wearing casual dress and a shoulder-strapped gun holster and standing outside with mountains in the distance.
Speaking to rebels, he said he was in Latakia to see the “important successes and victories that our revolutionaries have gained on the coastal front”.
It could not be independently verified whether the reports were true due to severe security and reporting restrictions.
Idriss’ forces are backed by the West, but the Latakia offensive is being led by two Al Qaeda-linked groups who have killed hundreds of people this month and driven hundreds more to seek refuge on the Mediterranean coast.
Underfunded and fragmented, Idriss’ men have been overshadowed by these hardline groups and some more moderate rebel leaders have been killed in power struggles with Al Qaeda affiliates that include foreign fighters.
Sixty killed in fighting
Nearly 60 Syrian soldiers and jihadists have been killed in three days of fighting in Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, where rebels have made advances, an NGO said yesterday.
At least 33 fighters of the
Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Al Nusra Front have been killed since Saturday, according to the Syria Observatory for Human Rights.
The group, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground, said 25 regime forces were also killed in the clashes.
“The clashes are very intense, the fighters are using several tanks they have, while the army is shelling pockets of jihadists, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The jihadist fighters are concentrating their efforts on the district of Huweika, home to several government buildings and security headquarters.
Syria’s state news agency SANA said yesterday the army had “killed terrorists in the Senaa neighbourhood and other terrorists were killed when a car they rigged with explosives detonated.”
On Saturday, jihadists seized the local headquarters of the ruling Baath party in Deir Ezzor, prompting regime shelling.
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