Vehicles carrying Palestinians and Syrians queue at the Lebanese-Syrian border in Al Masnaa, yesterday. More than 1,000 Palestinian refugees living in Syria have crossed into Lebanon in the past 24 hours.
Damascus/BEIRUT: Syrian rebels made advances yesterday in fierce fighting for a Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus that sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing as the army prepared a counter-attack and carried out fresh air raids.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said at least half of Yarmuk’s population of more than 112,000 had fled the violence rocking the 2.1 sq kilometre (about one square mile) camp.
A correspondent at the border reported an influx of hundreds of Palestinians into neighbouring Lebanon in the face of the fierce fighting between Syrian rebels and their Palestinian allies, and Palestinian factions still loyal to Damascus.
President Bashar Al Assad’s forces carried out several air raids on the Yarmuk district, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, as people were fleeing the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Earlier air strikes targeted the eastern outskirts of the capital as well as the southern district, killing three civilians, and clashes also erupted near the airport road, the Britain-based watchdog said. Nationwide it said 61 people died in violence.
Russia sent warships to the Mediterranean to prepare a potential evacuation of its citizens from Syria, a Russian news agency said yesterday, a sign President Bashar Al Assad’s key ally is worried about rebel advances now threatening even the capital.
The Syrian opposition has scored significant military and diplomatic gains in recent weeks, capturing several army installations across Syria and securing formal recognition from Western and Arab states for its new coalition.
Despite those rebel successes, bloodshed has been rising with more than 40,000 killed in a movement that began as peaceful street protests but has transformed into civil war. Assad’s pivotal allies have largely stood behind him and Iran, believed to be his main bankroller in the conflict, said there were no signs of Assad was on the verge of being toppled.
“The Syrian army and the state machine are working smoothly,” Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in Moscow yesterday.
But Russia, Assad’s primary arms supplier, has appeared to waver with contradictory statements over the past week stressing opposition to Assad stepping down and airing concerns about a possible rebel victory. Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted unnamed naval sources yesterday as saying that two armed landing craft, a tanker and an escort vessel had left a Baltic port for the Mediterranean Sea. Russia has a naval maintenance base in the Syrian port of Tartus, around 250km northwest of Damascus.
“They are heading to the Syrian coast to assist in a possible evacuation of Russian citizens ... Preparations for the deployment were carried out in a hurry and were heavily classified,” the Russian agency quoted the source as saying.
Assad and his minority Alawite sect retain a solid grip on most of the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia, where their numbers are high. But the mostly Sunni Muslim rebels now control wide swathes of rural Syria, have seized border zones near Turkey in the north and Iraq to the east, and are pushing hard to advance on Damascus, Assad’s fulcrum of power that sits close to the western frontier with Lebanon.
It was not possible to independently verify the Interfax report, which came a day after Russia confirmed that two citizens working in the Latakia province were kidnapped along with an Italian citizen. About 5,3000 Russian citizens are registered with consular authorities in Syria. In Damascus, activists reported overnight explosions and early morning sniper fire around the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk. reuters/AFP
