DAMASCUS: Syrian troops yesterday captured the village of Qara in the mountainous Qalamoun region on a key supply route between Damascus and Homs, a military source said.
The reported capture came after days of air strikes on the region near the Lebanese border, which is also a key smuggling route for rebels battling to oust President Bashar Al Assad.
“After three days of fighting, the Syrian army has taken full control of Qara,” some 100km north of the capital, the Syrian military source said, adding that a “large number of terrorists” had been killed. The source said the area, which had been held by the rebels for more than a year, is a strategic prize because it will open access to the Qalamoun mountains while blocking rebel access to Lebanon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al Nusra Front, a rebel group loyal to Al Qaeda, had announced its withdrawal from Qara and “promised to be back soon.”
The fighting in Qara sent at least 1,700 families streaming across the border into Lebanon, which is already hosting more than 800,000 Syrian refugees and has suffered from rising unrest linked to the conflict in its larger neighbour. The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates at least 6,000 people have fled to the Lebanese town of Arsal, near the border, since last Friday.
The Observatory reported eight people killed overnight when a missile fired by the army hit a hospital in Al Walid in Homs province. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said an international peace conference on Syria can be held soon but that Syrian opposition groups have yet to commit fully to the meeting.
The United Nations hopes the “Geneva 2” conference, which Moscow and Washington are trying to arrange, can convene in mid-December to try to end more than 2-1/2 years of civil war in Syria. The proposed conference has been delayed for months by dissension within opposition ranks, disagreements over whether Assad should play any future role and disputes over whether Iran should be invited.Agencies
