Rebels Seize Arms Depot near Damascus as Kurds, Jihadists Clash in Hasakeh

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Rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime captured an arms and ammunition dump in the Qalamun area near Damascus early on Saturday, a watchdog said.

In the north, fighting between Kurds and jihadists raged as the main opposition National Coalition called on armed groups there to "exercise restraint."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several groups, including the jihadist al-Nusra Front, were behind the capture of the depot of anti-tank weapons and rockets.

"Liwa al-Islam, al-Nusra Front, al-Tawhid battalion, the Maghaweer (rebel commando force) and the Qalamun Martyrs' battalion... captured an ammunition depot near the village of Qaldun in the Qalamun area" northeast of the capital, the Britain-based Observatory said.

They seized "anti-tank weapons and ground-to-ground Grad missiles, as well as a variety of other ammunition, after clashes overnight from Friday to Saturday," it said.

Meanwhile the state news agency SANA reported that the bullet-riddled bodies of local official Ahmed Marmar and two other men were found near the Qalamun hospital.

Marmar was a member of the a local council and had been kidnapped last week along with the other two men from Qalamun, near the Lebanese border.

Using the regime's term for rebels, SANA accused "terrorists of kidnapping the three men and shooting them dead."

In Damascus itself, fighting was reported in the flashpoint southern belt, as loyalist forces pressed a months-long bid to dislodge rebels from the city's outskirts.

Elsewhere, the army shelled rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs, focusing on the neighborhoods of Juret al-Shiyah and Qussour, said the Observatory.

After the rebels lost the Khaldiyeh district this week, the army has pushed on with its bid to dislodge them completely from Syria's third city.

In the northern province of Hasakeh, jihadists and Kurds clashed two weeks after the expulsion of radical Islamists from the strategic Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain, opening up a new front.

Syria's main opposition group called on warring parties in the north to "exercise restraint... to ensure the safety of civilians and secure the release of detainees."

Earlier this week, jihadist groups linked to al-Qaida took hostage some 200 Kurdish civilians in the northwestern province of Aleppo.

The Coalition had so far been silent on the Kurdish-jihadist fighting, but on Saturday it said "Assad's militias... are the only target that Syrians' guns should be aimed at."

More than 100,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Syria's 28-month conflict, the United Nations says.

On Friday alone, at least 110 people were killed across Syria, the Observatory said.

Comments 3
Thumb scorpyonn 03 August 2013, 21:32

I wish the West would hurry up and give these people the arms that they need so that Assad can get he hell out of the way

Thumb benzona 04 August 2013, 01:50

Would usually say Allahū Akbar but the victors aren't the FSA, in fact the victors aren't any different than the Lebanese Chabiha known as Hezbollah.

I just hope they'll use their latest arsenal to blow up the tyran's tanks, nothing else!

Missing formerlebaniz 04 August 2013, 04:43

The west lack luster support and the weak US leadership have created to them selves a problem that will hurt them sooner or later. They have weakened the moderates by the lack of support and allowed the strengthening the extremists. Eventually when Assad is no more they will have multiple terrorist groups armed to the teeth to deal with. Whether they like it or not they will have to intervene in Syria sooner or later. What is going to cost them now some weapons to strengthen the hand of the FSA later might cost them lives of their own.