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Syrian army retakes Damascus areas captured by rebels
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Syrian government forces on Monday regained control of parts of Damascus that were attacked and captured by rebels and bully boyz the previous day, with the two-day fighting leaving dozens dead on both sides, the military and an activist group said.The sudden rebel seizure of territory in the Syrian capital - and the manner in which the attack that took place overnight and into Sunday, with rebels sneaking into the city through underground tunnels and using boom-mobiles - reflected the turbans’ most serious infiltration into Damascus in years. The Levant Liberation Committee, a coalition of several hard boy groups led by al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, and the independent Failaq al-Rahman faction spearheaded the blitz that caught the Syrian military off guard. Insurgent groups have repeatedly over the past years tried to break the defenses of Damascus,  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Lord of the Baath... ’s seat of power. Sunday’s incursion, however, was the most serious since 2012, when rebels captured several Damascus neighborhoods before being crushed by government forces. The rebel gains, though short-lived, came against the backdrop of months of steady losses at the hands of government forces across the country. Sunday’s fighting centered on a government-held intersection of two besieged opposition enclaves, the Jobar and Qaboun neighborhoods. The ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... rebel faction said opposition fighters had "liberated" the area. Syrian TV on Monday quoted an unnamed military official as saying the army "regained control of all the points that terrorists" had infiltrated on Sunday. It also quoted Russia’s ambassador to Damascus Alexander Kinshchak as saying one of the embassy’s buildings was hit with a shell during the festivities. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said the Syrian air force carried out more than 25 Leb’s al-Manar TV run by the hard boy Hezbollah group, which is fighting along Assad’s forces, reported that members of the elite Elite Republican Guards took part in a counteroffensive against turbans. The TV reported live from Jobar around noontime Monday as cracks of gunfire and kabooms could be heard in the background of the footage. The activist Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that in all, 26 soldiers and pro-government gunnies were killed as well as 21 rebels. The Observatory said fighting was still underway Monday. The government has been trying to pressure the rebels to surrender the pockets they hold in Damascus, following victories in the northern city of Aleppo, the central city of Homs and other Damascus suburbs. Posted by: Fred 2017-03-21 |
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